A buddy of mine wants me to help him assemble a new machine for him.  He has
a limited budget ($500.00 US), doesn't need a CD ROM or monitor.
Below is my selection of some decent (cheap) components that I have
selected.

POWMAX CP769PL-2 Beige Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case w/ 400 watt PS
$34.50

Leadtek Geforce 6600 128MB DDR PCI-Express x16 Video Card
$109.00

Western Digital Caviar SE WD800JD 80 GB 7200 RPM Hard Drive
$68.00

CHAINTECH VNF4/Ultra Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard
Model #: VNF4/Ultra
$99.00

Rosewill 512MB DDR400(PC3200) System Memory
$47.00


AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Winchester Socket 939 Processor
$165.00

Total inc'l shipping:  $517.48   Just over his budget.

I got a POWMAX case for my family computer &  was quite surprised about how
much I like it.     I could go for another brand of hard drive & get 160 gig
for not alot more money.

Other than that... opinions?

I am posting this in several newsgroups in the hopes for getting alot of
responses fast as he needs to order these parts ASAP, before his wife
changes her mind!  ;)

Personally, I think your saving money in the wrong areas:

Case w/400W power supply for $34.50. The odds that you're getting 400W of
consistent, clean power are almost nil. The AMD64 recommends 20A on the 12V
rail- doubtful this power supply provides or can sustain that. The video
card your buying likes it's share of power too.

512 MB of DDR400 for $47.00- if it sounds too good to be true, it probably
is. The AMD64 is memory intensive. Memory is where you shouldn't skimp on
quantity or quality.

For a budget machine, I would recommend looking at an Athlon XP (Sempron)
system (2800+). Get a decent power supply and memory and the chances of
having problems down the road are greatly reduced.

Fitz

Agreed.....
Show quoteHide quote

<dum***@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Ws9Xd.600129$Xk.361505@pd7tw3no...
Show quoteHide quoteAlso, Newegg does not show any PCI express MBs that will run a Sempron.  The
best part of this package is the 1st generation video.  He is gonna run this
machine for years, his last box ran for about 7.  =)

Show quote Hide quote Yea, I can understand the better memory, but this PS issue is making me a
bit nuts.     Every PS I look at is less than 20A on the 12V rail except
this POWMAX one.  The POWMAX above is actually rated for 25A.  I keep
searching Newegg for a "name brand" case w/ PS that has 20A or better & no
luck.

When it comes to the RAM...  what do you guys think about the Corsair,
Mushkin, Kingston "Value" lines?

Bruin wrote:
You didn't look too hard.
Antec

Great stuff if you don't overclock it much.

news:VpfXd.605326$8l.157587@pd7tw1no...
Show quoteHide quoteHmmm,...   could you provide a link or a part#?  The Antecs I looked at all
are rated for less that 20A on the 12V rail.   Keep in mind the budget & we
need a case.

On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 05:37:14 -0500, "Bruin"
<bruinwarB***@BLAHexcite.com> wrote:

Powmax does not rate based on sustained wattage, in all
liklihood it's actual 12V capacity is lower than most of the
others you looked at... at least those that're manufacturer
name-brands.  If the budget won't allow a real 25A power
supply and you really think you need(ed) one, don't use such
high-powered parts... there's nothing budget about a system
that breaks down.


Yes one of those... or some other name-brand
They're commondity items these days, there is no superior or
horrible major make.  Buy from someplace with a good return
policy just in case the motherboard is picky.

On Mon, 7 Mar 2005 18:01:55 -0500, "Bruin"
<bruinwarB***@BLAHexcite.com> wrote:

Show quoteHide quoteIve got the Chaintech Ultra and the 3000 939 ,  easiest setup Ive had
in a while. I ALWAYS have some weirdness the last few boards -- Asus
a7n8xdeluxe (nforce2) and several other nforce2 boards I bought for
others. After messing with them for a while they work very well but
initially they were wacked out - the usual no video etc - clearing the
CMOS routine.

With my Chaintech and 939 --- piece of cake.
Im using a 400 watt antec with the 20 pin PS plug. You have to plug it
all the way to the right and leave 4 pins open.  Someone else emailed
me who had bought the same setup and didnt have any difficult problems
either except the really novice ones ---- he didnt plug in the extra 4
pin power plug resulting in no video.

I paid 135 when nforce4 boards were in really short supply only a
month or so ago.   The 6600 is a good card supposedly . The only
question mark is the powmax. I have no idea how its going to work but
my guess is OK.  The HD --- RUN DOWN to Compusa and get the 80 gig for
29 bucks after rebate this week. If they dont have it get a raincheck.
Usually takes a week or two. Or wait for another sale. Last week there
was a Office depot sale for 49 160 gig. I got the WD sunday at compusa
for a backup for my 3 HDs since my new 200 gig WD has been clicking
and refused to bootup 3 times already. Im going to back up my stuff to
it and test it.

By the way Im using a Hauppauge 150 TV tuner card and Maudio audio
recording card in 2 of the 3 PCI slots with no problems too. No
problems with the lan network stuff except it has active armor --- I
think I have to read up on it before I use it. I turned it off and
disabled some things on it cause the connection was really slow on the
default settings - havent really looked at it at all. After disabling
it works like youd expect it to.

I havent updated the bios at all. Ive got two burners on an IDE cable
, two Maxtors using the SATA to PATA converters on the SATA
connections and one WD 200 gig on the IDE connection and an ATI 800XL
video card.  Also bought a Firewire card PCI which I havent installed
yet and want to get a PCI-E game sound card later for better sound for
games.  Theres been talk of creative and others coming out with one.
Ideally Id like to get a PCI-E firewire card to free up a PCI slot
later.

On Mon, 7 Mar 2005 18:01:55 -0500, "Bruin"
<bruinwarB***@BLAHexcite.com> wrote:
Oh yeah Im also using my old Kingston Value Ram 512 DDR 3200 and PNY
3200 512 stick in it - no problems. tested it overnight with
Memtest86.   I carried it over from my ASUS a7n8x deluxe and used it
in dual mem mode with no problems there too. Got both for around 56
bucks each. I know there has been some cheap mem bashing recently too
and obviously to suggest there is NO correlation with price and
quality is silly but ,  at least the namebrand mass mkt sticks Ive
bought havent really given me any problems in the past.

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