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I'm trying to help a friend out here; this is actually an assignment for CIS 105, which is a required course at our school (for our year anyway; they dropped). What happens is you get a budget and are told to configure the best system possible for that budget. When I did it as a freshman, ours was 1500, and I actually got the 100 . Hehe I don't know why Moore dropped the budget, but he did.

Anyway, I'm trying to help him out, as he's not computer savvy; sadly, neither am I in the big scheme of things. That's where ya'll come in.

Here's a link to a wishlist at Newegg I put together for this:
http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/Wis ... urrent.asp
So far:
AMD Sempron 64 2600+ Palmero, $63
Gigabyte GA-K8VM800M 754 mobo for $55.
1 GB of Patriot DDR PC3200 RAM, $127
80 GB Seagate SATA---but it's OEM, so I don't know if it has everything (cables, etc.) for 65
Samsung CDRW/DVD-ROM for $30.
POWMAX CP0327PL-4 Window Black/Silver SGCC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 400W Power Supply - Retail for $30

That gives me case, power supply, hard drive, processor, RAM, CD/DVD drive, mobo, etc. I don't have a graphics card or any keyboard, etc. yet.
I think what I listed is all compatibale, but I'm not sure.
I still need to get a copy of some Windows OS, and a monitor. I'd like to put in a graphics card, not sure it fits though.

Any advice?

As an aside, this class was/is a joke. I remember when I took it, it went *directly* from telling you how to add an attachment to an email to designing webpages and building systems without any explination of how to make sure everything was compatible or anything. I hated it. I also slept through probably half the classes, and am lucky not to have a keyboard permenently imprinted on my face!

I would get the Antec SLK3000B and a Antec 380 Watt "TruePower 2.0" instead of the POWMAX CP0327PL-4, but thats due to reliablity and noise.

As for graphics card, any 9550 or 9600 would be fine (passive preferably).

Or you could just get the following.
$499 - Mac Mini
$70 - 21" CRT from ebay
$30 - Cheap keyboard, mouse & speakers.

doh! I guess we could've. I'm not sure that he'll take a non-windows machine though...and it's graded on a forced curve--or it was two years ago-- so it is really important to get a good machine spec'd out.


Paul

paulWTAMU wrote:

so it is really important to get a good machine spec'd out.

The question with computers is always "spec'd to do what?" Game, Development, Office, Video, Sound, Web surfing, Storage?

If you have to pay for the OS do you have to pay for the other applications e.g. Office, Photoshop, HL2, etc?

The MacMini has one hell of a software bundle which covers pretty much all non-gaming tasks (but so does linux).

I think that a geek could argue themselves to 100% in this task no matter what PC they spec'd.

dragmor wrote:

paulWTAMU wrote:

so it is really important to get a good machine spec'd out.

The question with computers is always "spec'd to do what?" Game, Development, Office, Video, Sound, Web surfing, Storage?

If you have to pay for the OS do you have to pay for the other applications e.g. Office, Photoshop, HL2, etc?

The MacMini has one hell of a software bundle which covers pretty much all non-gaming tasks (but so does linux).

I think that a geek could argue themselves to 100% in this task no matter what PC they spec'd.

I agree. You should buy a pocket calculator and say you bought the best system possible for adding two practical numbers together. It's light; solar-powered; has efficient & sufficient, minimalist display; and costs $1.99 picked-up-at-Walgreens.

Go for the biostar 6100 board from newegg. $61, geforce 6200 integrated graphics, 754 socket. Your os and monitor are going to suck up alot of that $600.

OK, so what is this assignment being graded on? The best specs for the price or stability/reliability? It is impossible to grade on the latter, so just grab all the cheapeast stuff with the biggest specs? And just search around for the absolute lowest price?

If it is going to be turned into a real machine and not just paper-specing, then the story will be different. Use the stickied templates as your starting point.

Seems to me lately no one is using those templates when asking for builds?

It's strictly paper specing, which always seems fruitless. The guy doesn't dictate if it's an office or gaming machine, so I was figuring going for gaming, just because It's basically get the cheapest with the biggest specs. That's why I'm going with off brand crap for the most part.

be hard core. go buy old Alpha parts off ebay and wow everyone by running NT on it

paulWTAMU wrote:

It's strictly paper specing, which always seems fruitless. The guy doesn't dictate if it's an office or gaming machine, so I was figuring going for gaming, just because It's basically get the cheapest with the biggest specs. That's why I'm going with off brand crap for the most part.

Well then, what's the grading criteria? Biggest storage capacity? Fastest burning? Multimedia? or what? You should always optimize for the most score.

And speaking of scores and points, how many folding points are you doing to contribute for the help in this homework assignment?

actually, I had some questions about folding. Which, those will be over in the folding forum shortly
I think that it's being graded strictly on biggest specs; biggest and fastest RPM HD, most and fasted RAM, etc. I think extra bells and whistles are welcome, but not as important; if it came to a dvd burner and a memory card reader or an extra 256 of ram, probably go with the ram.