$1000 General Student's Build

[bovine.baron]

Hi guys, I'm looking for advice on a build for a friend. He's over in Ottawa so I can't put this together for him and he wants to have a warranty so I decided to use NCIX and their $50 assembly, testing, and 1 year warranty service. He also needs an OS (pref. Win7) and office suite but I haven't included it here and am trying to go a bit under budget so he can get it himself (and cheaper) through university connections. He'll need a full system and a monitor.

Seasonic S12II 620W 80+ Bronze $69.99
ASUS M4A785TD-V Evo $97.74
AMD Athlon II X4 635 $119.99
A-DATA 4GB 2X2GB DDR3-1600 CL9-9-9-24 $105.17
EVGA GeForce GT 240 $91.99 ($56.99 AMIR)
Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB $77.22
Lancool PC-K56B $66.85
Samsung SH-S223C 22X DVD Writer SATA Black OEM $20.49
ASUS VH236H 23 Widescreen LCD Monitor $189.99 FREE Ground Shipping for entire order

PC Assembly and Testing with 1 Year Limited NCIX System Warranty $50.00
Shipping Insurance: $26.33
GST(5%): $45.19
TOTAL:$949.06 ($914.06 AMIR)

Except for the PSU everything's been pricematched.

[t_mo_t]

not sure abt the AMD cpu (price/performance ratio with other AMD cpus), but the components are very well chosen.. good job!

[rapmaster]

Look good, except I would get a 4850 instead of the GT 240, unless he fold.

NCIX.com - Buy Powercolor Radeon HD PCs 4850 625MHZ 512MB GDDR3 PCI-E VGA DVI-I HDMI Video Card - AX4850 512MD3-PH In Canada.

[bovine.baron]

Originally Posted by t_mo_t

not sure abt the AMD cpu (price/performance ratio with other AMD cpus), but the components are very well chosen.. good job!

Thanks!

Originally Posted by rapmaster

Look good, except I would get a 4850 instead of the GT 240, unless he fold.

NCIX.com - Buy Powercolor Radeon HD PCs 4850 625MHZ 512MB GDDR3 PCI-E VGA DVI-I HDMI Video Card - AX4850 512MD3-PH In Canada.

Good idea. The little extra cash will be worth it if he ever wants to play some games. I'll ask him which he'd prefer.

EDIT: thinking of going with XFX Radeon HD 4770 $106.66 ($91.66 AMIR)

[snoosebum]

Looks pretty good. You could trade out that 635 for a Phenom II X3 720 black, its $17 less, clock for clock faster, will overclock higher and something like 3 out 4 unlock to a quad.

Newegg.ca - AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition Heka 2.8GHz 3 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 95W Triple-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops

[_dangtx_]

hmm..i say get the 240 dual core and matching giga board, both for 150 bucks.

video card wise, used gtx 260/4870 around the 100 dollar mark.

[rapmaster]

Actually, what this PC going to be use for?

[_dangtx_]

he first says general student, then soemthing about gaming....

[bovine.baron]

Nothing heavy, but I also want to make sure he'll be able to use this for a few years. Other than watching videos and stuff, he says he wants to be able to do "light gaming" and that he likes to pop into LAN parties once in a while which I take to mean FPSes and RTSes. He says TF2's about the most taxing thing the guys he plays with use though. And he doesn't want to risk overclocking so I spent the little extra on a quad but if you guys think we can cut down on the CPU+mobo without limiting the system's usable lifetime, that's more money in his pocket.

[_dangtx_]

well, cant go wrong for mobo+240 cpu. 150 bucks. instead of spending more for one mobo..right now...he wants a hexa core? hell when/if he needs it theyll be cheaper.
altough am3 boards will get the pleasure of octo cores(from another thread).....meh

bigger and badder video card he can always add later on.