Doing a Build! Finalized?

[JdPower]

Alright well I am doing a build for my sister and brother-In-Law. They wan't a fast computer, they listen / download music, movies, burn, and play some video games. They surf the internet. Basically a casual computer user. They ask me to build them a computer that would do that. So i was asking if these parts below will do that and above. Thank in advance

Processor:
Intel C2D E6400

Motherboard:
ASUS P5NSLI Nvidia Nforce 570 SLI

Memory:
Patriot 2GB 240PIN DDR2 667 (PC 5300)

Hardrive:
Seagate Baracuda 400GB Serial ATA Hard drive

Video Card:
XFX GeForce 7900GS 256MB

Case + Power Supply
Antec PerformanceI P180B Black Mid-Tower
Antc TruPowerII 550W SLI Certified Power Supply

DVD Burner + CD Burner
Lite On CD Burner 52X52X32X
Lite On DVD+16x Burner w/ Light Scribe

They have monitor, mouse, and keyboard.

All this can be found on www.newegg.com

Thanks again and let me know if anything I pick you don't recommend!

Jd

 

[cjoyce1980]

a X1900XT would be far better
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102051

 

[Batou1986]

looks almost like what i just ordered for my friend

 

[Gorre]

2*200Gig HDDs is probably going to work out cheaper than a single 400Gig.
Also, is the seperate CDRW necessary?

 

[JdPower]

a X1900XT would be far better
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102051

The ATi 1900 is 50 bucks more then the Nvidia. At newegg its 213.00, or something like that. Plus they don't need a video card like that. They do casual gaming like games like beech head which is like 10 years old and some other non fps heavy games.

But everything sounds pretty much good?

 

[gR3iF]

the board sucks really the nforce intel series gets too hot and istn working as fast as the intel mobos are

 

[cjoyce1980]

well i was thinking about a card which was more future proof than the 7900GS. i would get 2x 200gb HDD, mainly because you can use the second drive as storage and backup, and also you dont need the cd burner, the DVD burner also does CD's too, so why have both?

P.S. why DDR2 667, why not DDR2 800........if it aint DDR2 800 and above it serious can impact performance on the conroe's, benchmarks show that the conroe's relie on high memory bandwidth to achieve the performace they are capable of.

 

[Track]

I dont get it. You say these are casual users who play 10 year old games, but ur getting them a top of the line Core 2 Duo CPU and a top of the line 7900 series graphics card, for running current games on MAX and an SLI motherboard?? Do u have something against them and are trying to make them spend 3 to 4 times the money they should be spending on a PC?
Maybe u can tell me exactly what games were talking abt here, and what else they do on the PC other then surf the net?





Processor:
Intel C2D E6400
Pentium 4/Athlon 64

Motherboard:
ASUS P5NSLI Nvidia Nforce 570 SLI
Simple 775 motherboard with 1x PCI-E x16

Memory:
Patriot 2GB 240PIN DDR2 667 (PC 5300)

Hardrive:
Seagate Baracuda 400GB Serial ATA Hard drive

Video Card:
XFX GeForce 7900GS 256MB
Geforce 6600 or somthing cheaper.

Case + Power Supply
Antec PerformanceI P180B Black Mid-Tower
Antc TruPowerII 550W SLI Certified Power Supply
Again, whats with SLI for "casual" PC users who dont play current games?
500w 1x 12v rail PSU

DVD Burner + CD Burner
Lite On CD Burner 52X52X32X
Lite On DVD+16x Burner w/ Light Scribe

 

[Gorre]

The 6600 isnt a good investment. It's something like £20 cheaper than a 7600Gt, and gives a comparatively terrible performance. If you want a budget (yet highly capable) card, get a 7600GT.

As for the CPU, E6400 is an ideal choic ein my opinion. High performance, average cost, and adequate for the forseeable future, not to mention it can be upgraded.

 

[pt]

The 6600 isnt a good investment. It's something like £20 cheaper than a 7600Gt, and gives a comparatively terrible performance. If you want a budget (yet highly capable) card, get a 7600GT.

As for the CPU, E6400 is an ideal choic ein my opinion. High performance, average cost, and adequate for the forseeable future, not to mention it can be upgraded.

i agree with track a 7600gs or a x1600pro is more than enough, a 3500+ will do fine too

 

[Track]

The 6600 isnt a good investment. It's something like £20 cheaper than a 7600Gt, and gives a comparatively terrible performance. If you want a budget (yet highly capable) card, get a 7600GT.

As for the CPU, E6400 is an ideal choic ein my opinion. High performance, average cost, and adequate for the forseeable future, not to mention it can be upgraded.

Your right abt the 7600 GT, its the definitive choice against the 6600, i was just thinking of something much lower, and put the 6600 as a performance comparison.
Heck, they would be OK with a FX 5200, but id suggest the 6200 128Mb, it has PS/VS 3.0 and thus the same image quality as any high-end card, but performs worse, wich is all they need.

The E6400 is too good for a casual PC user. The Core 2 Duo line of CPUs is targeted at gamers, but because of their low price i can see them being bought by casual users.
I would get a Pentium 4 in their case. If they dont get a 7600 GT or above, then the graphics card will become a major bottleneck to the CPU.

 

[pt]

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Orleans 2.2GHz Socket AM2 Processor Model ADA3500CNBOX - Retail - 89.9
ECS RS485M-M (V1.0) Socket AM2 ATI Radeon XPRESS 1100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail - 59.99
mushkin 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 533 (PC2 4200) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model 996518 - Retail - 134.99
Seagate Baracuda 400GB Serial ATA Hard drive - (dont know the price)
some good psu
HIS Hightech H165PRF256N-R Radeon X1650PRO 256MB GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail - 119.99

/\ very nice system for a casual user and cheap

 

[Track]

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Orleans 2.2GHz Socket AM2 Processor Model ADA3500CNBOX - Retail - 89.9
ECS RS485M-M (V1.0) Socket AM2 ATI Radeon XPRESS 1100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail - 59.99
mushkin 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 533 (PC2 4200) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model 996518 - Retail - 134.99
Seagate Baracuda 400GB Serial ATA Hard drive - (dont know the price)
some good psu
HIS Hightech H165PRF256N-R Radeon X1650PRO 256MB GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail - 119.99

/\ very nice system for a casual user and cheap

Its not a bad idea, but its not perfect.
Oh, and forget abt the X1650, its bad news. The X1600 series sucks.
7300 GT comes to mind, seems perfect for these casual ppl.

 

[AshenSugar]

Track, the x1650 is fine, and the x1600xt is great in its price range(around 100bucks)


honestly why spend so much for somebody who dosnt really game?

athlon64 am2 rig is perfect

biostar am2 6100 matx mobo
am2 cpu(any with 256 or 512k cache)
2gb ram
400gb seagate hdd(129bucks at the egg), tho dont think they need that much, a 80-160 would be plenty for what your saying they will do with it.
the onboard video will play any game of the type you listed, and the board will allow you to upgrade to a real video card later if needed.

dont spend more then you need to on a system for that kinda use, they wont feel the diffrance.

say you do this

biostar 6100 board
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813138036
$55
OR if you want a board that can overclock like a champ.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813138027
$75
or open box of the better board
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813138027R
$46

am2 sempy64 3000+
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819104305
$50

any ddr2 kit 533 and higher, look for best latancys you can get.

this will run ANY multimedia app you throw at it be it movies, music or whatever, it will also save them ALOT of $ and IF they feel they need more power, you can just throw in a faster cpu later on such as a x2 3600+ or 3800+, really for what you will spend on a core2 chip you can get board+cpu+more on cheap am2 and for what your talking about there will be no diffrance.

i would probbly grab 2x 80gb drives and raid0 them(stripe them) for perf boost it gives(turns to 2drives into 1)

for video they could add whatever they like if they ever get a game the onboards not enougt for(not likely if all they play is 10yo games)

dont waist the $ getting them something like a core2 chip specly when they will get the same effect from something that will be easyer to upgrade in a few years when they desided they need more power(just slap in a new cpu, intel dosnt offer that, they replace chips in such a way that u cant use old boards to run them)
amd has already stated that am2 boards will support am3 chips, so we have 3-5 years of upgrades on am2 where as intel will be changing board specs as soon as there next core change comes along.

 

[Track]

Track, the x1650 is fine, and the x1600xt is great in its price range(around 100bucks)


honestly why spend so much for somebody who dosnt really game?

Seriously, i dont understand why ppl keep saying that the X1600 or the X1650 are good cards. I dont blame ppl for knowing less then me abt graphics cards, but there really isnt anything to base an arguement that the X1600 is a good card on.

ATI gave it too little texture units and 3x shader operations. But the fact that it has all those operations dosent matter because of the tiny ammount of texture fill rate.

And i suggested the 7300 GT if u look at my post, im not for them buying anything as expensive as others have suggested. The 7300 GT overclocks to a 7600 GS and is a low end card but from the current generation of cards meaning it has superior IQ in comparison to cheaper cards.

 

[savor_of_filth]

MOBO : ASUS Crosshair (reliability/upgradeable)

PROC : 3800+ (AM2)

MEM : 2 X 512

GPU : 7600GT or 7900GS

HDD : 2 X 200GB

OPTICAL DRV: single DVD-RW...

PSU : at least w/ 2 rail +12V 480W

P.S. Radeon 16XX series sucks...overpriced... ATI should do something with their mid range

cards...

 

[JdPower]

The reason why I put such a good processor and video card is because he's starting to play BF2/CSS on my system and other newer games. He told me he wants a computer that will last him years and I figured getting some top of the line parts would comply his needs. But he's in the Army so he's really not home all the time so he doesn't play it that much. Thats were my sister comes in as the casual user; internet and videos and music. The reason why I have a CD Burner and DVD burner is because the DVD burners speed that it copies CD's is slow, and the CD burner is pretty cheap. 30 bucks isn't that much, IMO.

He game's but not that much because he's serving our country, but when he's home he always at my house using my comp and saying he needs a computer that faster then mine. LOL.

Jd

 

[Lord_Garshna]

I like your ideas and all... but people why blow money on expensive cases. Just get a rosewill series case and psu combo, there are a wide selection at newegg and they are great built cases for way cheaper. Screw antec and lian lian... overpriced= less money to put elsewhere.

 

[pt]

Just get a rosewill series case and psu combo, Screw antec and lian lian... overpriced= less money to put elsewhere.

Rosewill psu for what i've heard sucks, and you never had a lian li did you?
i guess the x1600 are good for medium/low budget

 

[JdPower]

No I WILL NEVER GER ROSEWELL PSU, they come DOA, or any ROSEWELL products! They're horrible, thats just my experience. Antec has always made good products and I have always bought them and they last forever. Gotta pay to play...

 

[Lord_Garshna]

Well its not like you absolutely have to use the rosewill psu. Replace it with a 100 dollar badass psu and it will still save you money over the other cases. I like the way rosewill cases are made and perform for the price... way better deal if you ask me. But then again I don't think anyone asked me...

 

[AshenSugar]

Seriously, i dont understand why ppl keep saying that the X1600 or the X1650 are good cards. I dont blame ppl for knowing less then me abt graphics cards, but there really isnt anything to base an arguement that the X1600 is a good card on.

ATI gave it too little texture units and 3x shader operations. But the fact that it has all those operations dosent matter because of the tiny ammount of texture fill rate.

And i suggested the 7300 GT if u look at my post, im not for them buying anything as expensive as others have suggested. The 7300 GT overclocks to a 7600 GS and is a low end card but from the current generation of cards meaning it has superior IQ in comparison to cheaper cards.

x1600XT if you acctualy check the reviews is quite reasonable in per/price game, the x1650 isnt great but you can find them cheap as well(seen them as low as 90bucks)

by your thinking the x1900xt or x1950xtx have to little texture units because intels 7800/7900 have more, its not all about the texture units anymore, its about how the hardware deals with what its doing.
read the reviews of the kyro2 vs gf2gts, in a decent system of the day the kyro2 was FASTER yet had SDR(gf2 gts has ddr2) no hardware t&l, far lower clocks on both ram and gpu, yet its FASTER, why?
because it does/did things diffrently then nvidia,, it rendered in a fundimentaly diffrent way.

ati has done something diffrent with the x1k seirse, aa/af have less impact on the x1600xt then 7600gt and the x1650pro is effectivly a xt card

http://www.elitebastards.com/cms/in...sk=view&id=163&Itemid=27&limit=1&limitstart=3
read that^ and this for an x1650 review.
http://www.elitebastards.com/cms/in...sk=view&id=163&Itemid=27&limit=1&limitstart=4

the cards are not bad, and in most cases keep higher minimum fps then the 7600gs

another review that shows the x1600xt not sucking(x1650pro=x1600xt effectivly)

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/290/9
no 7600 listed it wasnt avalable yet but there are higher end cards listed

but if you want the best perf for your buck the x800xt pe at newegg is like 120bucks and STOMPS ALLOVER the x1600xt/x1650pro and 7600gt/gs any day of the week. and for less $ to.