$800 Mid-Tier CallOfDuty4 Build

[trian]

Looking to build a solid mid-tier $800 (recycled monitor & peripherals) Intel Core2 Duo/GeForce machine for my 12 year old boys to play call of duty 4… their other requirements are minor in comparison. We do not intend to overclock. I’m not looking for the best here, ‘cause with 5 pc users in the house we build a new one every other year- and all 3 of my other boards are Asus.

So far my specs are:
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 (2.33GHz 1333FSB 4MB Shared) - Retail $169
Motherboard MSI P35 Platinum $135
Memory (2) G DDR2-800(PC2-6400) $70
Video Card EVGA 256-P2-N752-TR GeForce 8600GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 $100
Hard Drive 500GB WD H/D $99
Optical Drive N/A- reuse
Case N/A- reuse
Power Supply Corsair CMPSU-520HX $106
Display N/A- reuse
Speakers N/A- reuse
Keyboard N/A- reuse
Mouse N/A- reuse
Operating System Vista Home Premium Upgrade (education) $70
Bottom Line $749

Would you guys recommend an Asus MoBo alternative?

My friend highly recommended the MSI P35 Platinum mobo.

AnandTech had an article on on mid range builds from a month ago http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=3125&p=3 but their mobo looked less desirable.

I really prefer ASUS motherboards, but based on recent reviews I had trouble finding a really stable ASUS SIS board.

Also- is there a really kewl call of duty 4 peripheral I can add onto the machine?

BTW the Call Of Duty 4 recommended specs are:
2.4 GHz dual core or better is recommended
2 GB RAM for Vista is recommended
Nvidia Geforce 7800

 

[neoxblu1]

Hello,

The pc you configured looks good for your son, Leme tell you what I have in mind for your son. I think adding a little high performance components wont hurt, and if you could I'd suggest raising you budget a lil more to $1000.
But its really up to you.


My Specs Are:
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Conroe 3.0GHz 4M shared [$290]
Motherboard: EVGA 122-CK-NF67-T1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i LT SLI ATX Intel Motherboard [$170]
Memory: CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) [$100]
Video Card: EVGA 256-P2-N765-AR GeForce 8600GTS Superclocked 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 [$170]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hard Drive 500GB WD H/D $99
Power Supply Corsair CMPSU-520HX $106
Operating System Vista Home Premium Upgrade (education) $70 (Do your really need this?)
Bottom Line $1006


This should be a really nice gaming rig for your son.
I Hope This Helped.

 

[skittle]

Don't listen to the above poster... he obviously doesn't understand what a budget build means...your build looks great. I would go with a e6750 though... its only $25 more.

the 8600gts (higher clocks than the 8600gt) is a bit better than the 7800gt, and my 7800gt runs COD4 at 1680x1050 with medium settings (it looks fantastic).

Ive also had good luck with ASUS before.

 

[Seikent]

Well, something you should change is the video card if you are looking for a balanced pc (I mean that bottlenecks are minimum). I would buy an ATI HD3850 ($180) or wait for a 256mb 8800GT ($200 maybe), but it should be difficult to find until January.

To have these extra $80, I would change the e6550 for an Athlon X2 5000+ ($109) and the MoBo should be a bit cheaper too.

I'm sorry that it is not a core2duo/geforce machine, but it will work very good. See this for example
http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=928&model2=882&chart=422
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3151&p=8

Good luck with this build.

 

[starcraftfanatic]

You should get a E4400 or 4500 instead of the E6550, and use the extra cash to get a 3850. The P35 is quite good, and so is the PSU. Whats your current case? Be sure you can switch the operating system from computer to computer before you buy the upgrade, and if you can't, buy home premium OEM.

 

[Noya]

Looking to build a solid mid-tier $800 (recycled monitor & peripherals) Intel Core2 Duo/GeForce machine for my 12 year old boys to play call of duty 4%u2026 their other requirements are minor in comparison. We do not intend to overclock. I%u2019m not looking for the best here, %u2018cause with 5 pc users in the house we build a new one every other year- and all 3 of my other boards are Asus.

So far my specs are:
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 (2.33GHz 1333FSB 4MB Shared) - Retail $169
Motherboard MSI P35 Platinum $135
Memory (2) G DDR2-800(PC2-6400) $70
Video Card EVGA 256-P2-N752-TR GeForce 8600GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 $100
Hard Drive 500GB WD H/D $99
Optical Drive N/A- reuse
Case N/A- reuse
Power Supply Corsair CMPSU-520HX $106
Display N/A- reuse
Speakers N/A- reuse
Keyboard N/A- reuse
Mouse N/A- reuse
Operating System Vista Home Premium Upgrade (education) $70
Bottom Line $749

Would you guys recommend an Asus MoBo alternative?

My friend highly recommended the MSI P35 Platinum mobo.

AnandTech had an article on on mid range builds from a month ago http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=3125&p=3 but their mobo looked less desirable.

I really prefer ASUS motherboards, but based on recent reviews I had trouble finding a really stable ASUS SIS board.

Also- is there a really kewl call of duty 4 peripheral I can add onto the machine?

BTW the Call Of Duty 4 recommended specs are:
2.4 GHz dual core or better is recommended
2 GB RAM for Vista is recommended
Nvidia Geforce 7800

I swear Tom's is full of tards nowdays, everyone who posted above doesn't know jack.

Gaming requires the best graphics card you can buy, not the processor.

You want to game right? Then buy these parts:

$169 - e6550 (or the $83 e2160 that will overclock to 3.0ghz)
$95 - Gigabyte P35
$50 - Crucial Ballistix or Corsair XMS - DDR2-800 (w/rebate)
$65 - Corsair 450vx- will power even an 8800GTX/Ultra (buy.com, newegg always overcgarges for PSU's)
$80 - 320gb Sata Seagate Perpendicular Recording Sata
$250 - 8800GT (the 8600-series cards or not worth buying..at ALL)

The above will absolutely destroy ANY 8600 based system.

*edit*

Just re-read your post, if you don't plan on overclocking (cheaper CPU and mobo), save some cash and go AMD.

 

[skittle]

Hes not looking to overclock, and he just wants to play COD4... the 8600 is fine for his needs.

 

[starcraftfanatic]

he's not going to overclock, so a E4500 might be a better buy, along with a 3850. a E4600 will also do wonders at a lower price.

 

[UTNemesis]

I would seriously recommend against buying an 8600 anything. As others have said, put more money towards a better video card if you can.

 

[tlmck]

To give you a low end benchmark to shoot at. I built this for a friend using new and old components. It plays COD4 at 1280x1024 at 30FPS(according to fraps), with everything turned on except for AA.

ASUS P4M890 MB, E4300, 2gb DDR2 667 Corsair Value, EVGA 7600GT, 160gb ATA133 Maxtor, Windows XP SP1.

The new version of the MB would be the P4M900. With a 1333fsb CPU, all you really need is DDR2 667 unless you overclock which you would not do with this MB. For OC you can step up to DDR2 800, and a P35 MB like the P5K SE.

 

[johnyeah]

Well at this moment, for a budget gaming build the HD3850 sounds like the best option to me than say the 8600.

It's widely available I think.

 

[trian]

Wow! I’m overwhelmed by all of the comments! It looks like the group was pretty universal on a slightly cheaper processor and a slightly more expensive – and better performing graphics card. Different power supply. Overall the system is better and less expensive $709. I’ll leave the $100 extra in my pocket- and let a more deserving gamer get their hands on the 8800GT until I upgrade another machine at home

- Thanks for picking up on the over-clocking point. I don’t want my kids gaming on a machine that they could fry. I prefer a setup that will be stable and not require a lot of time tweaking performance.

Noya suggested a $65 - Corsair 450vx saving over the CORSAIR CMPSU-550VX… since I’m only going to have 1 h/d do others agree this will be sufficient power?

So the point I was the least clear on was the mobo. I was expecting somebody to have a recommendation for a solid Asus alternative to the MSI P 35. Not to stir up a holy war, but it sounds like a few of you (Noya, Seikent, etc) are saying that AMD/ATI is a better alternative in this price point for a non-overclocked system. If so that’s a completely different config- is it any more/less reliable? is that the general concensus? But meanwhile what I’ve got is:

Processor Intel Core 2 Duo e6750 $135, or E4600 $148 $135
Motherboard MSI P35 Platinum $135
Memory (2) G DDR2-800(PC2-6400) $70
Video Card XFX GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express Video Card $120
Hard Drive 500GB WD H/D $99
Optical Drive N/A- reuse
Case N/A- reuse mini ATX
Power Supply CORSAIR CMPSU-550VX VX550W 550W Power Supply $80
Display N/A- reuse Dell 20” widescreen
Speakers N/A- reuse
Keyboard N/A- reuse
Mouse N/A- reuse
Operating System Vista Home Premium Upgrade (education) $70
Bottom Line $709

Johnyeah, the HD3850 was like $60+ more and didn’t seem to be widely available.

starcraftfanatic: I’ve got a friend that’s offered to lead me thru the Vista upgrade install. He mentioned that the MS people are surprisingly helpful to ppl that get into a pickle with the upgrade.

 

[Seikent]

I'm nearly with Noya's sugerence.

Some facts if you aren't going to overclock:
- a good quality 450W PSU is fine almost for every single video card if not for all
- the performance differences between cheap MoBo's (the northbridge matters, P35 is good for example) and expensive MoBo's are minimum if you aren't going to overclock
- amd cpu's gives you better price/performance if you don't overclock (at least when the budget is not very big)

Other things to have in mind:

- for gaming, the video card is the most important thing, there are few games that are cpu dependant. You may think that to spend more than $150 in a video card is too much, but if you think in total price/performance, spending $50 or $100 more on a video card can double the performance at a very low price.

- if you're buying for christmas, 8800GT should be pretty hard to find at decent prices (less than $290). So you should buy a HD3850 ($180) or a HD3870 ($220) that are new cards that has great a price/performance ratio, any of these should be affordable with your budget.

edit: just read your post, about the 3850 stock, you can wait a few days, these cards aren't sooo popular, so their stock doesn't disappear in matters of minutes. If you search a bit you should be able to found something, maybe not so cheap. Keep in mind what i said, $60 more dollars, more than 50% performance in games. $60 more/$700 < 10% of the total price and you win more than 50% in performance.
see the link in my previous post "8600gts vs HD3850".
About the cpu, it would be nice to keep the e6750 ^^.

 

[trian]

I'm nearly with Noya's sugerence.

Some facts if you aren't going to overclock:
- a good quality 450W PSU is fine almost for every single video card if not for all
- the performance differences between cheap MoBo's (the northbridge matters, P35 is good for example) and expensive MoBo's are minimum if you aren't going to overclock
- amd cpu's gives you better price/performance if you don't overclock

Ok. So I'll restart from the beginning with the mobo on an AMD system. http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=3125&p=2 suggested: ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe WiFi (nForce 590 SLI)

ps. I don't know what sugerence means... now I'm lost in new releases and the english language

 

[ibleet]

Go with an Intel system...a year or so ago I would have advised AMD, but now its Intel again.

I would avoid the 8600 series cards as they are junk compared to the 8800GT.

I would replace the E6550 with the E6750.

Your corsair PSU choice is excellent.

A 7200 rpm WD or Seagate Drive is fine...you don't necessarily need a 10k raptor in a mid-build.

I like Asus boards, they make some fine P35 boards that would suit your needs.

One thing I don't like is all the NASTY THREAD CRAPPING that I see here...Be Civil people...Grow up and at least act like you have some sense...we all have opinions and you know the rest.

Good Luck with your sons build.

 

[SEALBoy]

Do yourself a favor and avoid the 8600GT(S). Trust me, at heart it's not really a gaming card. Sure it may run COD4 at medium settings, but it'll choke at the next level of game you throw at it (it Crysis).

Throw in the $100 you were pocketing and get an HD3850 or 3870 and trust me you will not regret the decision.

Again, I cannot stress enough how much you want to avoid an 8600 card.

EDIT: Here are some 3850's in stock, get them quick before they run out. Much much much better than 8600GTS for the money.

 

[tlmck]

To edit your Original list a bit:
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 - Retail $169
Motherboard ASUS P5K SE $104.99
Memory - Kingston 2gb DDR2-667 - $44.99
Video Card - Sapphire HD3850 256mb $179
Hard Drive 500GB WD H/D $99
Power Supply Corsair 550vx $~85 after rebate
Operating System Vista Home Premium Upgrade (education) $70
Bottom Line $751.98

Back to your original budget with a much better video card.

 

[trian]

To edit your Original list a bit:
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 - Retail $169
Motherboard ASUS P5K SE $104.99
Memory - Kingston 2gb DDR2-667 - $44.99
Video Card - Sapphire HD3850 256mb $179
Hard Drive 500GB WD H/D $99
Power Supply Corsair 550vx $~85 after rebate
Operating System Vista Home Premium Upgrade (education) $70
Bottom Line $751.98

Back to your original budget with a much better video card.

Thank you guys SSOOOOO much. This looks terrific. Looking at the comparison of p35 boards, the Asus P5K SE is a good choice in my specific circumstance - I like Asus, don't want to overclock- the street price is lower than when the article was written.

http://www.techspot.com/article/61-intel-p35-motherboard-roundup/

Anybody got a recommendation for a gaming peripheral for COD4? - I only have keyboards... not playing these myself (since the days of joysticks) I don't have any idea what gaming input is useful.

 

[SEALBoy]

Well, for gaming the first thing you'd want is a gaming mouse. Your best bet is the Logitech G5, you can snatch them for less than $50.

 

[San Pedro]

e6550 is fine
I like my Gigabyte P35 mobo which was under $100
Go with 3870 if you can find one at $220
Gaming mouse would be only peripheral I would think about getting for COD 4(I swear the smoothest mouse I ever used was a $20 logitech that I got over 6 years ago, only reason I still don't use it is that it only has 2 buttons).

 

[skittle]

I prefer my Microsoft Habu over the G5, fits my hand better, and the software is vastly superior to the logitechs.

Also, im not sure why no one mentioned this... but what speakers are you using? if their half way decent you should invest in a sound card :0

 

[trian]

Well, for gaming the first thing you'd want is a gaming mouse. Your best bet is the Logitech G5, you can snatch them for less than $50.

Thanks for the tip, looks like an awesome mouse.

 

[SEALBoy]

It is, I have one and absolutely love it.

 

[trian]

I prefer my Microsoft Habu over the G5, fits my hand better, and the software is vastly superior to the logitechs.

Also, im not sure why no one mentioned this... but what speakers are you using? if their half way decent you should invest in a sound card :0

Thanks for the tips...

Rather than extra loud sound, I was planning on giving him a VOIP headset I'm not using for his online gameplaying... also the reset of the family won't have to hear all the fragging

At 12 his hands are still pretty small, so I'll have him compare the MS & Logitech options at the next PC show.

 

[Seikent]

Logitech mouses are big, best for big hands. Habu is better for your son I think.