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Thread ID: 89319 2008-04-27 15:18:00 Buying a PC whitts (5961) Press F1
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663114 2008-04-27 15:18:00 Hey,
I am thinking of buying a new pc or one in good condition, excluding a monitor or keyboard or mouse. My price limit is around $500, what would i expect for that price? I want to use it for everyday uses with a bit of gaming and photo editing but nothng too extreme. I saw this advertised for $530:

CPU: AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core 4600+ 2.4Ghz 1mb l2 AM2 - Very fast Dual Core CPU enhanced multitasking

Motherboard: M2N-MX SE Plus
Asus M2N-MX SE Plus Support AMD Socket AM2+ Cord Core CPU & AM2 Athlon 64 CPU mATX Geforce 6100 Chipset Onboard Video Share Up to 256MB 2XDDR2 800 PCI-E x 16 SATAII Raid)

Ram: 2GB DDR2-800 dual channel High performance memory with low latencies

Hard drive: seagate 250GB SATAII 7200RPM

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 6100
integrated with shared 256MB memory

Network: 10/100 mbps

Sound: SoundMax High Definition Audio

DVD: asus 20xDual layer DVD writer


Good deal? Any help would be great.

Thanks.
whitts (5961)
663115 2008-04-27 19:41:00 What operating system is it running XP or Vista makes a difference but should run both well. gary67 (56)
663116 2008-04-27 21:23:00 Budget system with onboard graphics, might be Ok for things like playing in places like Yahoo etc, but not for any sort of serious gaming,

You dont mention the Case, Power Supply, or OS?

Just doing a quick price add up from some of my vendors - looking at those components, someone would have to be giving away the OS, or it doesn't come with one.

Old story - get what you pay for.
wainuitech (129)
663117 2008-04-27 22:07:00 Posted in F1 this morning:

www.trademe.co.nz

Second hand machine with OS
jwil1 (65)
663118 2008-04-27 23:34:00 Sounds like a pretty decent machine, but as others have mentioned, it's missing some information. I would rather go with XP than Vista, Vista is heavy on resources and 2GB of RAM is, I would almost say, a minimum. MEC (13672)
663119 2008-04-28 10:09:00 For cheap PCs and onboard graphics, XP is better. For all others, it's Vista ftw. pcuser42 (130)
663120 2008-04-28 14:21:00 I do have a xp os so that is not a worry. Whats a decent grahpics card that wud play most of the games currently? What are your thoughts on buying a pc that is not new...likelyhood of future trouble with them? whitts (5961)
663121 2008-04-29 02:21:00 I do have a xp os so that is not a worry. Whats a decent grahpics card that wud play most of the games currently? What are your thoughts on buying a pc that is not new...likelyhood of future trouble with them?

If you are on a tight budget "and it seems you are" I would go for one of these two configs and seriously consider overclocking. The Intel will easily beat the AMD if overclocking both to there near max, on stock they will perform very similar.

Intel
$69.00 CORSAIR TWIN2X2048-6400 2x1GB DDR2 800MHZ CL5
$112.00 XFX MG-630I-7109 nForce 630i MCP/GeForce 7100i INTEL LGA775
$110.00 Intel Pentium E2180, 2.0GHz (OC up to 3.0GHz)
$75.00 Asus ATX Case w/ 350w PSU
$41.00 Pioneer DVR-212 Dual Layer Serial-ATA DVD Writer review
$80.00 Seagate Barracuda 250GB 7200 8MB NCQ 3.5" SATAII
= $487.00 Total inc gst, ex shipping

AMD
$69.00 CORSAIR TWIN2X2048-6400 2x1GB DDR2 800MHZ CL5
$141.00 Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H AM2+ Phenom/ AM2 Athlon 64 AMD 780G (slightly faster OB GPU)
$97.00 2.1GHz 4600+ w/hsf (OC up to 2.8GHz)
$75.00 Asus ATX Case w/ 350w PSU
$41.00 Pioneer DVR-212 Dual Layer Serial-ATA DVD Writer review
$80.00 Seagate Barracuda 250GB 7200 8MB NCQ 3.5" SATAII
= $503.00 Total inc gst, ex shipping

Borrowed from (slight alterations)
www.gpforums.co.nz

As for additional video card a 9600Gt at around $240 is a excellent performer, or a 8800GT at about $290 is about 15-20% faster.
Battleneter2 (9361)
663122 2008-04-29 03:34:00 Might be a stupid question - but what is overclocking? whitts (5961)
663123 2008-04-29 06:28:00 Only problem with the prices mentioned above - unless you are going to build it yourself & collect all the parts yourself, you need to add The price for someone to build it, and freight.

The freight from various places can easily combine to be $30 +

To answer your question regarding overclocking ---

To put it in its simplest terms, overclocking is taking a computer component such as a processor and running at a specification higher than rated by the manufacturer.

Also read into that - the moment you overclock a component theres a very good chance you can kiss goodbye to the components Warranty, as you are running it at a higher spec than it was designed to run at. Over clocking voids the warranty, shortens the Components life, usually creates more heat, and if over clocked to much will make the system unstable.
wainuitech (129)
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