Trying to build budget computer, need some opinions Options

[Painboy]

I'm building a rig for my friend. Trying to keep the costs low. 300ish if possible.

Just trying to get the most bang for the buck. I'm giving him my old 8800GT so the graphics card is already covered.

The Win 7 OS is going to cost 99 for an OEM, unless some one else knows how to get a cheaper legit copy.

These were the two combo deals I was looking at:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Se...mp;sku=B69-1204

This has pretty much everything I need but I'm not sure about the PSU only being 450w. It has the amps (25) according to the 8800GT specs. He isn't going to putting much of anything else in it to draw power though.

The other one I was looking at was this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleD...st=Combo.432214

I would still need to add an HD and DVD drive which would bring the cost a little higher than the other. The PSU is 585w and has two rails but looks like only a 19 and 20 amps from what I could read from the pictures. Not sure if thats actually worse.

Also not sure which cpu is actually the better. It's been awhile since I've looked into AMDs. The second one has a AMD Phenom X4 9850 2.5GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad Core and the other one has an Intel Pentium Dual Core E5300 2.60GHz. Is one substantially better than the other?

With shipping and all they both come out to about 360 and 390 respectively.

If anyone else can find better deals let me know. Thanks.

[Nimmer]

I think that is a great combo, but I think the psu you can get used and may be save some money. I have asked before but fell upon deaf ears we should have a section for used computer parts on the forums where we can use the parts to sell or donate to needy members or to people helping people out. This case being perfect example. I have a 160 g hd seagate sata that is just rotting away on my shelf. used all of maybe 5x or 1 hour. pay the freight and its yours. I have countless highend fans for cpu that have universal brackets and other stuff you or others may find usefull.

cd burner dvd combo on new egg is like 25 bucks now and its sata so less wire clutter.

good luck

[Painboy]

I think that is a great combo, but I think the psu you can get used and may be save some money. I have asked before but fell upon deaf ears we should have a section for used computer parts on the forums where we can use the parts to sell or donate to needy members or to people helping people out. This case being perfect example. I have a 160 g hd seagate sata that is just rotting away on my shelf. used all of maybe 5x or 1 hour. pay the freight and its yours. I have countless highend fans for cpu that have universal brackets and other stuff you or others may find usefull.

cd burner dvd combo on new egg is like 25 bucks now and its sata so less wire clutter.

good luck

I'm definitely interested in that hard drive. I'll talk to my buddy and let you know. I want to make sure 160g is going to be enough for him. Also is it IDE or SATA? And if I said yes would you be able to ship it in the next couple days?

[=SPETER=]

I'm wondering if you want to get a little better motherboard with Sata 6 and USB 3.0 with DDR3 support... the price beats mine by $35 so its a great combo. However, the mobo, CPU, and memory in the combo are 2 year old parts... for $35 for newer parts... I'd weight that a bit. If it were me, I'd spend the extra $35 so I could upgrade versus spending more later on a new motherboard/processor/ram combo.

Gigabyte GA-770T $80 (has SATA 6, USB 3.0, and DDR3)
AMD Athon II X3 440 $77 (comparable to the 9850, in some areas a little faster for the same price)
A Data Gaming Series 2 GB DDR3 1600 $50 (I've been using this stuff in all of my systems lately, its cheap and its good ram without issues)

Get the same Case/ PSU listed $ $57 not a bad combo... the cases I've been using were $35 plus a $50 PSU...

$264 + Shipping

use your video card... get Nimmer's HD