-=ULTRA CHEAP GAMING PC=-

[CheapGamer590]

PURCHASE DATE: 1/30/10 BUDGET: 400-600

SYSTEM USAGE : Gaming, Media Center, Music, General Use

PARTS NOT REQUIRED: (keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, OS)

PREFERRED WEBSITES FOR PARTS: newegg.com or tigerdirect.com COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: US

PARTS PREFERENCES: Phenon X4 2.4GHz kit http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...AM&cm_mmc=Email-_-Main-_-WEM2156-_-components

OVERCLOCKING: Maybe SLI OR CROSSFIRE: No

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 haven't purchased yet, will be a seperate purchase


I am considering a building a budget Gaming system based around these parts:

Biostar MCP6PB M2+ Motherboard
AMD Phenom X4 9650 Quad Core Processor OEM
Centon 2048MB PC6400 DDR2
Hitachi OS00163 1TB Deskstar Internal Hard Drive
Power Up Black ATX Mid-Tower Case
The above are bundled together for $270
Radion 4750 $150
Total Core cost: $ 420

The system is intended to be able to play games like FARCRY 2 and Fallout 3 at high settings.
What are your thoughts about building a budget gaming PC around this setup?
Are any of the parts of questionable Quality or are there any compatibility issues?

 

[MadAdmiral]

You're not going to be able to play those games on high settings at that resolution for that budget.

Why don't you get an HD 5770 for $5 more? Here's a comparison: =on&prod[3086]=on]http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-graphics-cards-charts-2009-high-quality/compare,1631.html?prod[3103]=on&prod[3086]=on . To emphasize my first point, 40 FPS is considered playable. Keep in mind that the rest of the system for these benchmarks are built to have no effect on the FPS. With the older tech you're buying, the FPS will be much, much lower.

You really shouldn't be building with DDR2 right now. That's also an old CPU on an extremely old socket. You won't be able to do much upgrading, if any without replacing the main guts. In addition, the board only supports up to 4 GB of RAM. No Crossfire support, obviously, as it only has 1 PCIe 16x slot. So even if you wanted to do any upgrading, the only possibility would be adding a second stick of RAM, and then you'd be at the starting point for any other build.

As far as quality, there's a lot of questionable parts besides just being older tech. Biostar isn't one of the major brands for motherboards. Generally, you want to stick to Asus and Gigabyte. I've never seen anything about Hitachi HDDs, so I would be concerned about the quality there. Same for the Centon RAM, but to a much lesser degree. I haven't heard of Power Up cases, but it wouldn't be that important, except that they don't offer details on the PSU and it only has 1 fan.

I would recommend you hold off on building a new computer for a while. If you wait to save up for better parts, you will get a much better build. About the cheapest I would trying building a gaming PC for would be about $550. Besides waiting to get better parts, the prices will also drop as you wait.

EDIT: Can't get that link to work. Just click on the Charts tab, select any graphics card benchmark and then select the 5770 and whatever to compare. Side note, was that supposed to be the 5750? If so, you definitely should get the 5770.

 

[CheapGamer590]

Thank You for your detailed and informative responce.

Last time I was considering building a budget gaming PC was in June of last year; things have changed alot since then. Now that I have re-researched everything, I see that the motherboard and processor I was looking at will be obsolete shortly, and that new components are on thier way to the market.

This leaves one major question, although I can bump my budget into 600-800 range, would it be a good idea to wait a few months, until Intel finishes introducing its new processors and ATI straightens out its production capabilities?

 

[MadAdmiral]

ATI's production issues are only really affecting the high-end models (the 5870 and 5970). These would cost around 1/2 and all of your budget, respectively, so the production issues aren't really a problem for you.

As for Intel's new CPUs, they've already released two i3s, which cost around $150. They're also dual cores, so not that desireable. The models they haven't released yet will also be high end ones.

The only thing to wait for is to see if nVidia's Fermi cards, due out mid-March, will push the prices down in GPUs. However, the current reports are that the cards run very hot. To me, this indicates that to compete with ATI's new cards, nVidia had to massively overclock what they were releasing, meaning the cards aren't as good. But we'll see what happens.

Here's what I would build with the $600-800, and you can decide to what or build now.

GPU: HD 5770 $163

RAM: GeIL 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 CAS Latency 7 $100

Case/PSU: HAF 922 and OCZ StealthXStream 700W $110 combo after rebates.

HDD: Samsung Spinpoint F3 500 GB $55

Optical: Cheapest SATA DVD burner $21

Mobo: Asus M4A79XTD EVO

CPU: Athlon II X3 425 Rana 2.7GHz combo with mobo $166 after rebate
Athlon II X4 620 Propus 2.6GHz combo with mobo $189 after rebate
Phenom II X4 955 BE Deneb 3.2GHz combo with mobo $256 after rebate

Total: $615 with the X3, $638 with X4 620, $705 with X4 955.

 

[MadAdmiral]

Another option is the i5. Here's what'd change:

GPU: HD 5770 in combo with i5-750

CPU: i5-750 $365

Mobo: EVGA P55 LE 123-LF-E653-KR $130 after rebate

Total: $781.