Need advice on a budget build that's quiet

marrt · Post by **marrt** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 6:40 am

Guys, I need some advice here. I need to change/upgrade my case and MB due to a small accident, but money is an issue. So, I will reuse the HDs (2 SATA 250GB in RAID 0 and 1 SATA 500GB for backups) and graphics card (BFG 7900 GTX to support my Dell 30â€

Yeti · Post by **Yeti** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 8:14 am

A quickie off the top of my head:

CASE
Antec SOLO, P150 or P180 $80-120

P180b $120 shipped http://shop4.outpost.com/product/484380 ... IN_RSLT_PG

It may be backordered, but I got mines in a matter of a week.

CPU
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 $180 www.newegg.com

Motherboard
www.zipzoomfly.com
Asus P5W DH Deluxe $240 (highest end)
Gigabyte GA-965P DS3 $150 (good, mid-range, with solid capacitors)

Memory
2GB DDR2 667 $189
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDe ... e=85002-32

PSU
Seasonic 430W (or the modular Seasonic M12 500 if you'd like to reduce cable clutter) $89-148

I believe your RAM might still be fine for a new motherboard, they still use DDR2.

ryboto · Post by **ryboto** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 8:47 am

You could also consider an AMD based system. I just built one for my lab, the motherboard was only $60 for an ati based board with integrated video. Otherwise, the above is a good estimate, but you could go down a notch with the power supply, the 380 can be found for as low as $60.

ninethirty · Post by **ninethirty** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 9:27 am

Yeti wrote:A quickie off the top of my head:

CASE
Antec SOLO, P150 or P180 $80-120

P180b $120 shipped http://shop4.outpost.com/product/484380 ... IN_RSLT_PG

It may be backordered, but I got mines in a matter of a week.

CPU
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 $180 www.newegg.com

Motherboard
www.zipzoomfly.com
Asus P5W DH Deluxe $240 (highest end)
Gigabyte GA-965P DS3 $150 (good, mid-range, with solid capacitors)

Memory
2GB DDR2 667 $189
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDe ... e=85002-32

PSU
Seasonic 430W (or the modular Seasonic M12 500 if you'd like to reduce cable clutter) $89-148

I believe your RAM might still be fine for a new motherboard, they still use DDR2.

The Antec P180 can come from Newegg, too -- they've had sales and free shipping deals on them over the past few weeks. Of course, you can get a cheaper case, but the P180 is nice and folks around here like it a lot.

If you go with the Core 2 Duo, there are a lot of motherboard options. The Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 is a fine board, but there are a series of 945-based boards that are cheaper and will do just as well.

You can probably keep the same RAM if money is tight. DDR2 RAM is really expensive right now, but likely will be cheaper in a few months. There was just a big spike in demand over the past couple of months. Problem is, the Core 2 Duo motherboards want faster RAM than you have; not sure if you can underclock it to use PC-4300. Anyone know?

I agree with ryboto -- I think the Seasonic 380w (~$60 from newegg) would be plenty.