Athlon 4050e: Usable for gaming machine?

[Kloreep]

I'm trying to put together a gaming PC without spending too much cash. The most demanding games I have my sights set on are mostly from the current spread of 360 ports/dual releases (Mass Effect, Alpha Protocol, Bioshock; Valve games; that kind of thing). From what I've read, it seems like I'd get the most bang for my buck by sticking with dual cores. The world of quad cores seems to be rapidly evolving anyhow, and I don't see the need to invest in old C2Qs/Phenom Is, much less spend the large amounts of money needed for Phenom IIs/Core i-whatsits, especially considering the added cost of the getting the latest motherboards and a set of DDR3 RAM. I'm going to be using Windows XP Pro (32-bit) for now.

So here's the big question: My dad's willing to give me an Asus M2A-VM motherboard and matching AMD Athlon 4050e CPU, plus a couple gigs of DDR2 RAM. "Free" is certainly a nice price for parts, and I'm not planning on playing Crysis, nor do I play demanding multiplayer games in which I must have constant 60 frames or somesuch. Still, I'm hoping to be able to run games like Mass Effect at high settings. (Haven't bought a monitor yet, but given I'll be buying something currently on the market it'll probably have a maximum of around 1600x900 or so, at least.) If the 4050 would drag down the performance I'm hoping for, I think I'd rather just bite the bullet and spend money on a more top-of-the-line kind of dual core now, rather than after I've already built a computer around the 4050. I am interested in trying overclocking, but while changing BIOS settings doesn't daunt me, I haven't tried my hand before at improving a computer's cooling set-up - so I'm probably not about to push any CPU as far as an expert might.

Is the 4050 workable, as long as I get a good video card? Or should I expand my budget to include a new motherboard & CPU as well?

If I should go for another CPU, any recommendations? From what I've seen, it sounds like the Intel Wolfdale chips are at the top of the dual core options, and I might be willing to spend about $100 on a less-than-uber version as long as a motherboard wouldn't add too much extra cost.

 

[AKM880]

Should work good aslong as you overclock that CPU.

 

[xaira]

should do the trick, what gcard do you plan to run? im guessing the res ull be playing at will be 1680x1050,

 

[megamanx00]

The CPU will be fine if you overclock it leaving you to put more money towards other components like the PSU and video card. Getting it to around 2.6 should be enough for the kind of games you want to play. Of course, if you're getting a better video card than say a 4850, even overclocked to 2.6 that CPU would be holding you back a bit.

If you have a tight budget, just overclock that Athlon for now. If you have more money, then you may as well invest in a new motherboard and CPU like a Phenom II 550 BE or an Intel E8400.

 

[daletkine]

Should be ok, but not outstanding. My brother runs an Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (2.3GHz), which is just a tad faster than the one you have, and together with a Radeon 4850 512MB it runs everything. He ran Mass Effect on highest graphics and Fallout 3 on highest at 1600x1200 res.
So, just get yourself a good video card. The lowest you should consider is Radeon HD 4850 512MB or GeForce GTS 250 512MB. Those cards should be able to run almost anything, including Mass Effect and Fallout 3.
Look at it this way, you have RAM, motherboard and CPU for free from dad , just buy a video card and other components and try it out. If you don't like it, you can still expand your budget and buy additional components. But, you should be fine with that.

 

[Kloreep]

Cool, sounds like it should be fine, perhaps needing a little overclocking.

I was thinking of spending around $100 for a video card like the Radeon 4770 or 4850, so that seems to match up nicely.

Basically, I'm hoping to only invest heavily in parts I'll definitely be able to re-use (plus the video card, since that's so necessary for games; who knows, perhaps it'll last into the next build too). Then I can set aside some more money for an upgrade of motherboard/processor/ram/OS sooner rather than later - but hopefully late enough to get a good quad core set-up much cheaper than they're going for now.