Getting more FPS for your buck in gaming

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Sora

Renowned Budgeting Master
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Now you see alot of topics these days that people try to Budget money for a mid to high-end gaming PC. Yet they spend too much money in one place where as they could cut down on one thing and go for something better in a different item.

I have spent the last 3-4 months trying to fufill a pretty low budget of $850. yet the final rig i've put together should pretty much blaze past any game out right now.

If you are trying to get the most FPS in games in terms of your money then heres what i think.

The most common form of wasting money is when buying a CPU. People seem to want a mid-line CPU and a Mid-line GPU in a "Gaming" PC.

If you want the best bang for your buck then why not lower the CPU a and raise the GPU instead.

In all honesty as far as gaming goes right now the best bang for a CPU is the E6300 and just OC it. But eventully that extra 2mb will make a difference in applications and its nice to have if you jhave the money. But in no way do you "need" 4mb cache for a "gaming" comp

Lets say someone has an E6600 and is on a "budget"
Instead why not save yourself $130 bucks and go for the E6300.
Then put that $130 in a better video card


Oblivion: 1200x800 inside
E6600->E6300 $130 Saved----66->54.4 FPS Thas about a 17% increase
seems like a lot right? Well watch next one

Lets say you then spend 130 on an upgrade of your video card

I chose these becuase they were the best possible margin of 130.
7950GT->7900GS 290->170 thats about $120. Close enough

Oblivion 1200x800 Inside
7900GS-->7950GT 70-->96 FPS thats about a 27% increase

Now a 10% increase in games might not seem alot. But when your trying to budget, an extra 10% performance in games is excellent for the same price. Also don't forget you can OC the E6300 to about 2.4 with 667 ram,stock cooling and a cheap mobo easily.

Another way to save a bit of cash is with RAM. I see alot of times people are trying to budget they choose ram that was OC'd by a premium company to get better timings for more cash.

take these for instance this is Patriot 1GB DDR2-800 RAM at 4-4-4-12
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820220142

That seems better of coarse than this G.Skill 5-5-5-15. Which it is by a little bit.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231085

The Difference is 30 bucks each, so if you buy 2 sticks you've just spent 60 bucks extra right?

Well here is a test done over two years ago with regular DDR Ram.
The principle is still the same, does cas latency really have a big improvement in gaming?

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1637769,00.asp

Cas for DDR is 2-3 While for DDR2 is 3-5 so its safe to say its still the same concept.

DDR 3---> DDR2 5
DDR 2.5-> DDR2 4
DDR 2---> DDR2 3

If you look the average increase from 3->2.5 is 2%
Then the average from 2.5->2 is 4%

So then the average from 3->2 is about 6% average right?

Now look back at those ram chips.
The G.Skill is $115 and is Cas 5,while the Patriot is $145 and is Cas 4
So if I were to buy the Patriot I would gain about 2% maybe 4 in some games right? So lets just go with 3%

Now I dunno $60 doesnt seem like its worth 3% increase in gaming to me. Id rather put that in a card upgrade or geez id get an E6400 before I got Cas 4 Ram. Also take a look at the voltage of the patriot. It's 2.1 while the G.Skill is probably 1.8. All they did was up the coltage so they could lower the timings, you could do that with the **** G-Skill is you wanted good timings that bad.

Another way to cut down cost is dont buy a PSU that has 600w while your system maybe only needs 440. Then look for a good 500 or even a cheap 480 to give you some upgrade room. I see people post builds with 550w antectrue power for only 100 bucks lol. While their system has 1 vid card, a low power C2D, a mobo and a few lights. Waste of cash, simple as that. 600w is really only needed with maybe the new GeForce 8's or SLI.


Bottom line is, if your buidling a budget gaming PC think smart. What will give you most FPS in games for your money. Also make sure you research and shop around.

Sorry if it was a bit long
 
In short: get a cheaper CPU, overclock it, get cheaper RAM, overclock it, get an expensive graphics card, overclock it. :p
 
Even If you dont OC anything (Which with a C2D system i HIGHLY suggest you do) you will still get more FPS for your buck. People may say omg now i junk CPU and ram and not enough watts. Newsflash, if I can surf the web and do applications in enough time with my P4 3.0. And the P4 is junk id rather have an AMD but i dont. I have had this putter for over 3 years now with minor upgrades becuase I am only 16. If a P4 could last me this long, If I had an Anthlon 64 3500+ or something My computer would be way faster, plenty fast enough for a gaming PC that your going to keep fairly up to date. Bottom line is even a Low End CPU of new Tech will do applications just fine for years.

As for watts, GPU upgrade wont take more than extra 30 watts if you upgrade just 1 card. Even thats alot extra for 1 card. fans take about 5w each. What i'm trying to say is just give yourself 40-50 watts extra.
 
Wow, very nice post. Someone knows their stuff haha. Must agree with you 100% on everything though. I'm building a budget gaming rig, and I've been skimping in a lot of areas to save myself money for a video card, seeing as that is probably the most important part of a gaming rig, at least it seems to be that way.

I never really realized though how many watts a video card really uses, or any other component for that matter.:p
 
Good Post but, I would rather skimp on a video card then on a cpu and ram but thats just my preference. Good Job on the write it is true.
 
Well If i didint game as much as I do i would say upgrade the CPU and get those evenn. But as far as ram goes I think its stupid to pay 60 bucks more for RAM that was just OC'd by a premiere company. Such as the Patriot i posted.
 
Usually I don;t bring up old threads but since this was my old one which didint get enough showtime i figure a few more people can look at it. This was done after extensive research and the facts should be known!
 
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