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Joined: Oct 2003
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As many of you know I will be heading off to college in the next month... I recently acquired a Gateway MX3225 Laptop for only $400 which gets 3 hours of battery life... which is perfect for me for taking notes and such... but since im going to school for networking, I need more of a powerhouse in my dorm. So I got to thinking "what saves space, is really powerful, and isnt redicuiliously expensive.... MiniPC."
So here is my current setup:
Athlon XP 2500+ Barton Core 1.87ghz
512Mb PC2700
120 gig primary hard drive
60 gig secondardy hard drive
Radeon 9600 256mb
Plextor PX-712A DVD burner
So a pretty basic setup... Its lacking in the Memory and video card department, and the processor is a stones throw away from being obsolete. I just decided it wquld be good to have something smaller an more powerful.
I plan to reuse my DVD rom and hard drives. So thats a big money saver. But I need a video card/memory/ barebones (mobo and case)and a processor... here is what I came up with.
-ASUS Pundit P1-AH1 AMD Socket 939 $169.99
-XFX PVT42EUDE3 Geforce 6800 XTreme 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 $134.77
-Patriot 1GB (2 x 512MB) $90.99
-AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 2000MHz $109.00
Shipping $26.73
Total - $531.48
price is a little higher then I wanted to go. I didnt want to go much over $450. But seems like a perfect setup... What I want to know is if anybody has any comments about any of the parts choices... Particullarly the video card, because ive been a little out of date on video cards. anything I get get a better bang for my buck for? I refuse to purchase another ATI product. I used to have a 9600 XT. but it burned out after 2 months of use, this 9600 I have now I had laying around, and its worse then my old TI4200.
98 Corolla LE 1.8L DOHC 1ZZFE
TEIN H.Tech Springs
Tokico HP series Struts
Short ram air intake
Tsudo Axel Back Exhaust
... if a jelly fish stung me.. would you pee on the wound?
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Joined: May 2006
Posts: 130
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CEG\'er
Joined: May 2006
Posts: 130 |
Don't buy XFX.
Go with BFG i have a BFG 6800gs oc (AGP)
otherwise looks good.
'98 2.5L Mystique LS T-Red
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Joined: Oct 2003
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Originally posted by Beans:
Don't buy XFX.
Go with BFG i have a BFG 6800gs oc (AGP)
otherwise looks good.
ok, I missed a very important detail on the minipc, there isnt any PCI express or AGP  so I think lets strike that from the list... any suggestions?
98 Corolla LE 1.8L DOHC 1ZZFE
TEIN H.Tech Springs
Tokico HP series Struts
Short ram air intake
Tsudo Axel Back Exhaust
... if a jelly fish stung me.. would you pee on the wound?
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Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 52
CEG\'er
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CEG\'er
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 52 |
Originally posted by Beans:
Don't buy XFX.
Go with BFG i have a BFG 6800gs oc (AGP)
otherwise looks good.
that guy beans he can overclock hes card all he wants but the bottleneck is that he has agp and not pci express. from the list of parts you described you were getting a pci express card thats better than agp only if your motherboard has a slot for it. my current set up is
custom built
AMD Athlon 64 bit 4000 running at 2.4 gig
64 bit windows
1+1= 2 gigs ram with heatsinks getting 2 more gigs soon
2 300 gig raid hard drives 600 gigs total
nividia gefore 6800 pci express
benq lightscribe dvd burner
i can do 1 analog monitor out and 2 digital monitors
i run apache 2.0 also host my own site
http://oscarserrano.no-ip.info/ check out my website i pretty much update it daily if you have any questions about setting up your rig message me back or leave a comment on my page.
Last edited by bigworm; 07/23/06 06:02 PM.
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Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 979
Veteran CEG\'er
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Veteran CEG\'er
Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 979 |
This is wierd. I was just thinking of building my own destop, since its cheaper than laptops and they have more variety, and I have experience with custom destops.
I just bought my Nividia Geforce 7800GS OC (AGP) a few weeks ago and another gig of memory yesterday via ebay(both items). My dad upgraded the "family" computer with a new motherboard and intel processor.
To make my custom computer all I need is a motherboard, chip, another gig of mem(total of 2 gig), and a case since I have the other items.
What are you planning to do w/ your PC? If you plan to play games, upgrade your processor. Other than that you have a decent setup.
One more thing, if you want a better selection of graphic cards, find a motherboard that supports PCI-e and AGP slots.
My ride(Cardomain link) :
'95 Contour 16V Zetec DOHC, Teal , ATX
Born on Sep. 4, 1995
86+ miles
*LEDs mods are on their way!*
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Joined: May 2000
Posts: 3,143
Hard-core CEG'er
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Hard-core CEG'er
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 3,143 |
It's a little bit more money but you could get a shuttle like this one Has a PCI-E slot.
"Bros before Hoes" <-- More men need this mentality.
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Joined: Oct 2003
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Originally posted by Pete D:
It's a little bit more money but you could get a shuttle like this one
Has a PCI-E slot.
man thats nice, but my one gripe is the ATI onboard video... Im sure if I put an nvidia card in it would work... But id rather go nvidia FTW.
Im going to keep that one in my maybe pile...
98 Corolla LE 1.8L DOHC 1ZZFE
TEIN H.Tech Springs
Tokico HP series Struts
Short ram air intake
Tsudo Axel Back Exhaust
... if a jelly fish stung me.. would you pee on the wound?
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Joined: May 2000
Posts: 3,143
Hard-core CEG'er
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Hard-core CEG'er
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Posts: 3,143 |
Well they have a nvidia one for a few bucks more linky
"Bros before Hoes" <-- More men need this mentality.
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Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 5,143
Addicted CEG\'er
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OP
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Originally posted by Pete D:
Well they have a nvidia one for a few bucks more linky
kinda risky.. I found an open box barebones for $193
AOpen XC CUBE EZ482 AMD Socket 939 AMD Athlon 64 FX/Athlon 64/Sempron ATI RS482 Barebone - OEM
has a 14 day return policy. its like $50 cheaper then if I bought it new... im starting to not care so much about the ATI thing.
98 Corolla LE 1.8L DOHC 1ZZFE
TEIN H.Tech Springs
Tokico HP series Struts
Short ram air intake
Tsudo Axel Back Exhaust
... if a jelly fish stung me.. would you pee on the wound?
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Joined: May 2000
Posts: 1,228
Hard-core CEG\'er
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Hard-core CEG\'er
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 1,228 |
for the love of God and all that is holy - PLEASE build a Core 2 Duo system!!!!
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