# Cost estimate for PC



## AdamMc85 (Sep 20, 2007)

Hi,

I am currently doing reserch for a multimedia performance setup which requires 4 PC's. Im not the most knowledgeable on the subject so i thought i'd get your advice. How much do you think i could buy or build (whichever will be cheaper) this spec for?


Intel Pentium 4 at 1.5 GHz or equivalent AMD processor.
• USB port.
• Wake on LAN.
• 512 MB of RAM.
• AGP 4X or PCI Express 16X video card slot.
• IDE or SATA hard disk interface, supporting DMA transfers.
• 60 GB hard disk fully utilizing the above hard disk interface.
• 100 MBit Ethernet card supporting “Wake on LAN”.
• A modern ATI or nVidia graphics card with 64 MB of video memory.
• High quality sound card or built-in audio support.
• Windows XP Home Edition.


Your help is much appreciated,
Many thanks
Adam


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## themisiek1 (Aug 20, 2007)

I' am not officail staff here but I like to come around and give advice/help out all I can. 


I just want to say that the I went onto the website which I use a lot to see how much this set up would cost. 

www.Newegg.com

The processor is really old/slow and I was not able to find it on that site. If one of the members here on TSF could find this setup I think it would come out to be around 300-400 dollars. I know I could find a little better setup for about 450 dollars. However what is your budget and also will you need a monitor keyboard or mouse?


If someone with TSF suggests something listen to them not me lol. They know much more then me.


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## tosh9i (Aug 3, 2006)

If you're going to pay $400 for something, you should get something like this:

PROCESSOR Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core E2160 (1.80GHz, 1MB L2 Cache, 800FSB) edit 
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® XP Home edit 
MONITOR Dell 19 inch Widescreen E198WFP Analog Flat Panel Monitor edit 
MEMORY 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz - 2DIMMs edit 
HARD DRIVE 80GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™ edit 
OPTICAL DRIVE Single Drive: 16X DVD-ROM Drive edit 
VIDEO CARD Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 3100 edit 
FLOPPY OR MEDIA READER No Floppy Drive edit 
MODEM No Modem Option edit 
SOUND Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio 

$389
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?cs=04&kc=999&oc=brpd21g&x=13&y=8


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

Most modern retail motherboards allow wake on LAN. It sounds like you are viewing the system requirements for a program/game. What is it?


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## AdamMc85 (Sep 20, 2007)

It is for a multi projector setup. One main computer will be running the software, this is networked to three others, each linked up to a projector, each projector will throw its third of the image, so the result is you get almost a cinema screen. Im thinking at the moment i wont be needing a monitor, keyboard, mouse etc for the three projection computers. As far as the budget goes, as cheap as possible as long as it does the job well!

One thing i dont understand is why i would need 60GB of HD if all the computer is doing is processing an image fed to it by the main computer? Anyone any ideas?


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

I would build your own so you get a good video card and motherboard. The good motherboards all have Wake on LAN and Wake on Modem support.

If you post a budget for each PC I can find some good parts.


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## AdamMc85 (Sep 20, 2007)

Great! Well, i have done a very rough estimation of how much the whole system is going to cost and i put £200 (im in england) per computer in that so i guess that is around $400. I'l need a hub / switch for the network too but they are fairly cheap from what i can gather, are there any models you would recomend?

Iv never heard of Wake on LAN and modem before by the way! What do they do?


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## tosh9i (Aug 3, 2006)

You don't need a "60 GB" hard drive, but you do need a hard drive for the OS. Plus, I'm willing to bet that almost all of the 20GB hard drives are refurbished.


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## tosh9i (Aug 3, 2006)

You should be able to find some Dell "Refurbished" systems for about $269.


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

Sorry, but didn't you say you would be running 4 computers? £200 per computer for a total £400 is two computers.


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## tosh9i (Aug 3, 2006)

currency exchange:

£200 = $400

200 British Pound = 401.092 US Dollar


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

Sorry I missed the symbol. I though you said £400. 

Foxconn SKT939 Nforce4-SLI chipset DDR400 Dual Gigabit LAN SATAII ATX Motherboard
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/95354/product_info/rb/0

AMD Athlon 64 3700+ Socket 939 San Diego OEM Processor
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/109092/rb/0

Arctic Cooling (AC-FRZ-64P) Freezer64 Pro Socket 754 939 940 CPU Cooler with Heat pipe cooling Pro Ver
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/101471/rb/0

Kingston 512MB Kit (2x256MB) DDR 400MHz/ PC3200 Memory Non-ECC CL3
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/53917

Seagate ST380815AS 80GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 8MB Cache 
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/129414

Innovision 3D Geforce 7200GS 128MB DDR2 DVI PCI-E Graphics Card
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/129087/rb/0


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

Enermax C3030 Midi Tower Case No PSU Blk/Slvr
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/128207/rb/0

Antec EarthWatts 500W 80%+ Efficiency PSU - 80mm Fan 4x SATA 2x PCI-E
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/120377/rb/0


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## AdamMc85 (Sep 20, 2007)

Thats awesome Matt, cheers for going to the trouble (thanks also tosh9i and themisiek1).

Would all of that fit in to one of the micro ATX / Media Centre Cases? We would be transporting all of this gear around with us to each venue, so those smaller cases would help a lot.


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