[Sneaky Snake]

I looking to build my first homebuild computer. What I would like to know is how much a mediocre one would cost. The only thing I have nailed down right now is the GPU which is going to be the 9800 GT (for my mac purposes). So I wondering how much everything is going to cost to get a decent computer that's coming in at about $550 tops. I don't need quad-core, just a fairly low dual core (approx 2.0 - 2.4 GHz) that I can overclock the heck out of. I've already got a screen and peripherals so that's not included in the price.


If the price is coming at above $500 with shipping then I'll buy my brothers which is a homebuild in an Antech case (450 Watt PSU), 2 GB's of RAM (800 Mhz Corsair), 2.0 GHz C2D, 250 GB HDD, and then the mother board which I believe is an SLI board (not sure on this). All I really need to buy for that one is a GPU He's selling it to me for $300.



-Snake

[AussieMacGamer]

For the sake of the environment, buy your brothers.

[Hoffer802]

Hey sneaky, not sure if you can see my signature, but the pc in it was one that I built this past summer. Not including Vista, or a monitor/keyboard/mouse the whole thing cost me right around $800.00, though that is with a $100.00 case.

Sorry I can't say more, I honestly haven't even begun to look at upgrading anything so no idea where prices are at for these components now. Oh and everything was ordered from tigerdirect if it helps.

[PeopleLikeFrank]

Sneaky Snake, on November 17th 2008, 03:30 PM, said:

I looking to build my first homebuild computer. What I would like to know is how much a mediocre one would cost. The only thing I have nailed down right now is the GPU which is going to be the 9800 GT (for my mac purposes). So I wondering how much everything is going to cost to get a decent computer that's coming in at about $550 tops. I don't need quad-core, just a fairly low dual core (approx 2.0 - 2.4 GHz) that I can overclock the heck out of. I've already got a screen and peripherals so that's not included in the price.
If the price is coming at above $500 with shipping then I'll buy my brothers which is a homebuild in an Antech case (450 Watt PSU), 2 GB's of RAM (800 Mhz Corsair), 2.0 GHz C2D, 250 GB HDD, and then the mother board which I believe is an SLI board (not sure on this). All I really need to buy for that one is a GPU He's selling it to me for $300.
-Snake

Sounds like you're better off buying from your brother. A quick look at parts on sale here in Canada puts a semi-decent computer at about $550 before getting the GPU, so figure about $700 - 800 for something halfway decent at the moment. You might do better if you find some amazing sales, but frankly you'd be getting into some really budget parts.

Prices have gone up a whole lot on most things except for memory and storage since the summer.

[edit] I managed to get it down to $550 including a 9800GT. That motherboard probably isn't that great, so I don't know if you could overclock it much, but the rest are at least decent quality. There's $13 rebate on the memory and $30 on the video card. They have $5 shipping right now, and with GST you're paying about $628, $580 after rebates. You could shave a few bucks off getting a used DVD drive, or maybe a really cheap case, but I wouldn't skimp too much on a power supply.

[bobbob]

nobody, on November 17th 2008, 07:26 PM, said:

You could shave a few bucks of getting a used DVD drive, or maybe a really cheap case, but I wouldn't skimp too much on a power supply.

Continuing at NCIX:
The Antec NSK6580 or NSK3480 are fairly cheap in the regular weekly sale, saving about $40. Or a $30 Seasonic PSU and any old cheap case for about $70. Don't go SLI, it'll never be worth it unless you're buying two of the highest-end cards. 2x2GB of RAM would be worth the extra $25, once you've saved in these other areas.

Quote

If the price is coming at above $500 with shipping then I'll buy my brothers which is a homebuild in an Antech case (450 Watt PSU), 2 GB's of RAM (800 Mhz Corsair), 2.0 GHz C2D, 250 GB HDD, and then the mother board which I believe is an SLI board (not sure on this). All I really need to buy for that one is a GPU He's selling it to me for $300.

That's probably worth about that, but you'll still want more RAM and a the GPU, so it's about $5-something anyways. Buy the parts above and you'll come out a bit ahead for about the same money. Spec it out and see.

[Sneaky Snake]

bobbob, on November 17th 2008, 10:11 PM, said:

Continuing at NCIX:
The Antec NSK6580 or NSK3480 are fairly cheap in the regular weekly sale, saving about $40. Or a $30 Seasonic PSU and any old cheap case for about $70. Don't go SLI, it'll never be worth it unless you're buying two of the highest-end cards. 2x2GB of RAM would be worth the extra $25, once you've saved in these other areas.
That's probably worth about that, but you'll still want more RAM and a the GPU, so it's about $5-something anyways. Buy the parts above and you'll come out a bit ahead for about the same money. Spec it out and see.

hmm, thats probably what I'll do now that I'm thinking more about it. drop another 2 GB's of RAM in and then the 9800 GT (for hackintosh).



thanks all
-Snake

[PeopleLikeFrank]

In case you were still deciding, or for anyone else looking at PC parts right now in Canada, NCIX's new sale is up, and I was able to put pretty much the same build as above together for $489 after rebates:

[bobbob]

nobody, on November 26th 2008, 08:28 PM, said:

In case you were still deciding, or for anyone else looking at PC parts right now in Canada, NCIX's new sale is up, and I was able to put pretty much the same build as above together for $489 after rebates:

Pick the Earthwatts 380 and it's a little cheaper.

[charmin]

AussieMacGamer, on November 17th 2008, 10:53 PM, said:

For the sake of the environment, buy your brothers.

Good answer.

[bobbob]

charmin, on November 27th 2008, 01:21 AM, said:

Good answer.

Isn't that advocating slavery? I think that should be a banable offense, like for piracy.

[the Battle Cat]

bobbob, on November 27th 2008, 10:48 AM, said:

Isn't that advocating slavery? I think that should be a banable offense, like for piracy.

We don't ban them, we treat them like we do the Pfhor slavers. This is almost getting out of hand too, we've just had an outbreak of assimilated BoBs!

[Quicksilver]

I can't disagree more with Bobbob's SLI comment. With Geforce 9800 GTs going for less than a hundred bucks today, there's no reason at the moment to invest in the more expensive cards out there (unless you know that you'll be spending a lot of time in a game that has problems with SLI).

I don't know what kind of crazy pricing that you're dealing with in Canada, but last week, a friend of mine in California just asked me to build him a nice, quiet gaming rig for less than $1050. I tossed him the following system for $1047 (after mail-in rebates and not counting tax) entirely from NewEgg (send me a PM if you want the exact pricing, URLs, and part numbers):

- 22" Hanns-G HI-221DPB LCD panel @ $160 (1680x1050 resolution)
- Antec Nine Hundred case @ $110
- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ $180 (overclockable to 3.4-3.6 GHz)
- 4 GB (2x2 GB) OCZ DDR2-800 RAM @ $15
- Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 CPU cooler @ $27
- Hitachi 1TB 7200 RPM HDD @ $90
- A pair of BFG nVidia GeForce 9800 GTs @ $90 each (factory overclocked)
- EVGA 132-YW-E178-A1 LGA 775 motherboard @ $220 (nForce 780i chipset)
- Cooler Master RS-650-ACAA-A1 650W PSU @ $50

I'm forgetting something, but I doubt that it's important.

In summary, the system can blow the living s**t out of Crysis Warhead at the LCD panel's native resolution, and although it's incompatible with the new Core i7 / DDR3 parts, it's about 50% less expensive. I'd recommend a similar configuration for any Mac gamer looking to supplement a MacBook Pro with a desktop powerhouse for dedicated gaming applications. All of this hardware is pretty good quality, although I'd probably cough up a bit more for a Samsung LCD if the system was going in my house, though.

[PeopleLikeFrank]

Quicksilver, on November 27th 2008, 09:30 PM, said:

I don't know what kind of crazy pricing that you're dealing with in Canada, but last week, a friend of mine in California just asked me to build him a nice, quiet gaming rig for less than $1050.

The Canadian dollar took a hit in recent months vs. US$ - we had been pretty much on par or above for a while - and prices have jumped up accordingly. Some parts have almost doubled in price since the summer. Plus, we're dealing with a budget half that for this particular request.

[Quicksilver]

Well, in his case, I'd dump the new LCD panel (save $160), drop down to a 500 GB hard drive (save $40), swap the 780i mobo for a 750i mobo (save $70), swap the Nine Hundred case for the Three Hundred case (save $40), and as a last resort, drop down to a dual-core E4600 (save $60) and dump one 9800 GT (save $90).

Do the math, and you've lost half your horsepower, but dropped the price from $1050 to $590. It's not as good of a value, but it works. Based on my numerous eBay buying experiences, I'm not a fan of buying certain used hardware--GPUs, hard drives, and PSUs are best purchased new.

[Dark_Archon]

There really isn't too much of a reason to go SLI. A single 9800GT is more than enough for now, and by the time it isn't, you'll be able to take your $100 you saved and get something that is. The best you can do for future-proofing is going with a quad core processor and accept that you may be upgrading the graphics card at some point.

Edit: Keep in mind that because of Intel's new Nehalem platform, Socket LGA775 is basically a dead-end with little upgradeability. This is not a problem, but I wouldn't plan on saving money now with a low end processor and planning on upgrading it later.

[Quicksilver]

A single 9800GT is sufficient to play almost every game on the market at nearly maximum settings (in DX9 mode) on your typical 22" LCD panel (1680x1050 resolution). If you get into Crysis, want to really crank your settings (and perhaps use the DX10 render path), or plan on buying a large-format LCD panel, you'll likely need that second card.

Of course, you can always build the system now with one GPU, and plan on adding another later, but then you need to be careful with that first card--unless you want to take a risk with nVidia's new "Hybrid SLI," you'll need to find a second card with the same clock speed as your original one (hence, my OC'ed BFG suggestion is probably not a good idea, because those cards will be harder to find later).

As far as building a system goes, it's really a great time for bargain hunters. The older LGA 775 CPUs are getting really inexpensive, DDR2 RAM is super-plentiful (hence, super-cheap), and it appears that support for LGA 775 might stick around for a little bit longer. I say: reap the benefits of the rush to Core i7 and DDR3 while you can.

[Sneaky Snake]

My budget is extremely slim at the moment so I won't nearly be able to afford that build. That system is from my brother, not eBay, so I know it works just fine (he's selling it cuz he just made a new system). I already own a brand new 22" Samsung Monitor so that lessens the price. For three hundred I get everything but a GPU on my brothers system (it has none cuz he took the GTX 260 out to put in his new system). It has brand name parts, and I can purchase an ATI 4670 for about $80 or a 4830 for about $120.

The computer isn't really going to be a gaming computer (the 360 is for that) although I would like to play AoE III, and Civ IV, BFME 1 and 2+expansion, and Battlefield 2 on it, all of which aren't that GPU taxing. I more gonna use it for school, media, and web stuff, most likely hackintosh as well.

I have no need at all for quad-core and I actually prefer the cheap 3.5 Ghz C2D (overclocked) vs the more expensive quad cores



-Snake

[Sneaky Snake]

Vista is currently installing on my new and first computer (I'm only 16). I tried out the beta for Windows 7 but punkbuster didn't work so I couldn't play Battlefield or COD 4/5. The 4670 is truely a great card. It runs COD5 at near max settings with about 34+ fps. Here's my specs.

E2160 @ 3.4 GHz
4 GB Corsair 800 MHz DDR2
160 GB Seagate Barracuda
4670 512 MB
450 Watt Corsair PSU

not sure about the motherboard, my brother went out and bought me one. It doesn't do SLI or crossfire tho. Has 4 RAM slots and 4 PCI ports. The rest of the stuff, case, CPU cooler, etc. was extra gear that I was given for free. I paid $300 for the whole thing which is dirt cheap. I plan to maybe purchase the AMD Phenom II CPU in a month or two and maybe a 4870, depends on what kind of gaming I get into. For now the 4670 is just fine, playing pretty much everything except Crysis.

I'm a happy man at the moment


-Snake

[teflon]

if you get an AMD Phenom, then youll need a new motherboard...
Since youre on intels right now, to save the cash youll probably want to stick with them...

but at the same time, if youre happy with your set up right now, then I wouldnt bother changing anything until you need to. As you said, it depends on what kind of games you play...
But if your 4670 is holding up fine, then wait as long as you can bear it before you switch it up for the next big thing, at which point you can get either the next generation of GPU, or the current one at greatly reduced prices.

The same kind of applies to the CPU, but here you need to factor in the motherboard because Intel are switching to a new socket design, as are AMD, so either you stick with Core 2 Duo/Quad/Extreme or youre getting a new MoBo and a new CPU at the same time.

so wait it out until you feel that you need to upgrade in order to maintain your gaming pleasures.

[J'nathus]

My friend wants to do a new build and I've discovered that the sweet spot in price / performance is the 9800 GTX+. It's only $180 and is spitting distance from the GTX 260 which costs $100. Heck, I don't have the money and I'm tempted. More and more it looks like capable / high end gaming is getting cheaper and cheaper.