Computertater building season.
I'm still running a 900mhz T-bird with a Radeon 9600 Pro and 512 megs of RAM. I really want to play Bioshock, but I might have to upgrade. I recently started a new job, which means I'm saving up money to (finally) build a brand spanking new PC. But I'm poor, cheap, and love a deal. That's why I was looking at this guide here.
<a href="http://techreport.com/etc/2007q3/system-guide-0707/index.x?pg=2" target="_blank">http://techreport.com/etc/2007q3/system-gu...07/index.x?pg=2</a>
I can build the system on that page there for $567 CDN, which is a damn good deal. But it won't be quite enough to run the newer stuff, but I really don't know modern hardware enough to know how to round this system out and get the extra punch to play UE3 games that will destroy my PC. I'm thinking of a 385MB graphics card as an upgrade, and possibly a new CPU, but I think that's not TOO needed as this one seems to take hard overclocking very well.
Does a system like that need much besides a more powerful video card? I don't want to run UE3 games at 1600x1200 at max detail, but after being stuck at 20FPS or less on almost every game I've played for years, I want to be breaking that 55FPS-ish barrier at decent looks at over 1024x768.
Looking at more stuff, it seems I can build a pretty solid rig for under $1,200 when I put it together myself, but I just wonder how long it will hold up against newer stuff coming. The big titles like Bioshock, Gears of War, UT3, etc. I know a system like that would destroy Source engine stuff.
After reading up on NCIX, apparently if you do the "buy a PC" thing, you get free-ish ground shipping for a pre-built system.
I did this as a test system to see how solid a system is at $1000.
1 x AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ EE Dual Core Processor AM2 Windsor 2.2GHZ 512KBX2 65W 90NM Retail Box
1 x Gigabyte GA-MA69G-S3H 690G ATX AM2 DDR2 PCI-E16 PCI-E1 3PCI HDMI Video Sound GBLAN 1394 Motherboard
1 x Corsair XMS2 TWIN2X2048-5400C4 2GB 2X1GB PC5400 DDR2-667 CL 4-4-4-12 240PIN Dual Channel Memory
1 x Diamond Radeon HD 2900XT 740MHZ 512MB 1650MHZ GDDR3 Dual DVI-I HDCP HDTV Out Video Ca *IR-$35.00*
1 x Antec Sonata III Black ATX 16IN Mid Tower Quiet Case 3X5.25 2X3.5 4X3.5IN 500W 120MM Fan
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA2 3GB/S 7200RPM 16MB Cache NCQ Hard Drive
1 x LG GSA-H62N SATA DVD+RW 18X8X16 DVD-RW 18X6X16 DL 10X Black OEM DVD Writer W/ SW
1 x Sony Black 1.44MB 3.5IN Floppy Drive
1 x Antec TriCool 120MM Case Fan 3-SPEED 1200/1600/2200RPM 25/28/30DBA 39/56/79CFM 3 & 4PINS
1 x Belkin Pureav Home Theater & PC Surge Protector 2665 Joules 9 Outlet Dual Coax
This is about $1,200.
Is there anything there I could improve for a reasonable price? I really don't want a killer, super-expensive system. I just want a good deal that will be able to RUN modern games for a while, and I don't care about anti-aliasing and anistropic filtering and all that nonsense.
<a href="http://techreport.com/etc/2007q3/system-guide-0707/index.x?pg=2" target="_blank">http://techreport.com/etc/2007q3/system-gu...07/index.x?pg=2</a>
I can build the system on that page there for $567 CDN, which is a damn good deal. But it won't be quite enough to run the newer stuff, but I really don't know modern hardware enough to know how to round this system out and get the extra punch to play UE3 games that will destroy my PC. I'm thinking of a 385MB graphics card as an upgrade, and possibly a new CPU, but I think that's not TOO needed as this one seems to take hard overclocking very well.
Does a system like that need much besides a more powerful video card? I don't want to run UE3 games at 1600x1200 at max detail, but after being stuck at 20FPS or less on almost every game I've played for years, I want to be breaking that 55FPS-ish barrier at decent looks at over 1024x768.
Looking at more stuff, it seems I can build a pretty solid rig for under $1,200 when I put it together myself, but I just wonder how long it will hold up against newer stuff coming. The big titles like Bioshock, Gears of War, UT3, etc. I know a system like that would destroy Source engine stuff.
After reading up on NCIX, apparently if you do the "buy a PC" thing, you get free-ish ground shipping for a pre-built system.
I did this as a test system to see how solid a system is at $1000.
1 x AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ EE Dual Core Processor AM2 Windsor 2.2GHZ 512KBX2 65W 90NM Retail Box
1 x Gigabyte GA-MA69G-S3H 690G ATX AM2 DDR2 PCI-E16 PCI-E1 3PCI HDMI Video Sound GBLAN 1394 Motherboard
1 x Corsair XMS2 TWIN2X2048-5400C4 2GB 2X1GB PC5400 DDR2-667 CL 4-4-4-12 240PIN Dual Channel Memory
1 x Diamond Radeon HD 2900XT 740MHZ 512MB 1650MHZ GDDR3 Dual DVI-I HDCP HDTV Out Video Ca *IR-$35.00*
1 x Antec Sonata III Black ATX 16IN Mid Tower Quiet Case 3X5.25 2X3.5 4X3.5IN 500W 120MM Fan
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA2 3GB/S 7200RPM 16MB Cache NCQ Hard Drive
1 x LG GSA-H62N SATA DVD+RW 18X8X16 DVD-RW 18X6X16 DL 10X Black OEM DVD Writer W/ SW
1 x Sony Black 1.44MB 3.5IN Floppy Drive
1 x Antec TriCool 120MM Case Fan 3-SPEED 1200/1600/2200RPM 25/28/30DBA 39/56/79CFM 3 & 4PINS
1 x Belkin Pureav Home Theater & PC Surge Protector 2665 Joules 9 Outlet Dual Coax
This is about $1,200.
Is there anything there I could improve for a reasonable price? I really don't want a killer, super-expensive system. I just want a good deal that will be able to RUN modern games for a while, and I don't care about anti-aliasing and anistropic filtering and all that nonsense.
Comments
Psu: XCLIO GOODPOWER 50$
Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3R 130$
Processor: E6350 120$
CPU cooler: Arctic freezer 7 30$
Hard drive: Seagate barracuda 320 80$
Graphic card: 8800 GTS 620: 400$
Ram: Patriot 800 Cas 40 - 82$ (obs, after mail-in-rebate)
= $942
1x Intel Core 2 Duo E6320 Dual Core Processor LGA775 Conroe 1.86GHZ 1066FSB 4MB Retail $207.65
1xEVGA E-GEFORCE 8800GTS 500MHZ 640MB 1.6GHZ GDDR3 Dual DVI-I HDTV Out HDCP DIRECTX10 $472.34
1xASUS P5B ATX LGA775 Conroe 965P DDR2 PCI-E16 3PCI-E1 3PCI SATA2 Sound GBLAN Motherboard $136.85
1xCorsair XMS2 TWIN2X2048-6400 2GB 2X1GB PC2-6400 DDR2-800 CL 5-5-5-18 240PIN DIMM Dual Channel Memory $149.99
1xWestern Digital SE16 320GB SATA2 7200RPM 16MB 8.9MS Hard Drive OEM 3 Year MFR Warranty $99.76
1xSamsung SH-S183L Black SATA DVD+RW 18X8X16 DVD-RW 18X6X16 DL 8X Lightscribe DVD Writer $50.31
1xAntec Sonata III Black ATX 16IN Mid Tower Quiet Case 3X5.25 2X3.5 4X3.5IN 500W 120MM Fan $150-ish
Ends up about $1,116 CDN.
It seems like I've got about the same idea as what you posted above with some changes.