building a gaming machine

tomster2300 · April 18th, 2003, 06:27 PM

I'm planning on building a new gaming machine for my birthday and I was wondering what anyone suggests for parts. Any combination will work, as long as the total $400. I already have a floppy drive and a monitor. If you have to you it can equal 600. Any combos would help. Thanks.

poopeyhed2 · April 18th, 2003, 06:52 PM

You can start by checking out Newegg's selction

Also, if you have alot of computer knowledge, especially troubleshooting, looking at Newegg's refurbed section isn't bad, because my uncle and I have the same refurbed mobo from Newegg and my brother just got a Chaintech TI4200 from Newegg, all of them refurbed and runs like new. They are awesome steals IMO.

VHockey86 · April 18th, 2003, 06:57 PM

Well if you want it to be cheap id go with an AMD...

You could find a good motherboard for about 70~80 dollars
AMD XP 1700+ is .... 67.00 retail
40 GB HDD - 59.00
512 pc 2100 RAM - 60.00-70.00
gf4 ti4200 - 135.00~150.00
CD-RW - 50.00
DVD-Rom - 30.00
Case + PSU - 50.00~70.00

If you want help picking out specific model/parts let us know

shawshank62 · April 18th, 2003, 07:23 PM

1700 xp

450 p/s i have been using this for 2 months and the voltages are rock solid, great p/s.

chieftec case I have the same case just with a window, great airflow, easy to take and put things back. swing out trays. great buy.

epox 8rda mobo will anyone disagree with this choice???

512mb pc3200 geil ram ive never personally used giel, but i have heard it is some of the best, especially for ocing.

Gforce 3 ti200 128mb

i calculated those costs coming to 403 bucks, not including shipping.

EDIT: oh crap, totally forgot about cdrom, dvd, and hds

. this will really take some penny pinching to fit that in 400 dollars.

Maxtor 40gb HD good stable drive, highly recommended

Lite-on 16x dvd Have been using this for about 10 months, great.

Lite on 52x24x52 cd-rw never had any problems with lite-on, great deal on that drive.

Everything totaled up comes to 542 w/o shipping, so it would probably cost like 600 shipped. which is still a great deal when you thik about it.

tomster2300 · April 18th, 2003, 08:49 PM

thanks guys for the combos. Here's a new question: Do you recommend buying from newegg over any other site? And also which brands are better than other? Keep those mobos rolling in!

goldenbuddha · April 18th, 2003, 08:55 PM

For 400 bucks, I would go with Nvidia's Nforce2 Motherboards, as they come with audio and video. If you get seperate parts, although better, would push your budget way over.

Newegg is great, especially if you are out of Cali (no sales tax)

shawshank62 · April 18th, 2003, 09:15 PM

i think for cd-rw/dvd lite-on is the probably one of the best out there. plextor is also excellent for cd-rw but are more expensive.

about the 8rda mobo i suggested, here are some reasons why folks around here love it Epox 8RDA - wow! Great overclocking!!

Omega Red · April 18th, 2003, 09:22 PM

I agree with goldenbuddha, I have the MSI K7N2G-L mobo and its rock solid and performs superbly. I'm not using the on-board stuff, but still yet for the price you get an OK on board vid display and a great sound output controller. I also installed the MSI GeForce 4 Ti 4800 8X agp vid card for greater stability.

goldenbuddha · April 18th, 2003, 09:30 PM

Lite-ON CD burners and DVDrom drives are not only cheap, but are great drives, I have setup many systems with them, bottom line is they work great and cost little. I bet you can get both for 100 bucks total.

davidamarkley · April 18th, 2003, 09:53 PM

Yes, I have to agree with everyone... The Lite On drives are about the best CD-RW and DVD drives out there. Plextor is just a tad better, and a lot more $$.

Newegg and MWave Direct are about the two best parts resellers IMO. Newegg will even ship things for free depending on the item. While you're browsing Newegg.com look at the product descriptions and they will tell you how much the S/H will be and whether it will be free or not.

David