Can I reuse parts to get out of the stone age on a budget?

[Convertible Guy]

Thanks so much for all the great advice on this site. I need to get off a 9+ year-old computer. Can I use the graphics card, monitor, speakers, keyboard, and mouse until I can afford to upgrade these?

The old components are from a Dell Dimension 4100 and are:
Graphics: 32MB NVIDIA TNT2 M64 APG
Monitor: Dell UltraScan P991 Color Monitor
Sound card: Sound Blaster Live! Value
Speakers: Altec Lansing ACS340
Keyboard: Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro
Mouse: Microsoft Intellimouse

I want to get the bundle currently available on Newegg:
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 Yorkfield 2.66GHz LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80580Q8400
MB: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard
HD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST31000528AS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
Case/PSU: Antec NSK658oB ATX Mid Tower Case, 430 Watts 80 PLUS Power Supply

And Add:
Memory: Crucial 8GB Kit (4GB x 2), 240-pin DIMM, DDR2 PC2-5300 CT2KIT51264AA667
Fan: Zalman CNPS9500 AT 2 Ball CPU Cooling Fan
DVD: Sony Optiarc 24X DVD/CD Drive SATA Model AD-7240S-0B

A new keyboard and mouse are not that expensive, so I could probably upgrade those now, but the components above are already $900 and without software!

Can I reuse any old components? Any comments on my proposed configuration are also welcome.

Thanks

[RickyTick]

You can re-use the mouse, keyboard, speakers, and monitor. The video card is the wrong interface to be compatible with the P45 motherboard. You can substitute a different video card for a reasonable price. Are you a gamer? There's really no need to re-use the sound card since the new mobo has excellent onboard sound.

The Q8400 cpu will come with a cooler, so you could save a few bucks by skipping on the Zalman cooler.

Also, 8gb is way too much ram. You only need 4gb (2x2gb).

Take the money saved from the ram and cooler, and buy a decent video card.

[zburns]

Hey Ricky, couple of points not directly related to your post. I could not find on Newegg this combo, above, not could I find the case at Antec. Beyond that, I would worrry about the 430 watt PSU. You almost have to assume 80% efficiency in figuring how much true watts you can get -- 344 watts at 80%.

Here is a link that shows a PSU calc. table I have not seen before:http://static.tigerdirect.com/html/powersuppliesGuide.html.

Here is the table I refer to: Component Wattage Required
Motherboard 15-30
Low-end CPU 20-50
Midrange to high-end CPU 40-100
RAM RAM 7 per 128MB
PCI add-in card 5
Low to midrange graphics board 20-60
High-End graphics board
60-100

IDE hard drive 10-30
Optical drives 10-25

While you may get by with 430 watts right now, there is almost no expansion room on the PSU. On the forum recently, there appear to have been two cases of PSU limiting graphics card performance by causing "crashes".

I am not saying "do not do the build as shown", but I would suggest Convertible Guy think it all thru carefully. On the forum, we treat the PSU as "no big deal" most of the time, but I do not recall that many cases of this low power range being used. Final comment, my perspective, PSUs are the wrong component to try to save money on!

[RickyTick]

He was talking about this case/psu.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129033 or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129045

This case/psu is often used in budget builds. Look at this one. It uses a similar setup, but with a 380 watt psu.
http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/18042/2

I agree that the psu is not a good place to use cheap parts, but I also think there is a lot of overkill in this department too. For years, Dell has been using 250 or 275 watt psu's in builds that have the basic cpu,gpu,hdd,dvd,&sound card. They don't seem to have any real issues until owners start doing a lot of premium upgrades.

Also, for only about $30 more, this guy could buy a Sonata III with the 500 watter and probably never have to worry about it again.

[zburns]

On the Antec home page I went to, the case number does not come up, yet I accidently found it on another Antec page. Both PSUs are probably 80% efficient so reduce the stated values by 0.8 and you have the max avail power.

He is going to use a quad processor, which means he would probably want a mid to high range video card asap. I would hope he would take your recc on the Sonata III with the 500 watt PSU; besides that the Sonata III does not let a lot of dust in.

[RickyTick]

He is going to use a quad processor, which means he would probably want a mid to high range video card asap.

We don't know if he's a gamer or not, so it's hard to say. My guess is he's not, so something very simple and inexpensive would be fine, like a 9400GT.



I would hope he would take your recc on the Sonata III with the 500 watt PSU; besides that the Sonata III does not let a lot of dust in.

Agreed. For such a small amount more in price, you really get a much better setup.

Also wanted to add this. Looks like the 430 watt psu is actually more like 84.75% efficient. fwiw
http://www.80plus.org/manu/psu/psu_reports/Antec_EA-430_430W_80PLUS_Report.pdf

This 80plus.org website is rather useful. I didn't know if you had seen it before or not.

[Convertible Guy]

You are correct, I'm not a gamer.

I was all set to reply that I was taking your advice by dropping the 8MB of memory and the fan and adding:

Memory: Crucial 4GB kit (2GB x 2), Ballistix 240-pin DIMM, DDR2 PC2-6400 (BL2KIT25664AA80A)
Graphics: eVGA 896-P3-1255-AR GeForce GTX260 Core 216 89bMB DDR3 PCI-E

I've been reading the posts above, and it appears I have more research to do on the PSU (and perhaps the video).

More to come... Thanks for the great advice. I'm definitely listening & learning.

Any thoughts about Win 7? I'm running Win XP Home Ed (upgraded to SP3) on the Dell I'm retiring. Does anyone know how the Win 7 upgrade version checks for an existing upgradable OS? Said another way, will I need to install Win XP on the new PC prior to the Win 7 upgrade, or is the Win XP install CD good enough?

[RickyTick]

You will need to install a new operating system. Win 7 is by far your best choice, and I would recommend the 64-bit version.

Since you're not a gamer, a GTX260 is way more than you need. Look at something like the GeForce 210 or Radeon 4550. You should be able to find something for under $50 that will work just fine.