Cheap first time comp build

F

Fearless888

Active Member
Joined
Dec 19, 2008
Messages
408
I want to build a cheap, but usable computer so I can learn how to put computers together and whatnot. I have most the items in mind, but I have a couple questions. First, which of the 2 power supplies would be a better choice. Second, is there somewhere besides newegg that has quality optical drives/burners? I went to new egg and there were only about 7 dvd/cd drives and none of them came highly recommended. I just want an optical drive that can read the various cd/dvd types (r, rw, etc) and also burn cds/dvds.

Also, I tried to make sure everything is compatible, but reassurance is always nice.

This is the comp I am planning to build:

(CPU) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116397

(Motherboard) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157265

(RAM) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157265

(Video Card) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121434

(Hard Drive) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136073

(2 power supply options) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207013

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151093

And I need an optical drive. I want a decent optical drive seeing as they are pretty cheap. I don't need bluray, just a decend dvd/cd drive/burner.
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102908

Better card.

Newegg has plenty of dvd burners:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ame=CD / DVD Burners&Order=PRICE&Pagesize=100

Not sure I could recommend one over the other. Most appear to have decent reviews. You could likely find the same drives or others on amazon.

As for the build, your ram is not showing up. Your motherboard also seems to be overkill for your selected cpu. I would probably not put almost twice as much into a motherboard over a cpu. Here is one suggestion for an amd phenom ii x4 960t which has the ability to possibly unlock to 5 or 6 cores:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103995
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138341

Beyond that, going to an i3 and sticking with a cheaper lga 1155 motherboard (p67 or z68) such as this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130583

Both power supplies are decent. Here is another option which is the same price as the seasonic:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182068

Gold rated with 5 year warranty and slightly more wattage (though that does not matter much for you).
 
Couple questions that can help us help you:

1. Are you a US citizen or Canadian (assuming you're in the US or Canada at all since you're ordering on the US NewEgg site)?
2. Maximum budget?
3. When do you plan to order? Technology changes fast enough that some of the things you intend to order might be cheaper later.
4. Gaming, multimedia, art, all of the above, what's your intended purpose for the rig?

As for your choices...

CPU: Why such a slow dual core? IMHO the clock rate, caching and number of cores/threads on that makes that a fairly mediocre choice as a whole. If you intend to do decent gaming and multitasking, I would go for a quad core in this day and age. Pick up an Intel i5-2500 or even bump it up to a 2500K if that suits your needs/wants, or an AMD Phenom II or Zambezi quad core if you're on the cheap.

Motherboard: I know ASRock is a pretty reputable brand. That board seems to be fairly nice for its price range, but overkill for what you've picked out. In terms of features (good slotting, as far as I've heard that's an excellent north bridge according to professional reviewers and it has apparently quality audio) and most of the complaints seem to be morons going "OMG DOA AND BAD BIOS OMG ZERO STARS" like most of NewEgg's community.

Memory: I think you linked the motherboard instead of the memory here? D:

Video card: I'm not a huge fan of the 550 Ti.
If I had a choice between a 550 Ti, a 560 Ti and a GTX 460 all at 1GB, I would choose (in order) the 560 Ti, the 460 and maybe, MAYBE a 550 Ti. From what I've read, the 550 Ti performs poorly and I'm immediately noticing it's got an 192-bit interface (vs. the 460 and 560 Ti's 256-bit).
That's probably not going to be a massive difference, but it is a difference no less, with the 460 being about the same price and better and the 560 Ti being MUCH better, but more expensive. I also don't like most of ASUS' products as a GPU brand, but I guess that's taste.

Hard Drive: Caviar Blues are crap for gaming and multimedia. Go Black or go back, IMHO... or better yet, for the same price and twice the capacity and quality, go Samsung.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185

Power Supply: The second (SeaSonic) one is a reputable, excellent, high-quality brand. I have never owned or used an XFX power supply but I'd prefer something with SeaSonic (preferably SeaSonic 'X'-series, but that's costly) or Superflower (Rosewill, etc.) architecture.

I hope that helps! Let us know more when you can! :>
 
Ok, obviously I need to think a lot more about this.
1) Well, I am in the US first of all.
2) I am hoping to spend less than 700 dollars on the machine (less than 600 would be very nice).
3) I plan to order as soon as I can find compatible parts that will produce a reliable pc for my purposes.
4) I won't be doing anything fancy with this rig, it is primarily aimed at teaching myself to build a computer successfully. I will probably use it for music and maybe a little bit of video or picture storage. This will definitely not be a gaming pc. As long as I can surf the internet, use itunes or windows media player, use Microsoft Office applications, and store pictures/videos from my digital camera I will be happy. If it can handle tf2 or mw3 with poor graphics that would be a plus, but not a necessity.


The reason I chose the items I chose was two fold. First, I was trying to find the cheapest parts possible to reliably serve the functions I have previously listed. Second, the reviews I read on newegg scared me away from a lot of items and ultimately forced me to choose a relatively expensive motherboard.

I don't want to skimp on the RAM too bad, as I tend to open up a lot of internet windows at the same time when I am trying to do comparisons or multitask. However, I don't need RAM for overclocking or gaming or anything like that.

The video card I chose just to have something that could possibly run tf2 or
mw3 with bad graphics settings and still get decent performance. But again, this rig will not be my gaming rig, it's just a bonus if I can play those games.

The hard drive I chose because I have found that I don't really use a ton of HD space. I have a 500GB hard drive with about 380 GB of free space, and I have had this computer for over 4 years. If I can get a decent hard drive with about 300GB I would prefer it to a lesser quality one with more space. I can always buy an external HD if I need random storage space. Again, gaming is not the primary function of this comp, so as long as it will be reliable for storing music, documents, and some pictures and videos, I will be happy with it.

The power supply just has to do its basic function. I won't be overclocking or doing anything super intensive.

Also, I want a cd/dvd drive that can read the various formats (R, RW, etc) and burn cds and dvds.
Hopefully this covers it. I look forward to building this and posting my results here. Thanks for all the help!
 
Last edited:
I think if you're not really doing anything but really light gaming, you could probably get a build going for $500-$600 at the most. Lemme try throwing some potential kits together for ya. Here's what I'd recommend:

Case and Powersupply Recommendations
Power Supply - Corsair Builder-series CX V2 430W
Case - LIAN LI PC-7KB

([Alternatively, you could use a case with a power supply already built in and save some cash?])

Intel or AMD CPU/Motherboard & Memory Recommendations
INTEL:
Processor - Intel Sandy Bridge i3-2100
Motherboard - Gigabyte P67

AMD:
Processor- AMD FX-4100 Quad-Core
Motherboard - Gigabyte AMD 970
or
ASRock AMD 890FX

Memory - 8GB DDR3 1600 CasLat 8-8-8-24 G.Skill RAM
[Alternatively, you could go for 4GB memory and save more cash, but... why not get eight gigs at the price memory is at right now?]

Hard Drive(s), Video Card & Optical Drive
Video Card - Sapphire 6770 1GB
Hard Drive - Western Digital Caviar Blue 250GB
Optical Drive - Samsung CD/DVD Burner/Drive

The most any of that combination comes to should be at around $600. I was able to get it down to ~$510 shipped with the Intel motherboard w/ promocode + i3-2100 + 4GB RAM + 6770 + case w/ PSU + HDD + optical drive.

The AMD build is a bit pricier @ $578.92 shipped with the Rosewill case, Corsair power supply and 8GB RAM and all the other fixin's but will probably perform a lot better when it comes to gaming and CPU-intensive processes.

Hope that helps. :>
 
qqwrat.jpg


I agree with a lot of runo has said. However, here is a slightly better build imo.

Better cpu that is a quad core phenom ii which is possibly unlocked to a 5 or 6 core cpu.

Much better graphics card.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/asus-radeon-hd-6770-directcu-silent-review/9

Just an idea to see how the 550 ti, 6770, and 6850 perform in cod2.

Computer case is personal preference, but I put in one that is often loved.

A fantastic power supply (I would not get the rosewill case bundle with the psu included as that is sure to be crap...this is one place I did not agree with you runo ;)).

Similar ram but cheaper. However, depending on when you buy, this will fluctuate as to which set of ram is cheapest. Basically, you want 2x4gb 1600 ddr3 at 1.5v.
 
That is indeed an awesome build! I think your list was cut off at the bottom though... or I'm blind (I can't see the graphics card on the list). D:

And yeah, a lot of power supply+case bundles tend to be crap in the power supply department. The only reason I thought it might be exempt is because it seemed to hold favorable reviews online and on NewEgg, and I assumed it used RoseWill's inducted Superflower architecture for the PSU (but I later realized I dun' goofed, since I believe they mostly use that for higher-end models?).

The reason I lowered the storage capacity in my version of the build was because I figured it'd be $15 better-spent elsewhere in the build, but you did awesome job putting something better together for the same price. Good call on the 960T, too. Overall that looks like a really high-quality build (you even got a gold-rating PSU and a 990FX chipset in there); I'm just confused because I can't see which card you chose on that list.
 
Ouch, somehow that did not add. Good catch. Guess it was not as good of a buy as I originally thought :P In that case, I would drop to the cx430 as the capstone was more of a splurge that was intended more to replace the lesser quality seasonic he has originally linked.

The card was this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102908

which was cheaper than his original 550 ti and obviously miles ahead of it as well.

For $15, it might be worth it to bump up the 250gb to the 500gb. Or there is this one for $85 free shipping:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148767

That one is probably the better deal given the free shipping, but again, when purchasing, this will most likely change.

And yeah, most of the rosewill line is junk for psus. They have started to step there game up which I like to see.

So yeah, you are probably looking at $650 before rebates, $600 AR, which matches up to what he had originally configured for himself, though upgraded quite a bit.
 
That is a daaamn slick deal for a 6850...

I would follow huckleberry's advice and reduce the PSU down to the 430w Corsair CX V2 and grab the 6850 he linked (which is still enough wattage and the proper amperage to run the system).

It'll be about $600 like he mentioned, but if you're comfortable spending a little more dough, that will run pretty much any modern game and run it very well. It'd be a pretty wicked budget beast. I run games like Skyrim and SWTOR on maxed settings @ 1080p and BF3 at high @ 1080p on a lesser budget beast (see my sig), so I think that is a setup that will be perfect in case you ever want to do more work, more gaming or just make the games you have now look gorgeous.

Of course, this is just going off the idea that you'd want that horsepower. Really, you could go even cheaper if you literally don't ever intend to do anything more than a little editing and TF2/et cetera, but having a hand-me-down/backup rig is always a plus.
 
Awesome, thanks for the info guys. Just to make sure this is how I understand the setup:

CPU: AMD Phenom II 960T (124.99)

MB: Biostar TA990 FXE (129.99)

RAM: Patriot Signature 2x4GB DDR3 1600 (41.99)

PS: Corsair Builder Series CX V2 430W (44.99// 24.99 after rebate)

GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 1GB (134.99 // 119.99 after rebate)

HD: WD 7200 RPM SATA (89.99)

Optical: Samsung cd/dvd burner 1.5 Gbps (18.99)

Case: Cooler Master HAF 912 (59.99 // 49.99 with rebate)

This comes out to 645.92 before rebates. 600.92 after rebates.

Just wanna make sure before I pull the trigger.
 
Last edited:
Okay, last question before I go ahead on this. The video card uses a PCIe 2.1 port, while the motherboard only has PCIe 2.0 ports.

Also, the AM3 CPU will fit into socket type AM3+ right?

Just want to make sure everything is compatible.
 
Just got my comp parts delivered today. I'm writing this message from my new comp. Woo. Everything looks promising. My only concern is that on my computer properties it says I have 3.24GB RAM, but I have 2 4GB sticks on the MB. Dead stick?

P.S. Ill have some pictures once I get all the drivers installed/updated, antivirus programs, and everything else setup. Time for bed for now though.
 
Ph?bus said:
Sounds like someone is running a 32-bit OS.

Is that true?
Click to expand...

I was gonna ask the same--did you buy 32-bit Win7 (or any other Windows OS) instead of 64-bit? IIRC, it has a memory limit capped at around that number. It's either that or one of your sticks was DOA.
 
Okay, that makes sense, I am using an old copy of windows xp that I had. 150 bucks isn't worth it to me atm. Glad to know it's probably not the sticks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top