Is this a good deal?

[berserker5255]

Hi, I'm just wondering if this is a good deal on a prebuilt. I'm looking for a mediocre system to start with for low end gaming. Right off the bat, I'll be adding a graphics card and PSU but I first wanted to start with a decent prebuilt. Any thoughts?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5006155&sku=M975-10116

 

[moody89]

It's the older generation Phenom chips which weren't the best in fairness. It's only at 2.2GHz stock too. I also can't understand the 6GB of RAM...it's getting into overkill territory really for that kind of system. If you're comfortable adding a GPU and PSU then why not build your own from scratch? You'll save yourself money and you have the benefit of knowing exactly what's in it. Plus the feeling of satisfaction is something to experience There are plenty of people on these forums who would be more than happy to help if you did want to go down that route. Let us know your budget etc. and we can go from there. Hope this helps!

 

[saint19]

Hi newcomer and welcome to the Tom's hardware forum.

1- 6GB? AMD don't support tri-channel even with the Phenom II and AM3 socket
2- The 1st Phenom series isn't good
3- It's refurbished, do u think that is good?
4- Do u want know my conclusion?. It's a crap deal.

 

[berserker5255]

I greatly appreciate the responses; I'll rethink my options.
I am open to building my own system; its just a matter of finding what exactly it is that I want. I'm working with a budget of around $500 and all I'm looking to play as of right now is WoW and maybe some FPS games with decent clarity.

 

[warmon6]

Hi, I'm just wondering if this is a good deal on a prebuilt. I'm looking for a mediocre system to start with for low end gaming. Right off the bat, I'll be adding a graphics card and PSU but I first wanted to start with a decent prebuilt. Any thoughts?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5006155&sku=M975-10116

Well, what kind of low end gaming are we talking about? flash games or old pc games??

For the computer though, Im with the others on here. If you're going to change the hardware in the system later, why not just start building a now? There are far better option of computer hardware for the money out there than the computer you're looking into.

now If you are hesitant on building a full computer, then i would more recommend a custom computer builder like "iBUYPOWER" or CyberPower".

http://www.ibuypower.com/

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/

 

[berserker5255]

Ok, I hope I dont screw this up.. how does this possibly look:

• Radeon HD 4350 Video Card - 512MB DDR2, PCI Express 2.0, DVI, VGA, HDMI(0.7 lbs)
• Coolmax VL-600B Power Supply - 600-Watt, 140mm Blue LED Fan, PCIe(4.7 lbs)
• Corsair XMS2 1024MB PC6400 DDR2 800Mhz Dual Channel Memory(0.4 lbs)
• Western Digital WD5000AAKS Caviar Blue Hard Drive - 500GB, 7200rpm, 16MB, SATA-300, OEM(1.55 lbs)
• AMD Athlon II X4 635 Quad Core Processor ADX635WFGIBOX - 2.90GHz, Socket AM3, 2MB Cache, 2000MHz (4000 MT/s), Retail(0.7 lbs)
• ASUS M4A78L-M Motherboard - AMD 760G, Socket AM3, DDR2, USB, RAID, LAN, Micro ATX(2.3 lbs)
• Lite-On IHAS124-04 Internal DVD Writer - DVD+R 24X, DVD-R 24X, DVD+RW 8X, DVD-RW 6X, DVD+R DL 8X, SATA (OEM)(1.85 lbs)

for $440 with shipping?

Not the ultimate gaming machine I know, but sufficient for playing WoW and FPS games with decent (xbox 360 like) clarity?

 

[loneninja]

It looks fine except the 4350 is terrible for gaming, it should handle Wow but don't expect max settings, and expect it to struggle on most newer games(including console ports, it's far weaker than whats in an Xbox 360). Does that system really only have 1Gb of ram? If so it's going to be horribly nonresponsive and struggle doing most anything but browsing the internet.

At the very least I would get a 4650/5570 to run games, and a minimum of 2Gb of ram.

 

[berserker5255]

My apologies, I did mean 2gb or ram. So maybe I can just upgrade the grphics card to something better.

 

[moody89]

My apologies, I did mean 2gb or ram. So maybe I can just upgrade the grphics card to something better.

I'd agree that 2GB of RAM is the bare minimum nowadays. Also you may find it useful to have a nose through Tom's article on the Best GPU for the Money July 2010:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-radeon-hd-geforce-gtx,review-31939.html

If it were me, I would pick the rest of my build first and then grab the best GPU my budget allowed based off the above article. Personally I would also swap that PSU; recommended brands are Corsair, Seasonic and the newer Antec models. Let us know when you have decided upon your GPU and I can offer more advice on what wattage PSU you'll need. Have a look if the Samsung Spinpoint F3 harddrives are at a similar price since they should perform faster than the WD Blue HDD you pointed to. Other than that it looks a nice build

 

[moody89]

Forgot to add - you haven't listed a case in your build list. I'm not sure whether you already have one but you definitely wouldn't want to forget that. You're build wouldn't get very far at all

 

[berserker5255]

This is the case I'm getting.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4540656&Sku=A406-1117