Building a PC - budget of 30k: Comments please

[sakumar79]

Hi,
I am planning to assemble a PC, but I have a budget of around 30k to work with. This is what I plan:
1. CPU: Athlon XP2600+ with 512kB L2 cache
2. Motherboard: Planning to buy VIA KM400 or nVidia2 chipset based mobo. What I need in the mobo is min. DDR333 support, onboard VGA with the option of upgrading to AGP 8x graphics card, SATA or PATA is fine, prefer 3 memory slots.
3. Cabinet with 350 Watts SMPS
4. Memory: 512MB DDR333
5. Hard Disk: 80 GB 7,200 rpm HDD SATA or PATA based on Mobo choice.
6. CD: CDRW drive (already have a combo drive in another system, will probably swap the two...)
7. Floppy: Whats that for?
8. Monitor: 17" CRT Samsung
9. Keyboard/Mouse: Logitech standard keyboard and scroll mouse (already have optimal mouse on another system, will certainly swap the two)
10. Sound card: Please let me know if Creative SB Live is worth purchasing if you have onboard sound
11. Speakers: Creative Inspire 4.1 or 2.1
12. Graphics Card: Probably wont buy immediately, but probably will go for the budget FX5200.

Thanks in advance,
Arun

[lamrinnirmal]

it should work out i guess..........i dont know the costs in madurai......but try to buy it in a place like the equivalent of lamington road in mumbai or sp road in bangalore..they are not exactly grey markets . and the best thing to do is ......when you are starting out......take a print out of your config and make several copies of it.........go to every shop and find out the individual price of each component........then these guys will know that you are doin a research and they ll give you their best prices.

[pimpom]

You have obviously given a lot of thought to this. Some comments and a couple of suggestions -

1. CPU : good choice for your budget.
2. Mobo : the nForce2 is generally regarded as the best chipset for Athlon XPs, especially since you intend to use onboard gfx for some time. The Krypton C18G-400 (actually a Biostar M7NCG-400) fits your requirements perfectly. Personally I prefer it even to the generally similar Asus A7N8X-VM as the Krypton board has better features (I posted a comparision in another thread).

4. Memory : go for DDR400. The price difference is minimal and you can run it at 400MHz when you add a separate gfx card. And 2x256MB instead of a single 512MB stick so that you can run them in dual-channel mode. You'll still have one spare slot left.

5. Hard disk : I've found Seagate Barracuda 7.2krpm drives to be very reliable. I've installed >100 of these in 40-120GB capacities and none has failed or even developed bad sectors except for a very few that were grossly mistreated.

8. Monitor : Good for its price class. I've used lots of them and have no complaint. Good resolution and picture geometry.

9. Optimal mouse ? What's that ?.... Just kidding

10. Sound card : largely a personal matter. Onboard sound is good enough for the average user.

11. Speakers : good for their price class. 4.1 isn't really necessary for music, but if gaming's your thing....

12. Graphics card : Saving up for that ? Then I suggest you aim for something a little higher than an FX5200.

[KHUBBU]

Configuration at a glance:

AMD Athlon XP 2200+ (Rs. 3,350)
Krypton C18G-400 Motherboard (Rs. 4,000)
Hynix 2 x 256 MB PC-400 DDR RAM (Rs. 4,200)
ATX cabinet with 300 Watts SMPS (Rs. 1,200)
Hitachi Deskstar 80 GB Hard Drive (Rs. 3,200)
Samsung 773S 17" Monitor (Rs. 5,800)
GeForce 4 MX AGP Onboard (Nil)
Lite-On 52X CD-Writer (Rs. 1,700)
Realtek 5.1 channel sound card onboard (Nil)
Altec Lansing AVS-200 Stereo Speakers (Rs. 500)
Logitech Spill-resistant Standard Keyboard (Rs. 300)
Samsung Scroll Mouse (Rs. 200)
56 Kbps Internal Modem (Rs. 450)
LAN Card Onboard (Nil)
Total Rs. 24,900/-


There you go, a neat machine for under 25K. Enjoy.

this was on a techtree article date:2004-09-24

for more details: http://www.techtree.com/techtree/jsp...d=53917&upto=3

[rakesh_1024]

For 30k, u can easily get an AMD64

[sakumar79]

Thanks for all the replies.... Some comments from my side:
1. Krypton mobo has great specs, but I also need to know if there are authorised service centers in Chennai or at least in Bangalore and if so, the address, etc. Also, info on the website address of Krypton mobos will be useful.
2. Pl tell me which reasonably affordable Altec Lansing speakers will be good for listening to music and some gaming.
3. What will be the performance diff. b/w running 2x256MB DDR333 in Dualchannel and using 2x256MB DDR400 in dualchannel. And what is the price difference between the two?
Otherwise, I think my specs will be quite similar to what is being mentioned here. Only, AMD64 is out of the picture for now...
Thanks in advance
Arun

[icecoolz]

Arun,

You have a very similar config to mine. I have a higher end graphics card and my mobo is diff to urs. Look for the ASUS mobo. They are extremely good. Also since they are very popular service centre's wont be a problem for them and plus they come with a 3 year warranty.

[delhibhai1000]

hi,
I live in Delhi & wanna sell my RAM:

1)USED with 2yr WARRANTY LEFT 256Mb DDR266 with Aluminium Heatspreader
BRAND: GVC
In Excellent condition.
PRICE EXPECTED: 1400Rs.

2)USED with 2yr WARRANTY LEFT 128Mb DDR 266
BRAND: GVC
PRICE EXPECTED: 600Rs.

I will courier the RAM anywhere in India for free.

[KHUBBU]

rakesh is right u cud get an AMD 64. check this out:

http://www.techtree.com/techtree/jsp...d=53332&upto=4

[pimpom]

Originally Posted by sakumar79

Thanks for all the replies.... Some comments from my side:
1. Krypton mobo has great specs, but I also need to know if there are authorised service centers in Chennai or at least in Bangalore and if so, the address, etc. Also, info on the website address of Krypton mobos will be useful

3. What will be the performance diff. b/w running 2x256MB DDR333 in Dualchannel and using 2x256MB DDR400 in dualchannel. And what is the price difference between the two?

1. Krypton is a trademark of Priya. Go to www.priyagroup.com or www.biostar.com.tw and follow the links. Sorry I can't give you the exact page - my connection has been abominably slow these past few days.

3. I don't have the figures in my head for either question, but
1) DDR333 can be run at upto 333MHz w/o overclocking and DDR400 at 400MHz - you can draw some conclusions from that. Won't be hard to find some benchmarks if you google for it.
2) I've bought only DDR400 for quite some time now - price diff should be just a few per cent.
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