Is it possible to build a gaming computer on a budget? Not including the monitor I have a budget to work with of about $500-600. I am hoping someone can give me direction to what is current with systems and performance. I have been in the laptop world for too long. I assume that AMD would be the cheapest, and would be able to get a copy of windows 7 for an OS. Any input is good. Systems designs/links are appreciated.
This rig is about 740$ snd will play most games maxed out at 1080p with 2x AA Newegg.com - Once You Know, You Newegg The SSD is just a place holder for a nice 1TB HDD. If you have to build the computer within the next 3 months, get the SSD to hold you off for awhile as HDD prices will be double their normal price because of floods in Thailand. They are expected to return to normal price at around the end of Q1 - mid Q2 of 2012. You could go a little cheaper with the GPU but a good minimum to keep is 1GB of GDDR5 and a 256 bit bus. You could bump down to a triple or dual core CPU as well but make sure that they have an L3 cache.
Newegg.com - Once You Know, You Newegg That was a rig I was gonna get that adds up to about 470ish, but you need to replace the vid card cause it's out of stock and go on Amazon and get a HDD, they're cheaper there. If you get a 100 video card and a HDD on Amazon it will add up to about 500
My idea of a gaming machine involves a SSD, not HDD. It would also include a $400+ GC. that's just me. I'm using an Intel processor and AMD graphics card right now. Wish I was using an AMD processor and Nvidia graphics card. Nvidia > AMD(processors) > Intel > AMD (gpu). That's my personal experience from the crash happy problems related to AMD gpu's. Also. PCI Express 3.0 is starting to show up in motherboards. About time too, It's been in the ISO since 2007. That means a lot of new faster hardware is going to be coming out soon. Newegg.com - OCZ Agility 3 AGT3-25SAT3-90G 2.5" 90GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) Newegg.com - ECS NGTX580-1536PI-F GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 1536MB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card For $500-$600 you're going to have to build a very unbalanced machine. You need at least $1,000 to build a balanced machine. You'll want low latency RAM. at least 8 GB of RAM so you can turn off pagefile. A SSD. A graphics card that packs a heavy punch. And a motherboard with a powerful north bridge so it can feed the graphics card all the data it needs as rapidly as possible. Then with all those power needs, You'll need a power supply with a 12v rail that can put out 500 watts on its own. That means you need an 800+ watt power supply. At that power consumption, I would be worried about my electric bill. Which means I would want an 80+ certified power supply. So yeah... Considering you already have a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers. $1,000-$1,500 for a gaming computer that isn't junk and imbalanced.
PHP: Disregard all of that. 0% true. 1000-1500 gets you a extremly good gaming computer, and you by no means need an ssd. Ssds are for chumps imo. Get a good dual core cpu, overclock it, get a good 100 dollar graphics card, and 8GB of ram and you can run most games at higher settings. And for the record, price has nothing to do with imbalences Oh and the link i gave you should be open for upgrades too so
My revised list with a dual core and GDDR3 GPU, Although this is 140$ cheaper than my previous, I consider this the absolute bare minimum for a "gaming" rig Newegg.com - Once You Know, You Newegg Well they do fuck early adopters on em, but they do provide a huge decrease in load times and boot up so it wouldn't hurt to invest in a 64GB now(you would get fucked on an HDD anyways)for OS and game installs, then when HDD prices drop to the norm, get a nice 500GB, or even 2 of em in RAID 0
Well to me, its not worth it. Double or triple the price just for a faster boot up isnt my cup of tea. I can wait the extra couple seconds
8 core cpus are out and you're calling a dual core cpu a gaming cpu? LOL. $3,000 is a good gaming computer, $1,500 is a budget gaming machine. You've obviously never used a SSD if you think they're a waste of money. I have a 32 Gb SSD collecting dust that I can send to you, should change your mind. $100 graphics card is not a gaming graphics card. Dude should save his money and buy a real gaming computer, not a normal computer advertised as a gaming machine. Did I mention Quad core processors came out in 2007? Calling Dual core a gaming machine is an insult... Don't disregard anything I said. If you're not willing to spend a decent amount of money on a gaming machine, you're just getting a normal computer. The cpu and gpu are garbage.
Ive played wow on a dual core with 4GB of ram and a normal video card i forget the exact one but you dont need what you think. If you think a 700$ computer is a normal computer then I question what you do on your computer. It doesnt take 700 dollars to run chrome and microsoft office. Look at some reviews for 100 dollar vid cards and you can see that they will run most things that are thrown at them. Maybe not on ultra, but he did say budget gaming, didnt he?
Get at least a quad core cpu, and buy the best graphics card your budget allows. You can build a nice gaming pc for $600 like I did, you don't need the best of the best. Price to performance ratio is what it's all about Newegg.com is your friend
that's not gaming bro. that's surfing the web and doing school work. If you want a gaming machine, you need a good graphics card/cpu. dual core processors were gaming processors in 2006. this is 2011 bro. 8 core processors are now gaming processors. a gtx 250 can't run everything, if anything at all, on max settings. not max settings = not a gaming gpu/cpu.
Okay this is my last post on here cause I'm tired of talking to your ass. But that's exactly what I mean! I meant to put 600 instead of 700, but same principals still apply! You're fuckin saying that a 600 dollar computer isn't a gaming computer and if it's not gaming then it's for personal use/work, right? Catch my drift??? And I'm not saying a gtx 250 can run everything, but it can run a good amount of games on lower settings. This guy said BUDGET GAMING. Not "I wanna go all out on a supermachine" correct? And if you think that just because someone doesn't have octo-core and their graphics aren't on ultra, that makes it less of a gaming computer, then you need to look at the average gamers computer. I doubt you'll find any octo-core cpus; maybe some ultra graphics.
It's not just faster boot up, load times for games are decreased, more resistance to shock and no moving parts so its much more reliable than HDDs, and if he wanted to he could bump down to 4GB of RAM and the SSD would pick up the slack if need be. And if it's your boot drive, it has 1,000x less latency at twice the bandwidth of HDDs so there is less overhead with anything you do on your OS, so in other words: everything.
See I didn't know all that. Thanks for the info Still not my cup of tea, but eh different strokea for different folks
My version of a gaming machine is $3,000+. I could easily dump $10,000 into a gaming machine if I had the money. $1,500 IS a budget gaming machine. Gameing implies that it is designed to play games. playing most games on minimal settings, but not being able to play some games isn't gaming. If your going to spend $700 on a computer, it's just a computer. Not a gaming machine. It's just a normal! computer. Any joe shmo minimum wage dude can pull up $700 to buy a computer. gaming implies it has power. You're attitude towards gaming computers would be like me walking up to a car enthusiast and saying a ford taurus is a sports car.
[quote name='"imap420"'] 8 core cpus are out and you're calling a dual core cpu a gaming cpu? LOL. $3,000 is a good gaming computer, $1,500 is a budget gaming machine. You've obviously never used a SSD if you think they're a waste of money. I have a 32 Gb SSD collecting dust that I can send to you, should change your mind. $100 graphics card is not a gaming graphics card. Dude should save his money and buy a real gaming computer, not a normal computer advertised as a gaming machine. Did I mention Quad core processors came out in 2007? Calling Dual core a gaming machine is an insult... Don't disregard anything I said. If you're not willing to spend a decent amount of money on a gaming machine, you're just getting a normal computer. The cpu and gpu are garbage.[/QUOTE] Hey man. If he doesnt want the 32gb ssd. I fucking do. Im a broke ass college student. Pm meh
I have one question to the guys arguing, are one of you talking about whole set up and the other just talking about a tower? Cause I can't imagine investing 10,000 into a tower, all that's NEEDED for a tower is the mobo, CPU, GPUs, drives, PSU, case and RAM ( barest of the bare essentials) It seems really overkill to pay 10,000 dollars for those high end parts , plus some expensive ass peripherals. I think I'll try to make a tower shopping list for 10,000 and see what I can come up with lol Also the fact everything gets updated frequently, that PC your talking about seems like a waste of money Update while making the list I decided to add 15 120mm fans A CPU cooler to keep the other CPU Cooler cool And a 890 dollar case that's just too ridiculous Let's just say... Cooling won't be an issue...