One step down from the Super PC?

[Golf4food]

Hello everyone. Great site. It's been quite helpful so far. My current PC - last upgraded in 2002 - is on the verge of biting the dust I fear, and I would love a new one anyway, so I have earnestly begun looking for a new one and think I want to just build it myself to keep the costs down and get exactly what I need/want. Money is a small issue, however, so going all out isn't an option right now. My tally for the below specs taken from the main page of the SuperPC site adds up to around $732.69 not including tax or shipping where necessary:

Antec Sonata III with 500-Watt power supply- $99.99
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ 3.0 Ghz AM2 with Fan - $99.99
Zalman CNPS9500 AM2 - $44.99
ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless Edition - $199.99
Crucial Ballistix 1024MB PC2-8500 DDR2 - $37.99 (x3)
eVGA GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR3 - $49.99
Western Digital Caviar SE16 640GB 7200rpm SATA 300 MB/s - $84.99
Sony DRU840A Dual Formal Double Layer DVD RW/CDRW - $38.78
(All prices as of today - some are on sale... woohoo!)

I'd love to be able to whittle that down closer to the $500 range if at all possible, so what can I back down on to trim some dollars?

For the record, my current system is a 1.8 Ghz Athlon AMD, MSI MS6380E 1.0 motherboard running 1GB RAM (because one of the three slots is dead), nVidia GeForce Ti 4600 video card, and an 80GB HD with a second older 11GB HD (that is from 1998 and quite slow by modern standards, of course). Anything I get new will be quite a bit faster than what I have!

I mainly need this PC to do:

- I run a heavy duty music notation program (Finale) and have multiple large sound libraries that combined eat RAM like candy - I need as much RAM as possible and plenty of HD space to store the libraries and files.

- I am also a photographer so plenty of storage space for thousands of photos (I'll have a backup HD to store copies, as well as burning them to DVD/CD)

- Don't do much gaming and have never had problems video wise with my current setup so I don't need a top of the line gaming video card, even a small upgrade over the old Ti 4600 should be plenty for my needs

- My computer desk area gets warm so I want to make sure the system is well cooled - the current one is overheating and freezing up on my since we moved (and I don't want to spend a lot of money replacing its fan if I'm just going to buy a new PC anyway)

So if anyone has ideas for maybe taking the SuperPC down a notch or two that would still give me an upgrade over my current dinosaur, I would greatly appreciate it. I am at the point now where I know just enough to get myself into trouble if I were to try and piece everything together by myself without asking for help, haha.

[Dan Curtis]

Golf,

I just built my first computer and I used a AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor. I have the Antec Sonata III case.

I also bought a Zalman CNPS 9500 fan.

But the processor comes with a fan and I decided to use that one. The Zalman is still in the box.

My system temp runs around 39 C and my cpu temp is around 38 C.

I don't do any games so I am sure that would increase the temperature but for me it works fine. So that would save a little money.

You might be able to skip the eVGA GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR3, although I have that card and I like the graphics I get.

I went with 2 megabytes of memory and it is plenty for me.

Dan

[Khapheen]

Hi Golf,

I can second that re: the fan. When putting my (nearly identical) system together a month ago, the fan showed up late. In my haste, I just installed the fan that came with the 6000, and it's done great.

I also think it's a great idea to peel back to 2GB of RAM, since that would probably be cheapest/easiest to upgrade later.

Also, it's my understanding that you could probably save a bit on the motherboard. I like that one a lot, but I think you could probably trim a few bucks there by giving up some of the 'extras' on the ASUS Wireless.

Additionally, you could go a bit smaller with the hard drive, and go for a lesser "brand name" DVD drive. Might be a hair noisier, but I never hear or notice mine, which I think I got for $20.

Re: the graphics card, you could do without it, but at that price (I put the same card in mine,) I would probably try to cut something out elsewhere.

Hope that helps!

[Golf4food]

Hi Golf,

I can second that re: the fan. When putting my (nearly identical) system together a month ago, the fan showed up late. In my haste, I just installed the fan that came with the 6000, and it's done great.

I also think it's a great idea to peel back to 2GB of RAM, since that would probably be cheapest/easiest to upgrade later.

Also, it's my understanding that you could probably save a bit on the motherboard. I like that one a lot, but I think you could probably trim a few bucks there by giving up some of the 'extras' on the ASUS Wireless.

Additionally, you could go a bit smaller with the hard drive, and go for a lesser "brand name" DVD drive. Might be a hair noisier, but I never hear or notice mine, which I think I got for $20.

Re: the graphics card, you could do without it, but at that price (I put the same card in mine,) I would probably try to cut something out elsewhere.

Hope that helps!

I have to max out the RAM because of the music program - more than anything it needs lots of RAM. Besides, at under $40 per GB I don't mind getting three.

Any ideas which motherboard to get if I back down on it?

I was already planning on dropping back on the hard drive by half to a 320 or maybe even down to a 250 and add a second later (I'd rather have two anyway to provide a separate backup location for photos).

I'll look around at other DVD drives, too. Thanks.

[Golf4food]

Would this bundle work for everything else I have outlined previously:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4088317&CatId=14

MSI K9N SLI -F Motherboard CPU Bundle - AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600 2.40GHz Processor - $149.99

Antec Sonata III with 500-Watt power supply- $99.99
Zalman CNPS9500 AM2 - $44.99
Crucial Ballistix 1024MB PC2-8500 DDR2 - $37.99 (x2)
eVGA GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR3 - $49.99
Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 7200rpm SATA 300 MB/s - $64.99
Sony DRU840A Dual Formal Double Layer DVD RW/CDRW - $38.78

I know it wouldn't be quite as fast, but it would still be faster than what I have now and sounds like I could upgrade it down the road? Would drop my total down to the $525 range instead of over $700... which would be around my target... thoughts?

[Khapheen]

Looks good to me. Some of the more experienced guys might have more feedback on the bundle, but I think it's solid, especially for the price.

[Golf4food]

A few more tweaks, this time with Intel because of a bundle deal at Tiger Direct:

Intel DG35EC Mb/CPU Bundle (Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0 Ghz), 8GB RAM max (dual channel) - $269.99 @ Tiger Direct
Zalman cooling fan - $41.99 @ Newegg
Antec Sonata III Case with 500-watt power supply - $124.99 @ Amazon
2 x 1GB RAM - $41.99 @ Crucial
eVGA GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR3 - $49.99 @ Newegg
Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 7200rpm SATA 300 MBs - $64.99 @ Newegg
LG Electronics Securdisk DVD+/-RW DI 20X - $29.98 @ Amazon

Would bring the cost down to around $629.82 (plus tax & s/h) but still gives me a 3 Ghz CPU, room for plenty of RAM down the road, plenty of slots for HDs, etc. now.

Would that all be compatible?


One other thing I had forgotten - since I do a lot of photography a built in card reader would be nice, but is by no means necessary since I have USB readers now - anything particular to look for in a card reader?

[Khapheen]

Hi Golf,

I couldn't really say much about card readers (never used one), but I would assume anything that's available on newegg or Tiger would be compatible with your motherboard.

As for the rest, it all looks great to me but you didn't specify what kind of RAM you're using, so be sure you get memory that works with your motherboard. Also, no need to go higher speed than your mb (for instance, if your mb supports 800 ram, don't go 1066) - you'll just end up paying more for performance you can't use.

Also, be sure that you select a Zalman that works with your chip/mb set.

Hope that helps!