hwinnian

Honorable
Jul 28, 2012
3
0
10,510
After thinking about it for several months, and going back and forth between buying a pre-built and building my own, I am finally ready to take the plunge and buy the pieces. My goal is to stay cheap, but also to have something that I can be proud of. I wanted an i5, but that is just not in the cards right now. I have been told that a SSD will give me a significant performance increase, and I have an old HD I can put in for data. I also have an old optical drive I plan to put in.

My main goals for this computer are:

- be able to play EQ2 at relatively high setting
- be able to play Skyrim

My current computer (laptop - MSI EX625, 3 years old) has just gotten to the point where it overheats wayyy to quickly. I have cleaned it out, reapplied thermal paste, reinstalled OS, and it is just getting worse the more I use it. :(

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard: Asus M4A88T-M Micro ATX AM3 Motherboard
Memory: G.Skill Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory
Hard Drive: Corsair Force Series GT 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB Video Card
Case: Cooler Master Elite 430 ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: OCZ 700W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply
(old hard drive for data, old optical drive)

for a total, after rebates, of $500. I have a copy of Windows 7 to install.

What do you all think?
 
What is the budget amount that you are working with?
The Intel i3-2120 sounds like a good idea and will give you better gaming performance. I would recomend against the 550Ti for a video card and would like to know what amount you have to work with for the video card purchase. A 560Ti would be a better choice and give you much better gaming performance.
 

Uther39

Distinguished



Well i think he would be much better off keeping the AMD 965 and spending the extra $40 on a better gpu like the 560ti.
 

hwinnian

Honorable
Jul 28, 2012
3
0
10,510
I just wanted to let you guys know that I built this computer at the beginning of August and it is working great. I ended up keeping the same CPU and GPU, and I know they aren't top-of-the-line, but they work great for my needs, and the entire build was about $500. You guys are awesome, and keep up the good work!