Building Budget PC! A Few Questions

Advertise at AfterDawn.com

Link to us!

Private messages

Compose a private message

List of all updated threads

Threads without replies

Search messages

Sunday 22.2.2026 / 16:21

Search AfterDawn Forums:

afterdawn.com > forums > pc hardware > other pc hardware > building budget pc! a few questions

Browse by topic

Forums

Start a new thread

Building Budget PC! A Few Questions

Jump to:

Posted

Message

ericd102

Newbie

6. October 2004 @ 13:56

Link to this message

I am building a budget PC for a relative ( my first build) and am trying to keep the costs as low as possible while maintaining a useful system that will work for a few years. It's only used for email, web surfing, MP3s, and some typing so nothing serious is needed. It's MicroATX because of limited space in the house, will this make the build considerably harder?

Here's what I have so far, any known incompatabilities?

$50 "Famous Brand" 17 inch CRT
$40 256MB Viking PC2700 Ram
$40 IN WIN BT-Series Beige MicroATX Desktop With 240W
PSU and 80mm fan (good case? enough power?)
$35 Rosewill CDRW/DVD-ROM combo drive
$1.5 Additional 80mm fan (necessary? will it fit?)
$62 80GB Western Digital HDD
$4 PS2 kEYBOARD
$3 ps2 mOUSE
$6 3Com 56k v.92 PCI modem
$50 GIGABYTE "8I845GVM-RZ" i845GV Chipset MicroATX
Motherboard onboard video and audio,ethernet
(anyone know anything about it? good brand?)
$70 2.4Ghz Intel Celeron processor (retail)
w/heatsink
$76 WinXP home OEM
$5 Cheap speakers
$34 Works suite 2004 OEM (w/word, works,encarta etc)

With shipping it's about $550 total.

Anyone know of any incompatabilities or problems I will run into? Anyone know anywhere I could save a bit more money?

I am very worried about heat, if I can't get the second fan in will the heatsink and included case fan be enough? I figured it might be seeing as it's such a low spec system.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Eric

[ + quote]

Ripped4u

Suspended due to non-functional email address

13. October 2004 @ 13:22

Link to this message

hi going on your hardware list see your going for celeron cpu i would advise the amd line of cpu,s
my tip for you to build your own system is to buy
all your hardware at your local pc store saving
shipping costs iv made al list of hardare cost
uk prices..usa is probably even cheeper 1 TOWER+psu £15
2:mainboard £27 3:cpu athlon xp 2000 £40 4: ram ddr 266 256mb £20 5: 80gb hdd £42 6 :cd-rw £19 7:windows buy second hand win 98se £10 8: 17inch vdu (monitor) £35

total £218
and thats just an average price
search your local town to get an even lower estimate

[ + quote]

ddp

Moderator

16. October 2004 @ 12:43

Link to this message

1 check your motherboard to see if it needs just the ATX power connector or do you have to have the 4 pin squre connector or the 6 pin retangular connector attached to the board. if it needs either the square or the rectangular connector plus the ATX & your power supply only has the ATX then you need a new P4 powersupply which costs about $45Can. which is almost the price of a tower with P4 poqwer supply installed with USB on the front of case besides the USB on the backside. besides P4 boards usually want 300 watts or more.
2 went setting up the harddrive, set it as master & cd burner as slave on same cable. if on 2 seperate cables with harddrive as master, mother board probably won't see the drive on less you take the little white jumper from connector that designates Master Slave Cable Select on harddrive

[ + quote]

Praetor

Moderator

16. October 2004 @ 19:13

Link to this message

CORE
ASUS A7V400-MX ($70)
AMD Sepron 2400+ ($85)
KingMax 256MB PC3200 ($60)
WD 80GB 8MB 7200RPM ($90)
Basic Case + 400W PSU ($35)
Mouse and Keyboard ($20)
Liteon 52x32x52x16 ($55)
Basic Case Cooling (two 80mm fans) ($10)
Core Cost: $425CAD ($340USD)

More Stuff (prices provided by you)
WXP Home ($75)
Basic Speakers ($5)
Works ($35)

Net Cost: $455USD

Quote:
Anyone know of any incompatabilities or problems I will run into?

You'll prolly want a bigger PSU.

Quote:
Anyone know anywhere I could save a bit more money?

1. The Celeron is discontinued and replaced by the Celeron-D
2. The AMD Sempron will eat the Celeron-D alive
3. The 845 chipset is decrepit.
4. See my above configuration

Quote:
I am very worried about heat, if I can't get the second fan in will the heatsink and included case fan be enough? I figured it might be seeing as it's such a low spec system.

Dont worry about heat, for basic systsems like the one you've spec'd and mine, heat is the smallest concern as OCing isnt an option :)

[ + quote]

ASUS A8V Deluxe, A64-3500 @ 2.65
1GB KingMax PC3700
640GB [4x160GB, 7200, 8MB]
XFX 6800GT 256MB
Rules and Policies: http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/2487

ericd102

Newbie

18. October 2004 @ 13:44

Link to this message

I was interested in MicroATX because of space constraints which was why I was sacrificing power for the PSU.
Reading more about the AMD processors I think I agree they are probably superior, I've always bought dell PC's so I'm used to Intel which was the only reason I went for an Intel CPU. Can anyone give me a rough comparison of the AMD numbers in gigahertz (i.e. is an Athlon 3200 = 3.2 ghz P4?)

Thanks

[ + quote]

ddp

Moderator

18. October 2004 @ 16:37

Link to this message

amd xp speed is about 80% of a p4 speed, ex. 2600xp motherboards posts as a 2gig even tho the board recognizes it as a 2600xp

[ + quote]

cdub998

Junior Member

19. October 2004 @ 10:33

Link to this message

2600xp runs technically at 2.6 ghz. AMDs run more processes per cycle than intels do. This means an AMD can be running at say 2.17 ghz but really be equal to 3 ghz.. Simple.

[ + quote]

This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 19. October 2004 @ 10:34

Start a new thread

afterdawn.com > forums > pc hardware > other pc hardware > building budget pc! a few questions


		User name	Password

		Not registered yet? Register here. Lost your password? Click here.