What is my Budget Range? Part 2
Previous Part 1: How to decide on a computer build?
Part 2. What is my Budget Range?
[be sure to account for taxes
and
shipping] I can tell you that many people have unrealistic
expectations. Will building my own computer save money?
Often
not. Check out ads online and in the Sunday papers. [Best Buy, Fry's, OfficeMax, OfficeDepot, Staples....] Local Mom & Pop Shops. Sign up to receive Newegg's newsletter, which daily offers weekly deals
on numerous items that can save you tens of dollars. Check the daily
deals. There are some great deals which is one of the reasons why
Newegg is so popular.
If you are really budget tight be sure to check out prices
of systems, refurbished systems, bundled items and clearance
systems. You
can
find some good bargains or some tired dogs. Shop wisely. Arf!
Are you realistic? If you are looking for a computer for much under $300 don't
bother. That is rock bottom and reliability and ability to
upgrade are limited in the below $500 category. Also this price
often does not include any I/O (input/output) parts: that is, monitor,
keyboard, mouse, and maybe speakers. Add those and you are
minimally in the $500 area.
So, what can you afford? If all you can afford is $300, consider
upgrading your current computer with a CPU + MB + RAM
combination. You can often upgrade a computer significantly ...
but not if it is too old; where virtually all its parts are outdated
and worn out. People often make the mistake of waiting too
long then putting money into an old computer (like$200+ for a CPU for
their old MB) that would be better spent on replacing these three
aforementioned items for one heck of a bang for the dollar.
Will I buy all new parts, or will I be using some parts from a current
computer?
You can often reuse the case, ODD (optical disk drive), monitor,
keyboard, mouse and speakers from an old computer.
Reusing a more than three years old PSU (power supply) from a computer
is generally unwise. Power supplies -- particularly those NOT
protected by a good power strip or UPS (universal power supply=backup
battery) -- take a beating over time from power surges. And their
capacitors age whether in use or not. After three years a PSU
often has lost 30% of its rated power output. And in a factory
bargain computer it is typically the PSU where corners were cut to
lower the price. Frequently PSU's from noname vendors never
supplied the stated voltage even when new. As the temperature
inside the case rises, the maximum voltage the PSU is able to supply
falls. Better quality PSU's use better quality, longer lasting
capacitors and will be capable of lasting many years of use if properly
protected.
Hard disk drives (HDD) can also be reused with these caveats.
One, ATA (IDE, PATA) controllers are disappearing off of the
motherboard (MB). Eventually this old technology will vanish all
together.
Most MBs will support two IDE drives these days. Usually a single
ODD placed upon the end of the cable. But if you wish to place a
HDD onto this cable it should be at the end, with the ODD in the middle
--- both in a "cable select" arrangement jumper setting.
If you have a Windows XP/Vista operating system on an old hard drive
and it is OEM (original equipment of manufacturer) initially installed
by a computer builder [You can check by going to the General tab in the
Systems Folder and the "registered to:" should say "OEM" in it if it is an
OEM version.] you will be in violation of your user agreement (EULA) if
you transfer the operating system to another CPU/MB. That said it
can be done, but it may require some skill and skulduggery.
If it is not an OEM copy of XP, it can be moved to another computer under your license, as long as it is only on one computer.
If
you use that HDD as the boot drive, you will have to install new
drivers (but if XP is attached to the Internet it will actually make a pretty good attempt to find and install the correct drivers for you), and almost certainly have to re-activate your copy of Windows.
RAM tends to be replaced by faster RAM in a different form every three
to five years. DDR2 while common is finally phasing out to DDR3
manufacturer, and now is a great time to max. out motherboards with
DDR2 for the dollar. But anyone with DDR or PC133 RAM is in
possession of RAM of little interest to anyone. Equally trying to
stick old DDR2 @ 667MHz into a modern MB capable of running standard
800 MHz speeds or greater may detrimentally effect overall performance of your
system...especially when 4Gb of DDR2 RAM can be had for $40 to $55 these
days.
Video cards also rapidly fade. There are some classics still out
there, but standards change. AGP was replaced by PCIe, and now
PCIe 2.0 (backward/forward compatible with PCIe 1.0 standard).
Anyone with an AGP card--it is also a dead technology. If you have a MB with AGP or even older PCI based video in need of upgrading, you should replace the system, or at east the CPU+MB+RAM if it will fit in the old case. Otherwise you are throwing away good money towards dying tech.
I laugh when I see somebody state they want a fast gaming computer with
BlueRay, and an 8800GTX GPU for under $300. Unrealistic? Heck,
delusional! I have seen somebody as for ideas on a three hundred
dollar build, only to come back when people propose possibilities and
state they want to play Spore, WoW, Chrysalis or get faster video
editing. It is not going to happen at that price. Any thoughts
otherwise is a fantasy for now.
You can buy, right now, some impressive laptops for $300 (called
Netbooks) that are targeted at wirelessly surfing the Internet and
doing email. And not much else.
Next: A bit of history and encouragement