I am looking for a new comp. I had this setup quotied to me for $679.
What are the pros and cons on this and is this too much for the comp.

Also ive looked on newegg and tigerdirect and I cant seem to find some of this. I have a guy that will build a comp for me for $100 and was wondering if I ordered it seperate would I come out better moneywise.

CASE: ($20 off Mail-in Rebate) Apevia X-Cruiser Mid-Tower 420W Case W/ WINDOW, MultiMeter Display & Control (Blue Color)
CPU: (Sckt775)Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8400 CPU @ 3.0GHz 1333FSB 6MB L2 Cache 64-bit
MOTHERBOARD: MSI P7N SLI-FI 750i SLI Chipset LGA775 Supports LGA775 FSB1333 DDR2/800 Mainboard w/GbLAN, USB2.0, &7.1Audio
MEMORY: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair or Major Brand)
VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT 1GB 16X PCI Express (Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA)
VIDEO CARD 2: NONE
VIDEO CARD 3: NONE
LCD Monitor: NONE
HARD DRIVE: Single Hard Drive (500GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)
Data Hard Drive: NONE
Optical Drive: (Special Price) LG 20X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BLACK COLOR)
Optical Drive 2: NONE
SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO

Depends on what you want to do with it.

Case: 420w will do depending on if you want to add anything in the future. Today's processors are not as energy hungry as in the past, and if you're never going to go SLI on your video cards, you should be ok.

CPU: Same CPU I have. Its a good gaming CPU.

Motherboard: I've had MSI boards and have really liked them. I went with ASUS this last upgrade though since the MSI bios update program doesn't work under 64 bit windows.

Memory: I believe that board has 4 ram slots. It wouldn't cost that much to up it to 3GB of ram.

Video Card: Bleh. If you're going to be gaming, don't get an 8600. At the very least get a 8800GT.

Hard drive: It'll do.

Optical Drive: It'll do.

Sound: I've never been a huge sound aficionado, so onboard sound has always been fine by me.


Does it come with an OS? If yes, its an OK deal. If no... eh.


Here's the prices I found:

Case: ~$100 with 450 - 500w power supply

CPU: $175 from NewEgg

MoBo: $120 from NewEgg

Memory: $60 4GB kit from ZipZoomFly (after MIR)

Video Card: $160 (8800 GTS from NewEgg, after MIR)

Hard Drive: $70 (500GB SATA2, 16MB buffer from NewEgg)

Optical Drive: $27 (Combo... and its not LG)

So... thats $712 after MIR's and before Tax and Shipping, and you'd have to build it yourself. The benefit is that it has a MUCH better video card and more ram.

Now... you could shave some of that off. Going with a 2 GB ram kit.. if you wait for a deal like this (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227139)... that shaves off $40.

If you went with a 8800 GT ($109 for http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130359 at NewEgg *coupon code VGA72320 at checkout*) that shaves another $50.

The case was a guess-timation... you can get them as cheap as $33 from NewEgg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811156201) with a 450w power supply, though I would suggest doing some research into any for that price and see if anyone has had problems with it. I've had OK experiences with cheap power supplies in the past, but they can be a nightmare. So, lets say you went with that one, cheapest you can go... that saves $65...

So the minimum then hits $557 + tax and shipping and after MIRs... if you could build it yourself, this would be the way to go. But for $100 for someone else to build it, it hits $657. Though, you would have a better gaming card. Not as pretty a case, though.

Also note that for an additional ~$40 you could have two 250GB hard drives in a raid0 instead of one 500GB, which would give you a speed increase for disk I/O.

Its going to be used for casual gaming and pictures. The system does not come with an O/S.

Thanks for the input Akom!

Agree on the video card; go with the 8800 rather than the 8600.

MEMORY: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair or Major Brand)

I just bought 4gigs of ram for $65 (this was after a mail in rebate, was $90 + tax up front). It made a huge difference in my computers performance at little cost.

omg Gerf for President!

sorry other than that I have no advice. I haven't really been following computers now that I don't play online games really anymore, well besides COD4 but even that is just a quick game here and there. As long as my computer handles the odd computer game like Mass Effect and COD4 that I throw at it I am happy.

I have had stability issues with MSI and ASUS boards, I stick with Intel. They don't have all the bells and whistles for overclocking, but very stable and last a long time. I have a D865PERL that still works perfectly after 5 years.

You should consider an ATI video board, considering the recent info concerning Nvidia GPUs....

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-g84-g86-chips-overheating,6121.html

Yeah... you'd better avoid NVidia because a batch of their low end GPUs, that suck anyway, have issues.

/sarcasm off

G86 = GeForce 8300, 8400 and 8500.
G84 = Geforce 8600


The card I suggested, the 8800GTS 512, is a G92.

It's starting to show that NVidia may have some chipset problems stemming from the failed chips as well...

and Hi Gerf and Davan