Quick Thoughts
The first question to answer is exactly how much I spent on both systems. I might as well cut straight to the chase, so here are the numbers.
As you can see, the results are not good for my general health right now. Even trading components with friends and searching for bargains still resulted in my system being $186 over budget and my daughter's system coming in $208 above the original target. The total overage was $394 and would have been higher if I had bought the Intel based system. In my defense… wait, there is no defense here. I simply blew the budget by going outside the original scope of my project.
However, if we remove a few items that were not on the original list then the numbers are much closer in total. Going from 8GB to 4GB in each system would save us $150, continuing on with our Monsoon speaker sets would save another $248, and living with onboard sound or pulling a couple of Audigy 2 ZS cards out of the closet saves another $145 while still providing better audio than the Realtek chipsets used on our boards. (Ed: but do you trust the Vista drivers?)
That is a total of $543 that could be saved quickly and would put us $149 under budget. I could collect all the loose change in the car and come up with a dollar or two, enough so I could either go with 8GB in each machine or maybe get the two sound cards instead. There is some room to work with on configuring each system within the budget, and one could easily make the argument to purchase a regular DVD drive for my daughter instead of the BD drive. This configuration change would result in a $123 savings. That would be enough money to move our video card selections up to the 8800GTS 512MB card in each system as one example.
Of course, we could play the "what if" scenario all day and never actually get the systems built. All of this is moot in my case; I already decided what direction to go, purchased the components and have the systems running now. I decided the speaker sets would be a general investment like the previous units. I thought the audio cards were a luxury, but knowing how much the systems are utilized for media playback, the thought of using the onboard Realtek chips meant I was willing to sell just about anything on eBay to keep that from happening.
In fact, after looking at each component purchased and playing devil's advocate with myself, I begin to wonder if building my own system is even worth the trouble now. Heresy for sure, but after doing some serious thinking about the subject there is a little truth in that statement.
The next question is if I got my money's worth. This is especially important since I spent an additional $394 over my budget. There are a lot of things you can do for $394 in this world and computer equipment is at the bottom of the list for most people. I will answer this question in the next article when we see just how well these components perform - not only against the Intel system I thought about building, but against a few components that were on my original wish list.
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jay401 - Tuesday, May 27, 2008 - link
Gary - where can I read more about this card being cancelled? I wasn't aware it was cancelled and didn't see any news to that effect anywhere but sure enough it's no longer listed on Auzentech's products page. Thanks.Badkarma - Tuesday, May 27, 2008 - link
Hi Gary,Have you heard anything from Nvidia as to why 5.1 LPCM via HDMI has been removed? Also, have you seen the posts on AVS stating that a Phenom is required to get BD playback? Do you know if Nvidia will be updating their drivers to allow X2 cpu's to playback properly?
Thanks.
royalcrown - Tuesday, May 27, 2008 - link
Nice build, but I think you should have shopped more carefully for your video cards...http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a...turesmx-...
I got this ECS 8800 gts for 159.00 ( I asked for $10 off because it went up by ten.)
It would give you an average of 10 percent over the 8800gt for free and dump the heat outside the case, so maybe cooler even; most certainly it would kick the crap out of that radeon.
Don't be in a hurry next time when you buy video cards ;)
FYI- I am running mine on a 450 watt kingwin w no probs...
masouth - Tuesday, May 27, 2008 - link
Do people bother to actually READ these articles before posting?This looks like a great deal but it seems fairly clear to me that he wants a single slot cooler.
FITCamaro - Tuesday, May 27, 2008 - link
I just bought two of those cards for my system. Terrific value at that price. I replaced the cooler though with a Accelero S1 Rev. 2 w/ the turbo fan. Extremely quiet. Haven't seen temps yet though cause I only just got Vista loaded late last night. I was going for a near silent gaming system. Went with those coolers, a Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme, and 4 16db 54cfm 120mm fans(3 case, 1 cpu cooler). With the case open I barely hear everything.autoboy - Tuesday, May 27, 2008 - link
My favorite cheap cooler is the Arctic Cooling Alpine 7 (or 64 if you want a 3 pin fan). You can find it for around $10-$13, and it is much quieter than the stock fans you get with the processor. They are not the greatest coolers for high heat processors, but for anything less than 65W with some fan control they are inaudible even in completely silent computers. I use them in all my regular builds except for my gaming rigs that see overclocking. I cannot recommend them enough and everyone that uses them (in 65W and lower rigs) loves them. I put one on a 95W Athlon at one time, and while the fan had to ramp up to where you could hear it, it was still much quieter than stock coolers and cooled the processor enough to keep it under 60C which is my cutoff.bauser - Tuesday, May 27, 2008 - link
Interesting read, especially because I just built 3 mATX systems in a row. Total cost varied from $800 to $1000 CDN for each system. The tradeoff for the lower end system was the lack of a video card and sound card. Some savings were offset by the need for keyboard/mouse (at this price range 20 bucks makes a big difference).Your findings highlight that sacrifices must be made to save money. In this price range, every decision you make will have a cost/benefit consideration. Personally, I'd sacrifice the sound card and 5.1 speaker system and spend the extra dough on a better processor (E8400, Q6600) and motherboard. I'd also go for an 8800GT over the ATI. Good stuff, looking forward to part 2.
BPB - Tuesday, May 27, 2008 - link
"I had bought new monitors for each of us last year so that major expense was out of the way. We both upgraded from first generation Acer 22" LCD panels (Ed: wonder what the parents will get for Christmas this year…) to the Gateway 24" FHD2400 we recently reviewed. I ended up purchasing a couple of under 30 day open box returns for $279 each, a major expense yes, but about $200 less than street price along with a new warranty."How the heck did you get two open box Gateways? I'd love to do the same.
poohbear - Tuesday, May 27, 2008 - link
the AMD 4850E is relatively overclockable compared to a e7200? it wouldn't provide anywhere near the same overclock as an e7200. just fyi.Lightingguy - Tuesday, May 27, 2008 - link
Good article! But as a builder of mid-range systems for friends and family, I've got to point out that your budgets/actual expenses don't include entries for the OS. While I'm sure that you can get a good deal given your connections, that is a major budget item for those of us out here who don't want to use a Linux release.