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Budget Gaming PC - Ready to pull the trigger - Convince me otherwise

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Hi everyone,

Ive never built a PC before, but I have replaced memory, graphics card, power supply, and the hardrive on my old dell.

This computer will be used almost exclusively for gaming. Starcraft (main game played), WoW, the new Star Wars MMO, and probably messing around with some other games. No FPS...

I am about ready to purchase these parts, any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks to Outlander_04 for recommending most of these.


AMD Athlon II X3 445 Rana 3.1GHz $75

GIGABYTE GA-78LMT-S2P AM3+ AMD 760G $60

G.SKILL NS 4GB (2 x 2GB) $26

SAPPHIRE 100315L Radeon HD 6850 1GB $135 [ after rebate]

CORSAIR Builder Series CX430 V2 430W $25 [ after rebate ]

Antec Three Hundred Illusion Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case $70

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3500413AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive $45

I have an extra DVD drive....


Total: $436


I'm really trying to keep this under 400 as I will be buying a 24 or 27 inch monitor this black friday.

Couple of questions:

1. Is the CPU the bottleneck here? and will I be able to drop in a better AMD CPU into this mobo at a later time?

2. Will this run 1080P resolution on a 27 inch monitor?

3. Will SC2 run smoothly on max settings with the above setup?

4. Do internal computer parts have amazing deals on black friday like LCD TVs do? considering the consumer demand for internal PC parts is way less that for HDTVs, I am wondering if its worth waiting until next month to see if I can snag some deals.

Any input is appreciated. As this is my first build I dont know too much about the parts although I researched each one over the past few days.

Thanks for your time.

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Homebuilt system Expert

for the games you are running, you dont NEED a 6850. My recommendation is to get an FM1 cpu, with the correct FM1 socket MoBo, Asrock has one that is inside your budget. The FM1 chip is a quad core with integrated 6530 GPU, enough for any of those games, and is only a 100W chip, so this will allow you more headroom with your psu. This will most likely save you the $40 you are over budget by.

Next, if you aren't flashy about your case, the Cooler Master HAF 912 is about as good as it gets in the $60 price range, and is will keep your system nice and cool!

Overall, these suggestions put you around a $385 build. Hope this helps. Here are the links to the items i suggested:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

sirion25 said:
Hi everyone,

Ive never built a PC before, but I have replaced memory, graphics card, power supply, and the hardrive on my old dell.

This computer will be used almost exclusively for gaming. Starcraft (main game played), WoW, the new Star Wars MMO, and probably messing around with some other games. No FPS...

I am about ready to purchase these parts, any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks to Outlander_04 for recommending most of these.


AMD Athlon II X3 445 Rana 3.1GHz $75

GIGABYTE GA-78LMT-S2P AM3+ AMD 760G $60

G.SKILL NS 4GB (2 x 2GB) $26

SAPPHIRE 100315L Radeon HD 6850 1GB $135 [ after rebate]

CORSAIR Builder Series CX430 V2 430W $25 [ after rebate ]

Antec Three Hundred Illusion Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case $70

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3500413AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive $45

I have an extra DVD drive....


Total: $436


I'm really trying to keep this under 400 as I will be buying a 24 or 27 inch monitor this black friday.

Couple of questions:

1. Is the CPU the bottleneck here? and will I be able to drop in a better AMD CPU into this mobo at a later time?

2. Will this run 1080P resolution on a 27 inch monitor?

3. Will SC2 run smoothly on max settings with the above setup?

4. Do internal computer parts have amazing deals on black friday like LCD TVs do? considering the consumer demand for internal PC parts is way less that for HDTVs, I am wondering if its worth waiting until next month to see if I can snag some deals.

Any input is appreciated. As this is my first build I dont know too much about the parts although I researched each one over the past few days.

Thanks for your time.


It would easily run SC2. I would suggest getting a phenom quad core though :( . If budget permits.
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casualbuilder said:
for the games you are running, you dont NEED a 6850. My recommendation is to get an FM1 cpu, with the correct FM1 socket MoBo, Asrock has one that is inside your budget. The FM1 chip is a quad core with integrated 6530 GPU, enough for any of those games, and is only a 100W chip, so this will allow you more headroom with your psu. This will most likely save you the $40 you are over budget by.

Next, if you aren't flashy about your case, the Cooler Master HAF 912 is about as good as it gets in the $60 price range, and is will keep your system nice and cool!

Overall, these suggestions put you around a $385 build. Hope this helps. Here are the links to the items i suggested:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...



Thanks for the advice. My concern is that I am building this PC specifically for gaming. It seems like a good choice for an all-around home PC but I think that a discrete graphics card is the only way to go if I plan on running any games at 1080P with reasonable detail.

Is the 6850 the graphics card I should be looking at? I see that there is a 6850 made by HIS and a 6850 made by Sapphire? what's the difference between the 2 (HIS is $5 more expensive).

Does Nvidia have any offerings that are around the $100-150 mark that have a good reputation?

As far as the processor goes, is the AMD Athlon II X3 445 Rana 3.1GHz a good choice? Will I see a dramatic difference with the AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz or is there something in between?

Thanks

Homebuilt system Expert

You will see a HUGE difference going from an Athlon II chip to a Phenom II chip. I would recommend it if you can swing it. As far as the gpu, you can get a GTX560 for around the $180 mark, and is the only card i would recommend going with nvidia.

yeah, im trying to decide now. The problem is that its almost 2x as expensive. the Athlon II is $70 whereas the Phenom is $120. Will the computer realistically run twice as fast between the two chips?
Homebuilt system Master

Star Wars will need more oomph than you think, especially at 1920x1080.

The a8-3850 will do HDTV at 1920, but will struggle with games.

A 6850 is capable at 1920x1080, but will struggle with some games.

My suggestion: get the Rosewill R102 micro ATX case or the Xigmatek Asgard II B/B case, either for $29.99 which will get your back down to $400 cost

an alternative would be an ASRock H61M-Vs ($58) and a Celeron G530 ($57) or Pentium G620 ($73) woth the rest of the system the same
Homebuilt system Expert

Well the good thing is with the FM1 chipset with integrated graphics is you can run Hybrid CFX with any 65xx board. So, if you really dont see the performance you want, you can always upgrade to another gpu. The FM1 setup is probably going to be your cheapest setup, but remember, you gave us a $400 budget, thats tiny!
Homebuilt system Expert

Another thing to think about, i run SC2 maxed out on my 4650 Radeon. That game has relatively awesome graphics. That card also plays the Witcher 2. Now, all im saying is take that into consideration that im recommending a cpu/gpu combo running a much faster cpu spead and a 6550 GPU. Id say you will have plenty of "oomph" to run anything you want. While SWTOR is a game you listed, SC2 and WoW were the 2 games that you said you played the most, and believe me, this chip will do it without a hiccup.
Homebuilt system Expert

I actually think that your build is pretty solid for the price. If you could fit a phenom x4 in there then great you will notice a difference as it is higher clocked, has an additional core and a nice l3 cache. The 6850 I would consider the starting point for 1080p gaming it will run most games out there at that resolution, sometimes with lowered settings.

thanks for all the replies guys.

SLI is using multiple graphics cards right? I'm new to the whole building my own computer game so am not planning on Overclocking (for now) or using multiple graphics cards.

I'm looking at the intel offerings and it seems that i3 2100 costs about the same as a phenom 2 x4 955. should I be worried about 2v4 core?
Homebuilt system Expert

the 955BE will perform much much better than a dual core, even the i3...It overclocks very well, and if you want, you can try the Zosma 960T, as it has the potential to unlock a 5th and 6th core. only $125. Has very good OC potential as well.
Homebuilt system Expert

sirion25 said:
thanks for all the replies guys.

SLI is using multiple graphics cards right? I'm new to the whole building my own computer game so am not planning on Overclocking (for now) or using multiple graphics cards.

I'm looking at the intel offerings and it seems that i3 2100 costs about the same as a phenom 2 x4 955. should I be worried about 2v4 core?

The fact of the matter is at stock the i3 bests the 955be in games. However when you overclock the 955 it matches/beats it. The additional 2 cores will be beneficial when multitasking as well.

The one thing I will say is that sc2 favors intels architecture over amds if you look at the chart I posted above.
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