Need a 700 dollar gaming comp?September 1st
UPDATED: 9/1/05
Ok,after having over half of my posts being related to helping people with computer builds, I have finally decided to write a price guide to building a computer. This guide will be updated every week. It will be aimed at people with tight budgets who aren't afraid to overclock, and who want decent gaiming systems. It will be for a 650 dollar system. This is all without a monitor, keyboard, mouse, os, or speakers. Get them on your own, or reuse your old ones.
Updated- 9/1/05
Video Card- MSi x800
Price-120 dollars
The MSi x800 has 12 pipelines. Even though it only has DDR memory, this card clearly beats the 6600GT in most aspects. Combined with a 120d dollar price tag, this card is a steal, and awill play most games pretty well. The core is clocked at 400MHZ and the memory is clocked at 700MHZ.
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=321949
CPU/Processr- AMD venice 3000+
Price-124 dollars
The AMD venice offers great performance combined with good price. For the money, the Venice is hard to beat. Most people can get an overclock of around 2.5-2.7GHZ on these chips!
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=A64-3000BW
Memory- Mushkin Redline
Price-140 dollars
Frankly, these sticks are currently the cheapest BH-5/CH-5/UTT you can find. That sucks considering that you used to be able to purchase Twinmos UTT for around 90 dollars! Still 2-2-2-5 memory is hard to beat in terms of performance.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820146387
Price:120
If you can't afford those memory chips, then go with these.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820146393
They can't overclock as high has the UTT, but the ram divider works with less than .5% performance loss. Reportedly works at 2-2-2-5 Timings, which is what we always aim for
.
Motherboard- DFI Nf4-D Lan party
Price-110
No other choice besides this for a budget board. 4.0 volts for the memory. You can raise the HTT as high as a regular DFI ultra-D or SLI-D.
http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=M&Product_Code=110799
Hard drive-Seagate 160GB IDE hard drive
Price-50
Currently, there is not much performance difference from IDE to SATA150 or 300. This makes me reccomend cheap Hard drives that are IDE. This Seagate hard drive is a good one for 50 bucks AR. Its cheap, and does its job. Not much else to say.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=6072224&type=product&id=1064401651619
Power supply- Forton Power supply
Price-47 dollars
Forton power supplys aren't half bad, and this one has dual rails. Although its only a 400 watt power supply, it can power most setups. You can probably power a 7800GTX with an overclocked Venice with this, since the GTX uses less power than the 6800GT/Ultra.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817104953
Cooling-Thermalright Xp90
Price-50
http://www.frostybytes.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=TR-XP90&click=35
The thermalright XP90 is the best heatsink for the job.Period. THe 90C is a little heavier and for the price, it is not worth the extra 2-3 degrees.Here is the fan. A little loud, but does the job.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811999136
There are two things left. The first being the Case, and the next being the Cd drive. For the case, I would suggest that you go to your local shop and buy the cheapest case you can find. I can usually find a cheap ATX case for 20 dollars at my local store. It may be different for you. I don't have to pay the 16 dollars shipping that most online stores pay, and I only have to pay 2 dollars tax. So for the case, I'll leave it up to you. Heck, even CompUSA has cheap cases for 28 dollars. If Comp USA has cheap cases, then your bound to find ultra cheap cases at your local shop. One thing to keep in mind about cheap cases is airflow. If you can, make sure that you cut an air duct into the case if your cheap case doesn't come with one.
So lets subtract 33 dollars from the case requirement, because you might not be as lucky as me and have a local shop who sells cheap cases. Now were left with an optical drive. Since this is a cheap machine, we do not need dvd-rw or cd-rw. Yes I know you may think its important, but I recently bought a dvd-rw and I have yet to write a DVD or CD. I would include a cd/dvd rewritable if the price allowed it, but frankly it doesnt. So for the drive, it is this one. Cheapest cd/dvd rom I could find. 22 dollars shipped.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ice=&MaxPrice=&SubCategory=55&Submit=Property
Here are a few options if you have some extra money lying around. This case is 41 dollars shipped. Its pretty good and has decent airflow, Defenetly a good buy if you have the money. I would get this over a CD DVDrw drive because airflow is importatnt if you want to have a cool system.
http://www.dealsonic.com/skmssialatxm.html
Another option is a DVD-Rw drive. The NEC 3540A is a good pick. It is quiet and does what it does well.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827152047
Everything turns out to be 680-700 dollars. If you followed all my optinal equiptment, you should be looking at a 730-740 dollars gaming computer. Thats not bad. If you add a mouse/keyboard and 17 inch LCD monitor, the entire comptuer should cost around 1100 dollars. Good luck with your computer.The Extra money is for back up in case you need cables/etc. You might need a few casefans,etc. Feel free to upgrade to a DVD combo drive if you want. Arctic silver is also a good thing to get if you want to get it. Don't waste it all, as you might find you need to buy cables/screws/etc that aren't mentioned in this guide. This is frankly the best I can do right now. Good luck with your new machine.
The prices for machines are getting more expensive becuase of memory price hikes. They should be going down by christmas though, but expect them to hike back up after M2 comes out.
UPDATED: 9/1/05
Ok,after having over half of my posts being related to helping people with computer builds, I have finally decided to write a price guide to building a computer. This guide will be updated every week. It will be aimed at people with tight budgets who aren't afraid to overclock, and who want decent gaiming systems. It will be for a 650 dollar system. This is all without a monitor, keyboard, mouse, os, or speakers. Get them on your own, or reuse your old ones.
Updated- 9/1/05
Video Card- MSi x800
Price-120 dollars
The MSi x800 has 12 pipelines. Even though it only has DDR memory, this card clearly beats the 6600GT in most aspects. Combined with a 120d dollar price tag, this card is a steal, and awill play most games pretty well. The core is clocked at 400MHZ and the memory is clocked at 700MHZ.
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=321949
CPU/Processr- AMD venice 3000+
Price-124 dollars
The AMD venice offers great performance combined with good price. For the money, the Venice is hard to beat. Most people can get an overclock of around 2.5-2.7GHZ on these chips!
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=A64-3000BW
Memory- Mushkin Redline
Price-140 dollars
Frankly, these sticks are currently the cheapest BH-5/CH-5/UTT you can find. That sucks considering that you used to be able to purchase Twinmos UTT for around 90 dollars! Still 2-2-2-5 memory is hard to beat in terms of performance.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820146387
Price:120
If you can't afford those memory chips, then go with these.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820146393
They can't overclock as high has the UTT, but the ram divider works with less than .5% performance loss. Reportedly works at 2-2-2-5 Timings, which is what we always aim for
.Motherboard- DFI Nf4-D Lan party
Price-110
No other choice besides this for a budget board. 4.0 volts for the memory. You can raise the HTT as high as a regular DFI ultra-D or SLI-D.
http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=M&Product_Code=110799
Hard drive-Seagate 160GB IDE hard drive
Price-50
Currently, there is not much performance difference from IDE to SATA150 or 300. This makes me reccomend cheap Hard drives that are IDE. This Seagate hard drive is a good one for 50 bucks AR. Its cheap, and does its job. Not much else to say.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=6072224&type=product&id=1064401651619
Power supply- Forton Power supply
Price-47 dollars
Forton power supplys aren't half bad, and this one has dual rails. Although its only a 400 watt power supply, it can power most setups. You can probably power a 7800GTX with an overclocked Venice with this, since the GTX uses less power than the 6800GT/Ultra.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817104953
Cooling-Thermalright Xp90
Price-50
http://www.frostybytes.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=TR-XP90&click=35
The thermalright XP90 is the best heatsink for the job.Period. THe 90C is a little heavier and for the price, it is not worth the extra 2-3 degrees.Here is the fan. A little loud, but does the job.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811999136
There are two things left. The first being the Case, and the next being the Cd drive. For the case, I would suggest that you go to your local shop and buy the cheapest case you can find. I can usually find a cheap ATX case for 20 dollars at my local store. It may be different for you. I don't have to pay the 16 dollars shipping that most online stores pay, and I only have to pay 2 dollars tax. So for the case, I'll leave it up to you. Heck, even CompUSA has cheap cases for 28 dollars. If Comp USA has cheap cases, then your bound to find ultra cheap cases at your local shop. One thing to keep in mind about cheap cases is airflow. If you can, make sure that you cut an air duct into the case if your cheap case doesn't come with one.
So lets subtract 33 dollars from the case requirement, because you might not be as lucky as me and have a local shop who sells cheap cases. Now were left with an optical drive. Since this is a cheap machine, we do not need dvd-rw or cd-rw. Yes I know you may think its important, but I recently bought a dvd-rw and I have yet to write a DVD or CD. I would include a cd/dvd rewritable if the price allowed it, but frankly it doesnt. So for the drive, it is this one. Cheapest cd/dvd rom I could find. 22 dollars shipped.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ice=&MaxPrice=&SubCategory=55&Submit=Property
Here are a few options if you have some extra money lying around. This case is 41 dollars shipped. Its pretty good and has decent airflow, Defenetly a good buy if you have the money. I would get this over a CD DVDrw drive because airflow is importatnt if you want to have a cool system.
http://www.dealsonic.com/skmssialatxm.html
Another option is a DVD-Rw drive. The NEC 3540A is a good pick. It is quiet and does what it does well.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827152047
Everything turns out to be 680-700 dollars. If you followed all my optinal equiptment, you should be looking at a 730-740 dollars gaming computer. Thats not bad. If you add a mouse/keyboard and 17 inch LCD monitor, the entire comptuer should cost around 1100 dollars. Good luck with your computer.The Extra money is for back up in case you need cables/etc. You might need a few casefans,etc. Feel free to upgrade to a DVD combo drive if you want. Arctic silver is also a good thing to get if you want to get it. Don't waste it all, as you might find you need to buy cables/screws/etc that aren't mentioned in this guide. This is frankly the best I can do right now. Good luck with your new machine.
The prices for machines are getting more expensive becuase of memory price hikes. They should be going down by christmas though, but expect them to hike back up after M2 comes out.
