My first PC, a Dell Inspiron 530s Desktop, just died this morning. I had it for 4 solid years of abuse. Living with roommates who smoked for years and spilled blueberry juice through the top fan vent led to it's inevitable death. Last night I created 22 DVD ISO's (probably a bad Idea given the condition at the time) and gave it a rest by shutting down. She never woke up. Power supply and motherboard went out like champions.
I have alway's wanted to build my own custom, but I had the feeling matching the parts correctly and working BIOS would be too difficult/involved. That was until last fall when a nasty virus put my PC into a coma and I had to do a full re-install. The re-install was simple and the customization left me wanting to build my own Desktop. Now I'm not the brightest person alive, but I feel I know enough to build a working PC that will meet my needs.
I'm not a hardcore gamer. Only game I play is Counter-Strike:Source. I just don't have the time or money to game these days. The main things I use my PC for are creating ISO's, watching movies, playing/storing music, syncing my MP3 player, surfing web, e-mails,Microsoft Office, streaming video, and downloading torrents. Counter-Strike: SOurce ran plenty good on my Dell, so I'm not looking for a 200 fps high-end GPU. I don't run lots of programs simultaneously either. I pretty much just need my Inspiron 530s replaced, but want to make sure it runs smoother and will be replaced with longer lasting reliable parts.
So, heres my plan. I salvaged a DVD-RW, SATA 320g HD, 22" Monitor, Speakers, Keyboard, Mouse etc. Here is what I plan to purchase.
Will this work out for me? Do I need a video card, or is onboard video ok for my needs? What am I missing, besides fans? Can I use Vista OS disc that came with my dell? Or am I looking at buying a new OS disc? Remember, I don't need to be editing videos while playing COD4. Just need a PC as good as, or better than, my old Inspiron 530s.
the phenom ii x4 3.2GHz is $119 or so at the egg. its an AM3. Perhaps you could use a AMD/ATI radeon 5670 or nvidia geforce 430 (or thereabouts) if it turns out that the onboard video isnt up to snuff. I think if on a budget you should try the onboard first and add video later if you want. You can not use your vista disc from dell. If you dont have to reinstall windows often, then you could buy an OEM copy of windows, instead of the retail box. Otherwise, it looks suitable, but i didnt look at the links.
