Building a low-end PC [help]

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kraniac

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I'm building a low-end PC for my sister. The one she currently has is a Compaq machine which my dad bought as surplus from his employer for $5. The HD on it is only 6 GB, and as her music collection is growing, she's quickly running out of space. Also, I do routine maintenance on it (AVG/Ad-aware scans, making sure she's running Firefox, etc) and it really is intolerably slow. I don't think it was meant to run XP.

She's also expressed a passing interest in "playing that game where you run around and shoot people" so I'm trying to build something that will match recommended requirements for UT2004. The main goal of the build, however, is to do it for around $250.

So, PC-building wizards, could you check my work and make sure that the components I've picked out will work together, and that I haven't left out anything important? We already have the copy of XP that she's running now, as well as a monitor/keyboard/mouse/speakers.

CD burner
Case and Power Supply
Hard Drive
Video Card
RAM
Motherboard
Processor

Total price shipped: $255.27
 
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i just ordered the exact same cpu for a server box but your gonna want this hd, its only like $2 more

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144122

its faster with higher cache, unless shes gonna play css or gw, the vid card should be good, id get a pink case for her though :p, the ram though ur gonna want minimum 512mb recommended 1gb if your running windows xp, the 256mb wont cut it, also go with the standard pc3200 ram, it will definnitly raise the price of the comp, but its VERY worth it, other than that it looks good

ram link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820218060
 
You can probably get that stuff cheaper on eBay. I find that only the top of the line products stay relatively close to their MSRP. The lower end stuff will typically be a lower price.
 
check around, I can usually snag a p3 system for free in my area. The time is coming up when people are ejecting computers. What is interesting how many mainframes you can get for free :p.
 
I just realized that the mobo I picked out didn't have onboard sound. She likes to listen to music, so that will definitely be a problem.

I tweaked my list a bit, here's the current revision. I replaced the motherboard and video card with an intel mobo that had onboard video and sound, and changed to a different processor since the new mobo uses a different socket type.

CD burner
Case + Power supply
HDD
Memory
Motherboard w/ onboard video and sound
Processor

The memory you suggested looks cool, but it's almost twice as expensive. I'm going to take the HDD suggestion though.
 
as a side note, eventually I'm going to upgrade my videocard. I'm currently running a GeForce3 Ti-200. It works great, but I think I'm going to want to move up to something a little newer eventually. Of course I'd like to keep it as cheap as possible. Unfortunately since getting married and also since getting away from desktop support, I've fallen out of the loop on the PC hardware scene. Any suggestions?
 
Tolkien said:
as a side note, eventually I'm going to upgrade my videocard. I'm currently running a GeForce3 Ti-200. It works great, but I think I'm going to want to move up to something a little newer eventually. Of course I'd like to keep it as cheap as possible. Unfortunately since getting married and also since getting away from desktop support, I've fallen out of the loop on the PC hardware scene. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
I have a ti200 lying arond, I loved that card.
 
kraniac said:
The memory you suggested looks cool, but it's almost twice as expensive. I'm going to take the HDD suggestion though.
Click to expand...
The looks of the memory didn't matter. It was a stick of 512MB running at 400MHz rather than the 256MB at 333MHz you have linked. The single biggest problem with your original parts was the insufficient memory. At 256MB, Windows XP will be quite sluggish and make the system seem a lot slower than it really is.
 
astrod00d said:
The looks of the memory didn't matter. It was a stick of 512MB running at 400MHz rather than the 256MB at 333MHz you have linked. The single biggest problem with your original parts was the insufficient memory. At 256MB, Windows XP will be quite sluggish and make the system seem a lot slower than it really is.
Click to expand...

I'm hoping I can cannibalize some memory from some other stuff that I have.
 
You could use my mobo, its $2 more than your Intel mobo. And gives you more stuff, 4 rams slots, etc. However, it has a AGP card, kinda useless if you dont use it and uses only AMD cpu.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813157081

Though, mine says it also supports AMD Athlon 64X2, odd that it doesn't say it...

It also has something special, it has a future port.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813998603

An extra 4 gigs of ram, total of 8 gigs and if you get a AM2 cpu, 2000 FSB.
 
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