Building PC under 1k for sister

[Boyiee]

So Christmas is coming, and the thought popped into my head of building my little sister a new PC. Currently she is using my old gaming pc from like 6+yrs ago lol.

her current system is shitty, its like a AMD3800+ single core, 2gb ram, 8800gt, 60gb HDD etc... its bad. Since it would need so many upgrades, a new PC fits the bill.

Trying to stay under 1k, hell, under 800 would be great even. This is what I've come up with so far:

Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor
ASUS P5N-D LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard
SAPPHIRE 100284L Radeon HD 5750 1GB 128-bit
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
Antec EarthWatts EA650 650W Continuous Power ATX12V
Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Western Digital Caviar Blue WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM
Sony Optiarc Black CD / DVD Burner

And I picked out some new speakers for her... Think my Dad is about to purchase Windows 7 so that OS would be going on the computer, so I shouldn't have to get one myself. As you can tell, most of my choices are ones with mail in rebates, instant savings, or free shipping. The total is around 832$. I'm at work right now so I made this on the fly, not much effort.

She mainly uses her PC for Photoshop, WoW, and music/movies. I think that gpu should be enough... I have an E8500 cpu and love it, so it should be more than enough for her. I just randomly selected a mobo, as you can probably tell.

Any tips, changes, or ideas to make the price go down a little while keeping the quality of the PC would be great. Shes just sick of the lag and everything shes getting, and she really needs an upgrade. Should be a good Christmas present, especially since I've been wanting to tweak my gaming rig, but will instead be putting my money into her.

[fishstix]

Pretty solid build, and you're such a nice brother :3 My brother didn't complain about his pc even though I knew it was crappy (2ghz P4, 1gb ram, geforce 6600 agp) So I gave him my old pc but that went all kablewy on him. Ended up letting him keep my c2d laptop since I wasn't using it.

Changes I'd make: I'm not sure how much of a noticable difference there'd be, but I like the WD Caviar Black editions with the 32mb cache. There's a 500gb on sale for $50 after some rebates and instant $$ off.

However, this is an i5 build I came up with for a friend Newegg.com - Once You Know, You Newegg It's missing a video card, but if you add in your 5850, the total would be $767. If your budget is going to be in the $800 range, I'd definitely go with an i5, even if it's overkill for what the computer will be used for. Or you can build an i5 for yourself and give her your E8500 system :D Oh yeah also, if you have a microcenter near by, you can pick up an i5 750 for $150, $50 off most other places (even cheaper than that c2d)

[Boyiee]

My e8500 system is turning a year old and is still godlike, she cant have it lol.

I just chose the e8500 for her since I trusted it, I'll probably play with your build now though, thanks for posting it.

I went with the other PSU, here is current build Newegg.com - Once You Know, You Newegg sitting almost at 800$ exactly. I've never used a micro mobo before however, was afraid to pick one for the build.

[fishstix]

hmm, I think I chose a microATX for the price and brand. There's other full sized ones that isn't terribly expensive, like this ASUS one Newegg.com - ASUS P7P55 LX LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards for $120

[Olo401]

An E8500 build is solid but 775 has no future, so to future proof I'd go with an AMD build. That will allow you to keep your costs down and still be able to upgrade when the time comes. Even if you do decide to go Intel 775 though, I would choose a board with a different chipset, say a P43/G43. I've had a nForce board and it gave me all kinds of trouble with device conflicts, and I've heard similar stories from other people.

Also since your sister will probably not want/need to overclock, you can cut some corners by picking older tech yet still decent quality parts. Try this:

Mobo : Gigabyte GA-MA790GPT-UD3H - $115 -$15 rebate
CPU - AMD Phenom II 945 AM3 - $166
Memory - Crucial DDR3-1066 2x2GB - $82
GPU - XFX Radeon 4770 512MB - $110
Case - same - $60
Power Supply - Antec earthWatts 500W - $70
Optic Drive - same - $28
HDD - WD Caviar Green 750GB - $70

Total - $701 before shipping & rebates (savings of $90 over original build, which almost covers an OEM copy of Windows 7)

[Isiolia]

I have an E8500 right now, and haven't seen any great reason to replace it yet either...but were I building today, I'd definitely be building around an i5 or i7. Quad core should be nice for PS as well.

I always like to build for a bit more than anticipated. Especially if you're not specifically asking your sister to keep it a surprise or something. I did that a few years ago building a machine for my brother, and the box (admittedly, a budget build) didn't quite cut it for what he wanted. When I built him a new machine last Christmas, I made sure to ask him XD

[Boyiee]

She has no idea i'm doing this for her. I randomly bring up that I need to get her a new HDD, or reformat, or clean it up, or do something just to make it run a little better.

I'm going to build it at my firehouse and then wrap the case itself in wrapping paper completely put together, should be a nice day for her on Christmas.

I also love my E8500, when OC'd it's just amazing. But I will go with an i5 or i7 for her as long as I can keep the cost right. She wont ever OC it, she doesn't need much... she just needs something to run wow smoothly now, and cataclysm smoothly when that hits. Plus she runs a few programs at the same time so with the build I'm looking at everything should be perfect.

[Olo401]

Normally I would go with an i5 build as well, but in the interest of saving some moolah I figured an AMD build would do the trick. Trading the Phenom II and AM3-compatible board for an i5-750 and a compatible P55 board would add about $50 to the price tag. That's actually a pretty good change.

[Boyiee]

Well looks like this is going to be my final build:

Newegg.com - Once You Know, You Newegg

Tried moving some stuff around and changing parts, just can't agree with some of the switches I tried making (up to 5770, different ram, speakers) and just went back to what I mostly had.

Gonna purchase in a week or 2, any last minute ideas or changes you could suggest would be great. I went from 800 to 900$ =/ lol

[fishstix]

Looks solid, if you have a Microcenter store nearby, you can pick up the i5 for $50 less instore.

[Boyiee]

dont think i do

[Boyiee]

Update: Ordering this tonight or tomorrow. I changed the Motherboard cause I've never used a micro before and wanted to make sure everything fit and worked well. Probably will get a fan or 2 extra in the future for better cooling, but it shouldn't get toooooo hot now anyway.

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/Pu...umber=15700447

Now that it's after Black Friday there may be some better options out there, if you know of any feel free to post.

[Shadowhusky]

Could have gone with a GeForce 9600 GT to cut some more costs.

[Boyiee]

Is that an equal level card though? I mean, I could go with a 47xx if I wanted to cut as well, but I want this to perform well and last a while.

[Boyiee]

ughhh win7 family packs sold out, and i needed it for 3 computers lol.

[Mala]

640gb hdd for $5 more then the 500gb you have picked out
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...caviar%20black

Other then that everything looks great for that budget I think, no other deals immediately stand out to me.

[Shadowhusky]

Is that an equal level card though? I mean, I could go with a 47xx if I wanted to cut as well, but I want this to perform well and last a while.

I don't know anything about ATI anymore, so I can't say. All I know is that the 9600 GT is a great mid-range card. You said all she does is play WoW. That's more than enough.

[fishstix]

yeah, they're pretty similar to the 4770s but the 5750 is a good choice and should handle well for anything new

[Olo401]

To be honest I wouldn't get a 9600GT. An argument can be made that the 8800GT she has now is a overall better/faster card than a 9600GT, since the 9 series GeForce cards were just a minor upgrade from the 8 series. If you expect her to only be playing WoW for the near future, and that 8800GT is a PCI-E card, just move it over to the new machine and save yourself some money.

Now, just for educational purposes to bring you up to speed.. The differences in the Radeons right now are fairly easy to figure out. The 5 series cards use ATI's newest GPU design combined with the fastest video memory available (GDDR5). The differences from 57xx to 58xx is just a doubled processor core (not to be confused with dual GPUs). Beyond that it gets a bit more technical.. more shaders, more texture units, higher clock rates, cards so long they might not fit your case, and so on.

[Boyiee]

My case has a 4870X2 in it, and it's a monster, but I love it.

Thanks for the replies, ordering now <3 shes going to have one hell of a christmas lol.

edit: all done... only problem now is I'm tempted to take the processor for myself lol, but that won't happen as I'm currently running a E8500 with a rampage mobo and dominator ram. New things are always a tease though.