[Solved] First Time, Low coast Gaming Build ~$750

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: sometime this month (October)

BUDGET RANGE: under $750... curantly @ $707 (would rather it be under 700... but i gave up there)

SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: MMO gaming... is there time for anything else?

PARTS NOT REQUIRED: keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: newegg.com

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: US

PARTS PREFERENCES: would like to use AMD CPU, and ATI GPU, but open to anything

OVERCLOCKING: Maybe

SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Maybe

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: trying keep options open for overclocking/crossfire if i want to play w/ it later on

This is my frist time to build a system... i posted a build a few months back to get a better feel for how to build a balanced system
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] k#t1941712

Anyway this build's main use will be for MMO's (WoW, and now Aion) I curantly play on a lap-top... which works fine till i get in congested areas (raids/Cities) and expirance low fps... so w/ that said here is what i've put togather this time around:


Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-MA790X-UD4P
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128387

CPU: AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition Callisto 3.1GHz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819103680

GPU: SAPPHIRE 100277L Radeon HD 4770 512MB 128-bit
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814102835

RAM: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231122

CD/DVD: Sony Optiarc Black all in one with LightScribe Support
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827118032

Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Blue WD1600AAJS 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822136075

PSU: OCZ StealthXStream OCZ700SXS 700W ATX12V
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817341019

OS: Microsoft Windows XP Media Center 2005 SP2B for System Builders...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6832116049

Case: Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811129042

also... Any reason i should consider Vista? i've herd nothing but bad things about it when it comes to games and eating sytem resorces.

Thank you for your time and any coments/advice ahead of time =)

Hey, I just laid this one out for someone else:

Processor/motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.271970 $212.99

Memory/graphics card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.265384 $265.98 ($245.98 w/ mail-in rebate)

Hard drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822152181 $49.99

Optical: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827151187 $30.99

Power supply: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817341016 $59.99 ($39.99 w/ mail-in rebate)

Cooler: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835207004 $39.99 ($24.99 w/ mail-in rebate)

Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 20illusion $59.95

$719.88 ($674.88 w/ mail-in rebates)

If you need to save money you can downgrade to the 4870 with this combo and save $50 off the total price. For an OS you're going to want Windows Vista with a Windows 7 upgrade, not Windows XP, in its x86-64 flavor (64-bit). You can get $10 off the price with a combo on one of your components, or buy the OEM version of Windows 7 when it comes out and save more money.

To be honest its probably a bit of an overkill, but it is a great system for the money and will last you. The cooler will get you to probably around 3.6 GHz (from 2.8 GHz) on the processor, which is triple core and probably the best bargain gaming processor on the market at that price point. The 4890 will overclock a bit too, not that you'd probably need it though, at stock speeds it will run most any game at 1920x1080 on high-very high details and depending on the game, a good amount of anti-aliasing. It has DDR3 RAM, a good power supply, and an excellent case and 500GB instead of the low amount of storage you chose in the first post. The motherboard will allow you to run CrossFire, but I would recommend just using single card solutions because it's more efficient and puts less strain on your power supply.

Contemporary games like WoW and Aion will each take 3-10GB of HDD space. It doesnt take many to fill a 100gb drive. Hard drives run more efficiently when they are less than 50% full.

There is only about a 10% MHz difference which wont be much of a gameplay difference on a single thread game anyway. I would go with the x3 720 which you can overclock to around 3.2 if you get a decent CPU air cooler. Also you could get lucky and be able to unlock the 4th core.