Budget Build

[Paganitzu]

Hello, I've browsed these forums for a while now but I've finally decided to register and post. I'm looking to build a very cheap desktop for my parents to use (this will be my first build, which I'm hoping will give me some experience when I end up building my own system in a year or so). Right now my parents are using an aging Dell system with Windows ME and are starting to run into some compability issues so they figured now was as good a time as any to upgrade.

I'll own be purchasing the bare necessities, I'm giving them my 20" HP monitor (1680x1050) and they have a useable mouse and a keyboard, so those bases are all covered. I also have a copy of Windows 7 Pro which I'll be installing on it. This system will be used mostly for browsing the web, watching some DVDs, and some other basic tasks like that, no gaming (besides a DOS-era Mahjong game my dad loves ).

With that being said, here's a list of the parts I have picked out for now. Also note I'm trying to keep the price right around $300 including tax and shipping, and most of the components will be bought from NCIX.

Processor: Intel Celeron E3300
From all accounts this seems to be a good processor for $50 (pricematched). I like Intel, although I have nothing against AMD either. Stock cooler will be used.

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L
There were a few motherboards cheaper than this, but I figured I would go with one of the more well-known manufacturers, and this seems to be a respectable board. I will be using the onboard graphics from this board.

Hard Drive: WD Caviar Blue 250gb
My dad likes to take photos, so I figured this size drive should be enough to store everything they'll have for a while.

RAM: OCZ Gold DDR2 800
This is probably the part I'm most unsure of. This RAM is incredibly cheap compared to others and seems to have good reviews, but I've heard some bad things about the Gold and Platinum series. It's also the part I'm buying off Newegg because I haven't found another retailer who stocks it anymore.

Case: Apex SK-393-C
Basically the cheapest case on NCIX. It might be a little flimsy, but the computer probably won't be moving anywhere for a long time. Surprisingly, it doesn't look half-bad either (to me at least). It doesn't have a fan in it, so I'm buying a cheap Arctic Cooling one to put in it.

Power Supply: I'm going to be using a 250w supply pulled out of my HP system. I figure they must use something of reasonable quality since they don't want systems failing within warranty. It's not like there will be a heavy strain on it anyway, from what I can tell.

That basically covers the main components. I'm buying a cheap card reader and a Samsung DVD drive to round out the multimedia side of things. Just about everything is pricematched as well, hopefully NCIX will accept it all. As far as I can tell of this stuff should be compatible, but if anyone has any suggestions I would love to hear them. Thanks for taking the time to read all of this!

[MarkOne]

Welcome to the board.. first of all forget the idea of using your old PSU from the HP, a old PSU lost power with age, second, for few $ more you will have a dual core that will make a huge difference

NCIX.com - Buy Intel Pentium Dual Core E5400 Dual Core Processor LGA775 2.7GHZ 2MB 800FSB Retail Box - BX80571E5400 In Canada.


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[Paganitzu]

Thanks for the reply. The Celeron is actually a dual-core, from what I read it's based on the Core 2, just rebranded for the Celeron line. Also the power supply has not been used in a system for about a year and half, and was only actually used for about 2 months before that. Do power supplies still age as fast when they are not in use?

[Raserei408]

Regardless I'd take the Pentium. If I remember correctly they've got twice the cache, and it's enough that you will see a good difference in performance.

[MarkOne]

I check at the review of this Celeron... DAM I fall from my chair. AMD is in real s*** , now the Intel Celeron preform as good as their low end Athlon