Looking for good mid level gaming rig kit.

[Mr. LL]

I am helping a friend build a mid level gaming PC for under $400-500. He has a monitor, mouse, and key board. Does anyone know of a good site to find kits like this or ready to go towers around this price range?

Basically just a normal system with a decent enough video card that can play most new games, even on low to medium settings, PCI Express slot is good for future upgrade potential, needs a DVD player or burner, wifi network card, 1-2 GB RAM minimum, HDD size doesn't matter for the most part. It will have XP Pro.

The only place I have checked so far is Tiger Direct, they have some kits around $200, plus the few additional hardware pieces and it would be around $300. My bud may get a 7 or 8 series GeForce card if money permits but if not then a decent 3D capable onboard video will be needed.

Again the main thing is just that it can play a good selection of current games, even on low settings but have room to expand in the future.

Thanks,

 

[Whirlwind]

I believe if you go to newegg.com you can buy the parts sererate and get better parts and still meet your budget.....you can build a pretty decent gaming rig.

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-EP45-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

Newegg.com - Intel Pentium E2200 Allendale 2.2GHz 1MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops

Newegg.com - CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory

Newegg.com - CORSAIR CMPSU-550VX 550W ATX12V V2.2 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply - Power Supplies or get the 450 watt version and save alittle cash

Newegg.com - MSI R4830-T2D512 Radeon HD 4830 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards or something similar

Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar SE WD2500AAJS 250GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives

Newegg.com - Suggested Products or something similar price....case is preference, I am just partial to Coolermaster cases.

This is a general base build....you can tweak it however you like....add your dvd burner.

This would play games pretty darn well.

This is roughly $520...but you would get back $60 in rebates.

 

[Evolv]

It would be better to get the E5200 instead of that Allendale:
Newegg.com - Intel Pentium E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz 2MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops
It's only $3 more and worth it.

 

[Mr. LL]

Thanks for the info I will check that out and see if a manual build would work better.