Don't build a Gaming PC! Upgrade a $200 OEM!

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1

 

I've found a great base system for $200, the PSU alone is worth around $100, the motherboard has dual PCIe 2.0 x16 lanes, 4GB of RAM, it has a cheap 80GB hard drive and no OS though. It's not a complete system, but I would rather get this than a stupid kindle fire and you can upgrade it to a 8-core for $100

 

It's a HP xw8600 Workstation.

I've found some CPU Upgrades 

Two 2.5GHZ CPUs for $40

or

Two 2.8ghz CPUs for $80  (buy the last two)

Consider the following:

  • It's used
  • It uses Fully Buffered DDR2-800 and that's expensive, but has less laientcy than DDR3
  • If you're upgrading to dual processor, make sure they're the same model or it won't work
  • If you're installing windows 7 with dual processors, install pro or higher because lower versions don't support dual processor due to licening
  • You can try hack in SLI with Hyper SLI

 

It just goes to show you can find good deals with OEMs, if you drive a used car, why not buy a used Workstation?

2

Well if you like old hardware then go for it...

3

How-why-what-huh, how is a kindle fire related to not getting an actual computer not built in a crappy case?

 

Also, 2x cpu's really isn't that great unless doing some reaaally cpu stressing work.

4

u say this while im puttign together a parts list for a sub 300 dollar computer -.-

 

5

This thing looks old as balls.

6

Why would u ever buy so old tech. so silly.

7

Because old tech can be fun to play with.

It's also a great way to help other people learn about computers.

8

Things you will need no question (Windows OS it is for gaming after all), HDD, new GPU 

That's at least another $300, build your own.

9

OEM 800w PSU =/= 80 plus $100 PSU with quality parts

10

+ 1 also great for oldschool gaming (Win95 FTW) such as StarCraft: BR, C&C95/RA, ect. but then we're talking 1GHz AMD Athlon 64, 3dFX Voodoo 3000 and 512MB DDR RAM :D

I wouldn't get this old $200 "workstation" for such purpose.

11

Well, maybe I would, just to play around with a dual socket motherboard, but other than that, I probably wouldn't. I have better things to spend my money on at the moment.

12

It maybe OEM, but it's enterprise grade stuff, you can't get a computer like this at walmart. I'm saying this computer was hig grade stuff in it's hay day, but it's still useable by today's standards.

 

Also, you can brag to your friends that you spent $40 to upgrade to an 8-core. :p

13

I don't know why anyone would actually invest in hardware that is that outdated. Unless you just like to collect old hardware I guess. Also, the original Starcraft works on Windows 7 just fine. Things that are even older can usually be emulated.

14

really challenge accepted brb

CPU

Mobo

Ram

PSU EMCNANC35

any old case, if you're scrapping around for 200 for a build then you won't mind a 15 year old pavilion case

DRR3 has more memory bandwidth per second than DDR2 regardless of latencies

spend that 80 bucks you would spend on a 2 775 qauds on a sandy/ivy i5, most applications won't use more than 4 threads, so basically most situation would be the perfomance of this

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/49?vs=288

as for the PSU you won't need more than 530w 80plus with a ivy 77w i5 and a GPU that uses under 350w, if you get a GPU that needs more then you shouldn't be scrounging around for a 200 starter build

15

Also Good old Games' database of games they have fixed to work for Win7 is continuously growing.. A ton of games will run under DosBox(A lot of GoG's game launches in DosBox anyway, but they do tend to have resolution fixes, etc) and usually there's a fix somewhere for getting things to work.

So yeeah, don't really see the need for using old hardware. Sure it might be fun to tinker with it and see how far you could push it or something like that, but other than that, don't really see a reason for it.

16

That CPU is only 205 points higher on passmark than the X5260 and DDR3 may be faster, but the real word performance increase isn't that big. It's 101 fps vs 103 fps.

They're socket 771 CPUs, but I like I said, they're mostly for bragging rights. Modern Video editing tales advantage of the video card, so you just need a high end video card and there isn't much of areal world performance in geting gen 3 PCIe for video cards, their bandwidth isn't above x8 2.0. so the cpu doesn't matter. 

I think this workstation is a better foundation than most budget builds, you get two pcie x16 lanes and the CPU supports more cache than today's 1155 consumer CPUs.

17

I really hope you don't build computers for people, it doesn't matter if it has more cache if it performs slower, and that was celeron chip going toe to toe with it, meaning if you wanted something better down the road you could get a i3, i5, or i7, need more ram, DDR3 is dirt cheap, you want to sell you rig, who's going to want a DDR2 dinosaur

what you say about GPUs being the core of Video editing is VERY untrue, you need a very expensive very high end GPU to even help out with the editing, if you had 1500 to spend on a video editing righ and you spent a good 600 on the GPU and the rest for the system it would render much slower than if you had gotten a socket 2011 6 core i7 and mediocre graphics card

also you wouldn't get Gen 3 PCI-E with a G860, its a sandy bridge CPU, you wouldn't be need more than 1 pci-E 16x if you're doing a cheap $200, if you can SLI/crossfire isn't practical if you get the GPUs at the sametime until you get like a 670/680/7970 and you can't get any higher with one GPU, at which point you wouldn't be doing a 200 starter

"so the CPU wouldn't matter"

so the CENTRAL PROCCESSING UNIT wouldn't matter

do you hear yourself, the CPU is the CORE of you computer