Semi-Budget system?

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ONEshot
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Semi-Budget system?

Post by ONEshot » Mon Jul 24, 2006 10:57 pm

Hi.

I am looking to build a modestly cheap computer for college (I'm going to get a decently cheap laptop to bring to classes).

The reason why it should be modestly cheap is because I don't really play video games anymore (on my computer). I just want it to be quite fast at a few things:

Several applications at once (namely MS Word, Firefox, ITunes, AIM, and playing a movie on WMP at the same time).

It should have a little muscle in case I need to program (I think I've only got one programming class, though, and its introductory).

A TV Tuner would be nice.

Aaaand downloading things (uhh... legally of course...).

SO I'm going to be bringing my LCD monitor, one Nexus 120mm fan, 2X512 pc 3200 Value Corsair (unless it doesnt work with the new system that you geniuses come up with), my DVD burner, and harddrives.

That leaves a few things:

CPU
Motherboard
Memory (if my value corsair is not compatible)
Video Card
Sound Card
Speakers
Case (MAYBE, as I think a cheapo Rosewill would do fine. I'll be doing a bit of tin snipping to get rid of grills and whatnot.

I'VE ALREADY DECIDED on these:
1 Seasonic S12 430W
1 more Nexus fan (to mod the Seasonic with)
1 Ninja

In my current system, I'm running a 2.66 P4 (northwood) with an Alpha heatsink (bought from Ralf) on an MSI board. I have a 9500 Pro with an Arctic Cooler, a Nexus fan, a Seasonic 300W with a panaflo L1a 80mm. This is all wrapped up in an Antec (uhh the beige one. Ralf's old computer, methinks) that has had the grill cut out and no other mods.

With this system, I'm rather used to a (pretty) silent computer. Anything quieter than this would be great, as long as its not too expensive.

I don't mind whether or not its AM2, X2, Conroe, hell a D. I have no other preferences.

So with those parts, I'm looking to spend ~700-800$

Thanks in advance, guys.

cAPSLOCK
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Post by cAPSLOCK » Tue Jul 25, 2006 12:22 am

No definite system, but I have some thoughts:

You definately want a dual core processor: AMD64 or Core2.
1GB should be enough, since you are trying to keep a small budget it's worth trying to keep what you have.
You say you don't play games, do you need a 3d graphics card for anything else (CAD for ex)? If not integrated graphics are ideal (from a price and power consumption perspective).
You should be able to keep your 300W seasonic for a low power system, unless it's too noisy...

Look at the ASRock 775Dual-VSTA this is not only a really cheap mobo that supports Conroe, but it has both DDR and DDR2, and it has AGP and PCIe. Basically you can use your current RAM and gfx card on this mobo and still have the option to upgrade them in the future.

The other option while sticking to DDR is to get a good deal on a socket 939 system, the prices are really low right now and there are plenty of good motherboards out there with integrated graphics.

Of course, nothing is stopping you from getting a DDR2 system, but why do that when you still have some perfectly good RAM you can use?

MikeC
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Re: Semi-Budget system?

Post by MikeC » Tue Jul 25, 2006 6:18 am

ONEshot wrote:1 Seasonic S12 430W
1 more Nexus fan (to mod the Seasonic with)
Don't do it. It's not worth the trouble, you lose the warranty, and the stock S12-430 is quiet enough for 99.8% of silencers. Of course you could be in that rare 0.2%. ;)

ONEshot
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Post by ONEshot » Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:32 am

So you're suggesting I go lower-end Conroe? This is because I have upgradeability in the future with newer Conroes? Specifically, which one am I talking, here (current version, not the newer ones that I may upgrade to)?

This would be better than the new price-slashed X2s?

Integrated video? Ehhh I'm very skeptical. I'm taking up a pretty high end LCD... Any budget suggestions?

So with this new system, will it be faster than my current rig and possibly more quiet?

AND as to the Seasonic... Interesting. I modded my other seasonic to get pure silence, and it has been. You're saying that an unmodded S12 can get me that level of quiet?

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Post by MikeC » Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:40 am

ONEshot wrote:AND as to the Seasonic... Interesting. I modded my other seasonic to get pure silence, and it has been. You're saying that an unmodded S12 can get me that level of quiet?
One of the older 80mm Seasonics modded with a Panaflo 80L or 80M may be quieter than the S12-430. But the difference is small, and chances are, there will be other things in your system that make more noise. Also, the Nexus fan will not start with the ~4.3V start voltage of the Seasonic fan controller.

jaganath
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Post by jaganath » Tue Jul 25, 2006 9:22 am

I modded my other seasonic to get pure silence, and it has been. You're saying that an unmodded S12 can get me that level of quiet?
As a kind of point-counterpoint, I swapped the fan in my S12-330 to a YL D12SL-12 and it's performed perfectly up til now, but of course voided the warranty and this is for a very low-power system (<90W); when I accidentally unplugged the fan the PSU ran fanlessly for about 4 hours before I noticed, it wasn't burning hot but only quite warm.

cAPSLOCK
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Post by cAPSLOCK » Tue Jul 25, 2006 11:51 am

ONEshot wrote:So you're suggesting I go lower-end Conroe? This is because I have upgradeability in the future with newer Conroes? Specifically, which one am I talking, here (current version, not the newer ones that I may upgrade to)?

This would be better than the new price-slashed X2s?
Well the s.939 X2 will be the cheaper solution, but has nearly no future upgradability. It all depends if you are the sort of person that upgrades their pc bit by bit or just scraps the lot and buys a new one every x years... (If you're not an upgrader, get the X2) The low end conroe is the E6300, which looks like it has as much power as an X2 4600+, so I'd hardly call it low end :)

For the integrated gfx, some of the nvidia integrated graphics chipsets have a DVI output, I'm not a videophile, but I think that it should be acceptable.

mb2
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Post by mb2 » Tue Jul 25, 2006 12:10 pm

I'm running a 2.66 P4 (northwood) with an Alpha heatsink (bought from Ralf) on an MSI board. I have a 9500 Pro with an Arctic Cooler, a Nexus fan, a Seasonic 300W
so your saying this doesn't run;
MS Word, Firefox, ITunes, AIM, and playing a movie on WMP at the same time)
??
they aren't going to take up a gig of ram, and nothing but (arguably) the video playback are what u'd call CPU intensive. i'd think if your finding it slow, its due to your software (windows rott.. try clearing all ur temp files/tweaking memory settigns, or reinstalling), unless u have a particularly slow HDD. these are not intensive tasks which require a dual core..
most people at college will probably have P-M laptops, some CD.. and most college PCs will probably similar, if not much worse than yours.. (i'd guess.. not knowing your specific college). so u won't need the latest hardware to run any software they have fine..
integrated graphics is definately what you want. if you don't play games on your PC (u can anyway..) then theres absolutely no point in getting a dedicated, expensive, hot, graphics card. unless we are talking a LCD which is >1600x1200 and requires dual-link DVI. but your 9500 wont have that.
integrated gfx gets a lot of flac from 'l33t' gamers and everyone else copies.. its not like your getting a dell with no PCI-E socket; u can upgrade whenever you want. i do cad with mine, it works fine, its more powerful than the uni PCs..

i'm guessing you are going to upgrade but i wouldn't delude yourself that u have to.. then your options are;
a) sempron.. not a huge amount of an upgrade, but should be snappier.. and can be done *damn* cheap if you are just getting mobo+cpu. allows you to get a cooler CPU and onboard graphics (cooler)
b) 3800 X2, dual core will be a decent upgrade.. cheap mobos
c) a low end C2D; cheap CPUs but beware the motherboard prices. i'd wait as late as u can to get one (an Nvidia mobo entry). Theres the option of a 4300, which is a 800fsb part.. if u are interested in a bit of OC. or 6300 i think is the same speed but 1066fsb.. imo i wouldn't bother going above this..
with a/b u can chose either 754/939 to keep your ram, or AM2 for an (/a bigger) upgrade path (am3 cpus will work in am2 mobos). i haven't checked ebay prices but i'd guess u wouldn't lose much going to DDR2 and selling the old..
if u do OC then i'd think either the sempron (which would give a very decent speed boost, still cooler, but no DC), or a 4300 C2D, assuming they are released in time.
and whats ur OS hdd?.. if its slow u'd probably see more boost from upgrading that..

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Post by qviri » Tue Jul 25, 2006 1:01 pm

cAPSLOCK wrote:Well the s.939 X2 will be the cheaper solution, but has nearly no future upgradability. It all depends if you are the sort of person that upgrades their pc bit by bit or just scraps the lot and buys a new one every x years...
I disagree. If you get a PCI-E socket 939 motherboard right now, you can still upgrade a lot in the future.

I built my current computer, an Athlon XP, last December. Since then, I have doubled my RAM (and can double it again to bring it to 2 GB if I choose to), upgraded my video card (and can upgrade to 7800gs if I wanted to), installed a sound card and a storage drive through a PCI SATA card (I can add two terabytes of space if I want to). The CPU is still the same; I actually underclocked it a bit since I don't need the speed anyway (though I could get a 3200+ or overclock to its speed). Of course, these are all at least two generations behind and acquired used, but they work just fine; cheap, too.

Probably the biggest drawback is the lack of abundancy of awesome CPU heatsinks that later sockets enjoy, but this wouldn't be a problem on 939.

A socket 939 motherboard today would "limit" your upgrade paths to a top of the line PCI-E video card and a X2 4800+ (is the FX-60 socket 939 or 940?). The only major issue would be the RAM; DDR sticks bigger than 1 GB are uncommon so the maximum RAM you could upgrade to would be limited to 4 GB (assuming four RAM slots, fairly common on 939 motherboards). An X2 4800+ and four gigs of RAM should be plenty for the next three years at least, and I wouldn't guarantee that sockets 775 and AM2 will still be top of the line then.

ONEshot
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Post by ONEshot » Tue Jul 25, 2006 6:46 pm

Interesting...

Well... I don't mean I'd NEVER play games. I'd probably play a little Counterstrike or something like that every once in a while. It'd be nice to have a little bit of muscle in that department.

Adn as for PSUs.. How much more power consumption are the newer CPUs as compared to the Northwoods? Will I need to switch up PSUs?

jaganath
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Post by jaganath » Wed Jul 26, 2006 12:36 am

How much more power consumption are the newer CPUs as compared to the Northwoods? Will I need to switch up PSUs?
The new chips (C2D, AM2 X2) actually use the same or less power than Northwoods, and have dynamic power-saving tech (ie EIST/CnQ).

IMO a Conroe + that Asrock 775 mobo that Capslock mentioned is exactly what you are looking for in terms of price and performance.

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Post by HammerSandwich » Wed Jul 26, 2006 6:58 am

I don't disagree with the advice already offered but want to offer another alternative: why not put the $700 into the laptop? That could take you from a cheapish laptop to a very nice one, along with an external HD for backups and a USB TV tuner.

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