Justin builds a budget computer
When it comes to building PCs, you have to start somewhere, and the judges were impressed by the initiative shown by Justin Goldsworthy. 12-year old Justin had a tight budget, and made it go further by sourcing parts from family members too. Goldsworthy says: “I wanted to build a PC that could take all my games, support all programs that I threw at it and be able to run multiple programs." While Justin's PC by itself could do with some improvement (see comments at the end), the judges gave Justin a semi-final berth as a form of encouragement for him and our other young readers.
CORE SYSTEM
CPU: AMD Phenom X4 9650 quad-core 2.3GHz - $150I wanted a quad-core CPU because it would support all my games and play movies without freezing. The AMD Phenom X4 9650 will also support overclocking.
MOTHERBOARD: Gigabyte GA-MA780G-UD3H - $130I wanted a motherboard with a dual BIOS and which would be stable when overclocking, so the Ultra Durable 3 series was my pick.
MEMORY: Corsair 4GB 800MHz - $90I wanted 4GB because I might get a really high-powered graphics card, and 4GB will run anything I want.
GRAPHICS: ATI HF3200 onboard graphics - $0I didn’t have much money so I got the motherboard with the best onboard graphics. It’s alright; it has an HDMI port but does lag a bit when playing high-powered games. Other than that it does the job.
AUDIO: Onboard 8-channel HD audio - $0I didn’t mind what sound card I had, so onboard sound was alright – I can still hear everything.
HDD:400GB Samsung hard drive - $100I inherited this hard drive, so I didn’t want to spend money on a new one.
PSU: Cooler Master 450W - $50I already had this PSU, and it would run smoothly for what I was doing.
CASE: No-name – $50Not really sure what brand the case is, but I already had this one which has good cooling, so I didn’t buy a new one. In future I want an Antec 902.
Core system cost: $570
EXTRAS
MONITOR: LG Studioworks 995e - $0I'm currently using this monitor because my grandpa didn't want it anymore. He offered it to me so I took it.
KEYBOARD: Logitech G15 - $140I got this keyboard for Christmas. It's decent one that has extra keys for gaming and a screen to show me the temp of CPU, plus it had a clock and so on.
MOUSE: Logitech vx revolution - $140Got given this for my birthday.
OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 7 Home Premium x64 - $199 (upgrade) It was the cheapest version of the new OS and I didn't want to waste money on something better which I don't need.
JUDGES COMMENTS:
The judges agreed this was a machine limited by its tiny budget. Ideas where to improve it focused on the video card. “The CPU and motherboard are fine but, in my opinion, a dedicated video card is needed,” said Michael Leins, adding “the HD3200 is a great onboard chip with HDMI and is really good for HD playback in a media centre but will let you down in gaming.” David Kong added: “The choice of motherboard and CPU is wrong for his goals. A higher-clocked dual-core with a separate graphics card will give Justin more playable frame rates. To accommodate the graphics card, I’d probably go with a more basic motherboard.” Jeff Li said: “To me, the value of this system is that the choices Justin has made in his configuration easily allow for upgrades to allow the system to grow with his requirements.”