Can you move to Australia so we can do business?
snerk
Just out of curiousity, could you build something similar to the Ars budget box?
Except I’d want a quad core processor and a better video card
No need for WoW, and I can do theKB / mouse monitor myslef
Thanks
Brian
only challenge with such guides is abandon the prices they quote…just for information purposes, not intending or trying to be snarky.
#1 they have not accounted for shipping (wholesaler-me, then me to you)
#2 zero build labor, they assume this is a DIY project.
#3 they have hunted down the cheapest price they could find even if the parts are sourced from 8 different places making it more expensive to ship those parts (as a bunch of parts in the same box are almost always cheaper than 1 part each in 8 boxes.
#4 Did you want windows on that? How about a PSU that isn’t going to choke on anything extra… 380W… Really?
That said, my build for going to a quadcore version with a heftier VGA card, I stuck with AMD/Radeon since your build was an AMD/Radeon.
AMD CPU HDZ560WFGMBOX Phenom II X2 560 Black Edition 3.3GHz AM3 7MB
Sapphire Video Card 100315L Radeon HD 6850 1GB DDR5 PCI Express Dual DVI-I / DVI-D / HDMI /
Antec Power Supply EA-650 Green 650W Earthwatts ATX 12V v2.3 APFC SATA PCI Express 80PLUS BRONZE
Kingston Memory 2GB DDR3 1066MHz PC3-8500 Non-ECC CL7 240-pin DIMM Unbuffered
Seagate HDD 1TB ST31000528AS SATA 3Gb/s Desktop Storage 7200 rpm 32MB Cache Bare Drive
Standard Case Mid Tower 3238 4/1/6 Drive Bays
Gigabyte Motherboard GA-MA78LMT-S2 AMD AM3 760G/SB710 PCI Express DDR3 microATX Retail
Samsung DVDRW SH-S223C/BEBE 22X SATA
about $925+shipping.
Might as well drop the 650 W PSU and Nspire case then pick up a Sonata III case + 500W PSU combo instead. That’s more than enough power and you can sink the $20 you save into moving up to 4 GB of RAM. Plus you can still find 5850s priced under the 6850, which is a smarter way to spend $180. A SpinPoint F3 greatly outperforms the Seagate 7200.12, despite costing the same amount.
/better build at the same price.
Thanks. I might still build myself - just wanted to how much I have to value my time. (I did do a price check at one place)
Brian
a clarification that ram should be 2 sticks of the item mentioned, the price quoted is 4GB
Don’t you think it would make a much better quadcore system if it had a quadcore CPU?
MOM!!!
Jesus, I’m just glad I came out of this thread with what little brain I still have!
I saw the “WoW” reference and decided to see what it was about. The only term familiar to me was “motherboard”.
BTW, I know this is buy and sell. Just couldn’t help myself and had to post.
Thanks
Q
$1,150 ?! You’re ripping me off. I can buy all those parts online fro only $600!:mad:
If anyone hasn’t seen the other thread, I’m just kidding. Rumor is Drach puts out good stuff at a fair price.
The “on wall” system is quite fascinating. I’ve never built a system but have been itching to do so as of late and I’ve often wondered why a person couldn’t fabricate his/her own box or mounting system. I understand the need for dust and debris protection, which I’m not sure this particular system addresses," but it does seem to me that this approach would keep a system running cooler much easier. As far as ever having to move it, either for a LAN party or whatever, I’m sure that it would be a pain. However I think I’m going to give it a go.
Any other reasons why this wouldn’t be good?
For an “on wall” system?
High sensitivity to ambient temperature, primarily. It’s been my experience that if you buy a cheap case, taking off the sides and/or exposing it to still ambient air will generally cool it a bit–but if you have a case with any halfway decent design, cooling will be more efficient than “exposed to ambient air” due to the ability to create thermal zones and areas of much greater airflow.
As for building one’s own case in general? The biggest consideration is not grounding anything that’s not supposed to be grounded, and vice-versa. Most of the custom-case builders I see at LAN parties work in plexiglass, but I’ve seen some who work with wood. Keep in mind when selecting materials that you’re dealing with potential temperatures of 95C+.
I may be in the market for a new box soon. I’m comfortable doing a lot of assembly on my own, but like Hirka, getting the processor and fan on the mobo tends to make me a bit paranoid. (Last time was a huge wrestling match until I thought I had it secured–as did the person who was helping out–only to find out later that the fan and heatsink worked itself loose, which probably caused some kind of damage to the processor and/or mobo that’s manifested as a habit of randomly freezing and/or resetting.)
How would you feel about someone coming up with a build, having you verify that everything will work properly together, and then that person purchasing those parts and shipping them to you for assembly? Would you have any interest in negotiating a fee just for the assembly and shipping of the completed unit? I assume a warranty for the work would still apply, then, as well?
If you’re dealing with Intel stock coolers (or cheaper aftermarket ones) I feel your pain. The solution is aftermarket coolers with a backplate and screws.
Yyyyyyyyyyyyup. Stock cooler on a Core 2 Quad Q9550 (“Yorkfield”).
I have no problems with the idea of doing an assembly with customer provided parts however I would not warranty those parts against failure (you didn’t buy them from me after all) part of our markup on a part is that we assume that liability. You would be warranted against any failure in craftsmanship on my part, like I ship it and the whole thing arrives destroyed because I didnt screw in the hard drive and it bounced all over the inside of the case smashing stuff, or I cut a power supply wire trimming a wire tie. Anything like that is gonna be extremely rare. Its kinda tough to screw up hardware assembly at our level. If the machine fires and runs long enough for a windows install, its probably fine.
Just as a hypothetical, what happens if a part dies in the middle of the windows install? If its my board, its my problem, I grab another part off shelf, swap it out, get back to work. IF your part blows, do I have another one? Will you want me to ship it back to you or RMA it to the manufacturer? Who is paying for that shipping? Alot of uncomfortable questions that no customer is ever going to like come up doing this. I have no problems doing this for one of the dopers, because its right here in the open for anyone to read what my policy is on the matter.
Price to build with your parts $150-200 +shipping depending on complexity (do you want things like RAID, SLI, additional sound hardware, specialized software or hardware setup).
By the time you buy it, they ship it to you, you ship it to me, then I ship it back to you, there is a decent chance it would be cheaper to just have me provide the parts.
What do you think of the MSI motherboards versus ASUS or Gigabyte?
MSI makes a solid board but I use them as a 3rd choice behind Asus or Gygabyte. Of the 3 machines we built this week, all had ASUS boards.
Good question–I’d already thought that if a part were defective after I’d received it, I’d just handle the RMA, but I didn’t think about something being DOA to you.
Well, there’s an extra layer of shipping in there–I’d have it just go straight to you from the vendor.
Welp, one way or another, I strongly suspect that you’ll be hearing from me in the next few months, unless I run across a ridiculously good deal on a prebuilt box.
I dunno if this is kosher but I’d like to put in my recommendation for drachillix and his work / expertise. He put together a custom system for me that’s very similar to the above offer (mine has more memory/hard drive space but a smaller power supply), and now that I’ve had it for about six weeks I can safely say how thrilled I am with it. Runs games smooth as butter and multitasks graphic design programs without missing a beat. Very quiet, too.
Not to mention that he handled my silly questions along the way with patience and wisdom. So you can add great customer service as well.
Anyway, I just wanted to thank him in public and add me as a reference. Thanks!