Newegg $200 budget. help me shop

[jjoel]

what i have: 40 gb hardrive and cd drives
what i need is a processor, ram, motherboard, and case.

processor: pretty decent, probably a sempron probably will have to use stock fan but i dont plan on overclocking.

case: must have power supply. preferably a white type color (not black)

ram: would like 512 mb

motherboard: must be compatible with the processor and have video unless we can get an agp card for this budget price.

[saphalline]

Processor

$70 - Sempron 2800+ Palermo retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819104224)

Case

$95 - Antec Solution SLK2650-BQE retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811129148)

RAM

$44 - Rosewill 512MB PC3200 retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820223009)

Mobo

$60 - Chaintech MK8M800 retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813152048)
$81 - MSI RS480M-IL retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130513)

It's a tight squeeze. If you didn't need a new case and PSU, it would be easy. But with only $200 for all of that, it can't be done without making some rather grievous sacrifices. As it is, I had to pick less than adequate RAM (check out those horrible timings!). You might want to wait until your budget increases...

[dr_insanity]

Processor

Case

$95 - Antec Solution SLK2650-BQE retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811129148)

...

If you're not too fussy about looks, you should be able to get a bog-basic case with simple 300w PSU for no more than $30. I know you get them them for under £20 in England, and I was under the impression computer parts were cheaper in the 'States.

[saphalline]

you should be able to get a bog-basic case with simple 300w PSU for no more than $30.Like I said, you can't get all that hardware for that budget without cutting some corners. A PSU bundled with a $30 case is going to be $hit worthless!! I wouldn't trust anything more powerful than an old PII system with a PSU like that! My advice is that if you can't afford a decent PSU, don't even bother building the PC in the first place...

[hockey man]

Good advice. The psu is your systems backbone-don't skimp!

[dr_insanity]

I've been running an athlon XP2800+ on said cheap and cruddy PSU for the last 2 years without a glimpse of any power problems, if you're only thinking of running a lower end chip such as a sempron, it should be more than adequate.

[saphalline]

Sometimes you get lucky. I have gotten lucky before - still using a bundled 300W PSU for older systems. But not every bundled PSU is decent enough to use, and sometimes you don't get lucky.

Not only that, but there are many other variables associated with electricity, including line quality, area-specific dirty power, and the hardware in the system. I'm not saying you can't use whatever you want, I'm just making a recommendation.

[jjoel]

hey, something just came up. a guy i work with just upgraded his computer.

he is willing to sale me a p4 2.8ghz with heatsink (he said the heatsink was $40 new so probably a nice one) and then a geforce 3 ti-4000 (i think) card and a motherboard all for about $100.

only probably, he said that the northgate of the motherboard had the heatsink fall off of it. is it possible for me to get the heatsink back on? he's been running the mboard for awhile without the heatsink and just kept a fan on it the whole time. i forgot the exacts about the board but it was $200 new (overclockers board) so i mean all the stuff is decent. let me know about the northgate of the board, if worse comes to worse i can just get a different board

[saphalline]

That sounds like a really good deal! Getting the heatsink back onto the northbridge should be easy. You can either buy a new HSF unit for it, or buy some Arctic Silver Adhesive and glue it on.