I Just Put A White Box Together For My Sister.

[DrCR]

Specs:

-ATX Case I had on hand (good airflow)
-Asus A7N8X (w/ onboard sound)
-ZM400A-APF (27.5dBA at minimum load)
-Zalman CNPS6000-AlCu (at 20dBA)
-AMD 2600+ Barton OEM
-512MB (2x256MB) Dual-channel Infineon PC3200 CL2-2.5 (Haven't tested the timings myself yet)
-WD800JB SE (80GB 7200rpm 8MB cache)
-Samsung SM-352B (52x24x52x16)
-SAPPHIRE ATI 9600SE 128MB
-2 Vantec Stealth case fans (27CFMx21dBA)
-APC surge suppressor
-Benq FP767-v2 (17" LCD, 1280 x 1024 native, 16ms) (I had tested some at work (IT-Procurement) before and I would highly recommend it)
-Windows XP Pro OEM (I just bought a license)
-Office 2003 Pro (real cheap through siblings UNV)
-Norton Antivirus 2004


All for about $1100US with shipping! Yup, the includes software and all. http://ubbxforums.ubi.com/images/smiley/16x16_smiley-very-happy.gif


DrCR


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IT-Procurement dude

[Dreadnaught]

$1100! And to think that you could just go around to the garbage dump and get her a perfectly fine box...

[DrCR]

Originally posted by Dreadnaught
$1100! And to think that you could just go around to the garbage dump and get her a perfectly fine box...


Where are those garbage dumps? :D



DrCR



_________________

[jessica00]

does she game? does she need that kind of relative power house?

most people in the "female" computing area dont do much more than browse, email, and shop.
for that, you could have gotten her a 3-400 dollar blazing computer and pocketed the rest.

[DrCR]

My family is actually running on an almost 4 year old PC

Specs:
Asus A7V
AMD 900MHz T-Bird
512MB PC133 CL3
WD 20GB 7200RPM 2MB
MSI FX5600-VTDR128
Voodoo 5 5500 64MB PCI
WinME

which we plan on upgrading this fall/winter. Feel free to disagree, but I believe in buying state of the art and holding onto it for 3+ years. Ideally, my sister will have her computer for about 5 years.

The 2600+ rig with complete software (including Office2003) was actually about $700. The 17" LCD was about $390 w/ shipping. However, for my family’s new rig, I plan to spend around $2200-2300. And not on just standard hardware, but on things like HDTV capture and such.

Hey, it just my personal philosophy. And though when your machine starts approaching its 4 year birthday you are *really* ready for the upgrade, you don't mind the wait so much when you buy your new one. :D

Sure, you could buy a ~$1100 computer every two years instead, but that makes it really hard when you want to get things like:
$300 HDTV capture card
$300-400 video card
$200 on memory
$200 on the cpu.

That's about $1000 right there, and that not including the:
Case
Powersupply
Motherboard
Hard drives
Optical drives
Aftermarket cpu cooler
Case fans
Surge protector
Operating System
Office (if needed)
AntiVirus
Shipping costs
Speakers
KBD
Mouse


The main reason I'm waiting until winter instead of buying fall or late summer is because of WinXP 64bit edition, PCI-Express adoption, DDR2 (which won't be faster than DDR when it first comes out, but, hopefully, it will drive the price for DDR down), a few more video card generations. Post or just pre Christmas is a great time to find good computer hardware prices.



DrCR


_________________________________
IT-Procurement dude, Pure Science Major

[DrCR]

Forgot to mention, a set of Logitech Z-340 speakers included in the price (I got them for about $35 with shipping).

Bear also in mind I got all the product from good vendors. Not ones cheap prices, but bad return polices, etc.



DrCR



_____________________________
IT-Procurement, Pure Science major