Building a Gaming Comp (Budget $1000)

[Samwise91]

I recently decide to start researching up on building a new comp, considering my comp is ancient lol. Ill be playing games like Crysis, COD 4, CS:S, well Crysis should sum up pretty much what i need .

This is what ive roughly decided on so far:

Motherboard - AMD 790GX (or something around that series or maybe Quad Series)
CPU - AMD Athlon 64 X2 7750 BE (Not over sure on this, having some doubts)
Graphics Card - Either 4870 or 4850 (if i go 4850, might look at 4850 X2)
RAM- Dont know much about brands with RAM and stuff so... ill probably go for around 4gb to be safe i guess.
Power Supply - got no idea with the Power supply brands and stuff either. But probably around 700W

Thats all ive really got upto so far, if you guys could give me some opinions on what you think with what ive got so far, how i could improve it etc, that would be great.

BTW ill be working with AU Dollars.

Thanks.

 

[Proximon]

You get better bang for the buck with an Intel P45 board along with an E8400. Faster CPU, less expensive MB that performs as well or better.

If you end up with a 4870 and want to be able to add a second in the future, look for one of these:
Corsair 750TX
http://www.pcsuperstore.com.au/product-details.php?g_ProductID=11121

Seasonic M12 700W
http://www.umart.com.au/newindex2.phtml?bid=5
Normally I would only say 750W, but this is an excellent unit and prices look kinda rough down there.

 

[xthekidx]

I'd say go with a GA-EP-43-UD3L mobo and an E7400 CPU, so you can put more money into the GPU. Crysis is very demanding on the GPU. It also depends on the res you play at. At 1440x900 and using a gtx260 core 216, I cannot turn up all the eye-candy all the way in Crysis if I want playable framerates, it gets kinda jumpy at times. Crysis tends to prefer Nvidia cards too, that 4870 will not do as well as my GTX 260. I would say go for an HD 4850x2 at least, preferably a GTX 285 if you can, however that may be well outside of your budget. I am assuming $1000AUS is the budget you are working with...correct?

 

[xthekidx]

Read this to get an idea of how well your system will perform in crysis:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3517&p=8

 

[Samwise91]

Basically, i want a computer that will last me as long as possible, that in few year ill be able to upgrade bits and pieces without having to upgrade everything. Something that will allow me to play most new First Person Shooters, at around Medium Quality if not higher without any problems.

One Question, do intel motherboards have some sort of Crossfire Technology like AMD Motherboards?

 

[xthekidx]

Yes they do. If you want a crossfire capable motherboard for an intel chip then go for the Asus P5Q Pro/E or Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P.

If you went with an intel build, you could put an Q9650 in that mobo I suggested in a year or two when the E7400 isn't cutting it which would be a good upgrade for the intel route. Keep in mind that Intel CPU's are better than AMD CPU's at this point, so even though the Q9650 is older than the PII 940, its still better.

 

[Why_Me]

Remind me to never go shopping in Australia for PC parts....

Ok, I went with a gtx 285 for the fact it's the one high end vid card that doesn't suck up much juice...that way I could go with a 550w psu in this build. No matter how much I played with this build, I can't even come close to that budget. Well this is a build that will run Crysis, but it's way over your intended budget.

http://www.umart.com.au/newindex2.phtml?bid=5 $125.00
Coolermaster RC-590-KKN1 590 Case Black (NO PSU)

http://www.umart.com.au/newindex2.phtml?bid=5 $136.00
Corsair VX-550 ATX Power Supply 120mm fan PCI-E Graphics Card Connector 6 SATA Connectors Universal

http://www.umart.com.au/newindex2.phtml?bid=5 $168.00
Gigabyte GA-EP43-UD3L M/B, P43+ICH10, FSB 1600

http://www.umart.com.au/newindex2.phtml?bid=5 $196.00
Intel ATX E7400 CORE 2 DUO 2.8G 3MBCache 1066FSB LGA775

http://www.umart.com.au/newindex2.phtml?bid=5 $55.00
Xigmatek CPU Cooler S1283(CAC-SXHH3-U02)

http://www.umart.com.au/newindex2.phtml?bid=5 $8.00
Xigmatek Crossbow I7751 Black Plate Kit for CPU Coolers With 3 Heat Pipes Kit

http://www.umart.com.au/newindex2.phtml?bid=5 $13.00
OCZ Freeze Thermal Compound

http://www.umart.com.au/newindex2.phtml?bid=5 $79.00
G.Skill DDR2 4G(2x2G)PC6400 800Mhz(F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ)

http://www.umart.com.au/newindex2.phtml?bid=5 $33.00
LG H22NS30 SATA 22X+- Super Multi DVD Rewriter Black with Software

http://www.umart.com.au/newindex2.phtml?bid=5 $583.00
Galaxy GF GTX 285 PCI-E 2.0 1GB DDR3 512-bit

http://www.umart.com.au/newindex2.phtml?bid=5 $77.00
Seagate SATAII NCQ 320GB 7200RPM 16mb Cache

$1,473 AUD

 

[Samwise91]

Thanks for your effort, somehow I'm gonna have to get it down around 1k, either having to go with a lower end Graphics Card, mmm stupid economy lol.

I Guess, I don't really play Crysis to much as my computer is really bad and cant run it properly. So i guess if i go with say the ATI 4870 512mb model i can cut 200bucks off that and still play most games without a problem. Building a new computer when you dont have much experience is very confusing lol.

 

[Samwise91]

Ok so i think ive decided.

Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3 P45+ICH10 FSB1600 DDR2 1366+ SATA2 GbN 1394 ATX

CPU - Intel ATX E7400 CORE 2 DUO 2.8G 3MBCache 1066FSB LGA775

Graphics Card - Gigabyte ATI HD4850 1G PCI-E2.0 GDDR3 HDMI HDCP Fan

RAM - Corsair DDR2 Twin2X 4096 6400C5 4Gb

Power Supply - Corsair TX-650 650W ATX Power

HD - Seagate SATAII NCQ 320GB 7200RPM 16mb Cache

Case - Coolermaster RC-590-KKN1 590 Case Black (NO PSU) (Got no clue about Cases, just taken the advice of the comments and "Why_me")

Total - AU$1139

Honestly i have no idea about all this other cooling stuff that has been suggested, so I'm kinda lost of what to get, what to do with them etc. But this is pretty much what im looking at getting.

Im pretty happy with this conclusion, it will most likely run every game that i have for it quite smoothly (CS:S, TF2, COD4), so i gotta be happy with that =D. If anyone has any more suggestions on my build so far, it would be very much appreciated.

 

[Proximon]

The motherboard you picked is decent, but I want to make sure you understand that it just has a single PCI-E slot.

The PSU is fairly strong and will power any future video card, but it's more than enough for the 4850, so you could trim that if needed.

In fact, if you just replace the GTX 285 with the 4850 you chose, Why_Me has a fairly affordable build there. All those parts are good.

 

[Nik_I]

The motherboard you picked is decent, but I want to make sure you understand that it just has a single PCI-E slot.

The PSU is fairly strong and will power any future video card, but it's more than enough for the 4850, so you could trim that if needed.

In fact, if you just replace the GTX 285 with the 4850 you chose, Why_Me has a fairly affordable build there. All those parts are good.

Why_Me's system is quite good, and as you already said, a 4850 would lower the cost considerably. and it won't hurt the performance too badly.