gaming and entertaiment computer
 

is it possible to build a pretty decent gaming and entertainment computer for around $550. im new to the buying parts and building my own computer and have yet to find a friend close to me that knows how to build one that can show me but before that i wanted to see what parts you guys would suggest for making one. i might even beable to go over the 550 mark i dont exactly know at the moment. thanks to anyone that can help me...

It probably is possible depending of your definition of gaming computer. If you don't mind playing everything on lowest settings. It's very well possible. And even that depends on the game. I think you should give a bit more info about what kind of games you intend to play. And what kind of things you want to use the computer for.

it'll mostly be a entertainment computer and what few games i will be playing are old school mostly just diablo and starcraft and starcraft 2 when it comes out. i currently play both diablo and starcraft off and on but im working with a almost 7 year old computer with a 20gig harddrive and 256ram.

I'm fairly confident you can easily play D2 and SC with a rig from $500
As for SCII. Last time i checked blizzard site. They still haven't announced the release date or reqs for SCII. I'm hoping myself that my current rig can handle SC II :p

As for a setup. I recommend this:

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ € 60,19
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-M55S-S3 € 69,54
memory: Kingston PC5300 CL5 DDR2 1GB x 2 (2GB) € 61,13
Video card: Club3D Geforce 8500 GT 256MB DDR2 € 74,20
Hard disk: Hitachi Deskstar 7K160, 160GB € 44,45
DVD burner: NEC AD-7170S 18x € 27,86
Casing: AOpen ES45B € 35,36
Monitor: Acer AL1916WAs € 156,65
Speakers: Logitech S200 € 17,17
Microsoft Wired Keyboard 500 (Zwart) € 9,25
Microsoft Basic Optical Mouse (USB, Zwart) € 7,45

This including Monitor. The prices are in EU. But since we Eu people pay higher taxes and whatever. The prices should be roughly the same or perhaps a bit higher in US. So if you go without monitor it's around $400-$500 depending where your gone get your parts. Since it's under your budget. You can chose for a bigger Hard Disk. As 160gb really is nothing these days. At least not for a Anime watcher like me :p

we've done it time and time again.
http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?t=51425
best of this generation (DX9) is the 7900gs and x1950 series
of the new ones (DX10) only the 8800gts and hd2900xt are worth anything for gaming.

Looks like sc2 will be dx9 so there's no real need to go to the 8800gts. But until the game actually comes out who knows what t will need.

For gaming he need more than that 8500GT, 7900GS maybe

Uhm, maybe for most games the 8500 will do fine while the 7900 would be overkill, but he'll definitely need it for SC2. I say this because even with an 8800GTS and a pretty decent rig, I still get some ugly lagging when I have two to three armies battling it out in C&C3. Sure, I run it at the most insane graphics possible, but still...

And yes, like hobbes said, check out the other topic. There's a lot of information and personal reviews and suggestions that are very close to your budget.

And IF you're wondering if you can actually build a decent gaming rig for 550, the answer is hell yeah. It won't be state of the art, but it'll get you through the next few years quite well.

Oh, and as for the entertainment part, what do you mean? Are you looking into a large monitor or perhaps good sound quality and high amount of storage? For 550 you can probably get all of them on the same package, but you have to know what are your expectations of your next PC so you can plan better.

the 8500gt is terrible for gaming. It's pretty much a 7300gt with dx10. And if you want to run dx10 games good luck playing it at 4 fps.
read this about the 8500gt's big brother the 8600gt. Specswise the 8500gt is far inferior to the 8600gt
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/04/...600/page9.html

Good article on best cards for the money,
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...ney/page2.html

Yeah the 8600gt shows up, but for $10-$15 more you get double the performance in every game. The general rule I follow is spend twice as much as the cost of the CPU on the Video card in a gaming rig.

Oh man if you need a monitor though, things get tougher though, and you need to cut a few corners but still should be ok

the monitor will not be included in that 550 dollars i will use the one i have for now and look to get a better one at a later time as i have a friend that works at best buy who should be able to get me a decent discount on a monitor. My expactations out of the computer im looking to build is that i will beable pretty much run any game at decently fast speed it doesnt have to be so fast that it will blow my mind. remember im currently working with a 7 year old computer that lags with diablo and starcraft. also for the thing to beable to have more then one program running with out slowing down to the point where it takes like five minutes just for the internet to open when i have something else open i mean they recommend like 1gig ram to operate xp at decent speed and im working with 256megs. im hoping to beable to store alot on it since i watch a fair amount of anime and currently i can only download like 5 episodes with out it saying running low on harddisk space since the hard drive is only a 20gig and its only got about 4 or 5gigs left everytime i download stuff. those are pretty my expectations out of the rig im looking to build.

Well ok, are you reusing any hardware (burners, case unless its a dell in particular saves about $100)? Storage is pretty cheap these days anyway.

Ok here goes
x2 4400 $89
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103776
Asus MN2 $$66.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131179
Gskill ddr2 800 $89.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231098
WD Caviar 320gig $75.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136074
HIS X1950 pro $135 (but there's a mail inrebate for $35 bringing it down to $105)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161060
Hiper 480w Power Supply $50 (you will definitely need a new PSU, don't skimp on this, PSU is connected to everything)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817128005
Case $28
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811164040
Asus Burner $30
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827135145


$562 before rebate, $527 after, rebate (shipped should be somewhere around $550). Yeah but if you can re-use your case and burner you're looking at around $500 and with the change you can get close to 1tb of HDD space

thanks for all the help guys that should be pretty good im might even beable to go up to 650 dollars as long as i hold of on buying a new monitor for a few months. i dont think i will be reusing any of the old parts its an old gateway comp. i would reuse the case but there is only one med size fan in the back and i dont think thats enough cooling for the new parts. also i dont think i will reuse the burner because its only a cd drive and i really want to upgrade to a dvd/cd drive. Now i just need to find a friend to help me put it together i have some friends that are pretty computer savvy but none of them will write me back so im still waiting hopefully will be order the parts and have it done in the next 3 weeks to a month.

Go to a library mate, get a recent (06-07) book on upgrading in repairing PC's. It really isn't that hard to do if you take your time and follow precautions. if you can get to $650 you can go the Intel route (a little bit better performance the e4xxx series of processors are the best in this range) or even an 8800gts maybe which will play anything and everything on the market maxxed out. Personally I'd buy a on the fly dolby digital soundcard like a bluegears b enspirer so all my moves and games are in dolby digital and a nice set of 5.1 speakers

Haha, looks like I'll have to join the fun of picking parts as well, Hobbes-san! :heh:

But a little word of wisdom... If you can, don't use parts from your other computers - get new ones. Why? Well, you'd rather have two computers than just one, right? After all, you'll be putting down 500-650 bucks on this, what's another 30 bucks for a case? Heck, it might even come out pretty decent for under that!

And also the CD-ROM part... yep, you really need a DVDRW, and that drive of yours could be at its last days too, so...

Alright, let's get crackin'.

My idea here is to see if I can get you a mid-high end video-card, while still giving the other components some deserved attention. Let's see...

Processor:
C2D E4400
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115014
$126

Motherboard:
EVGA 122CK Nforce 650i - I have the "bigger sister" board to this one, and I know EVGA has good support and makes good products, so I trust it to work as advertised.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813188017
$90, $70 after 20 Mail-in-rebate.
P.S.: Unfortunately it only has one PCIx16 slot, which means you won't be able to go SLI with it. But I don't see a reason to do so right now, since the newest video cards will perform graciously anyway.

G-Skill 2GB DDR2 800
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231098
$89
- It's a good product and has lots of good reviews about it, so it should be safe.

Seagate Barracuda 7200 320gb
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148140
$79
- I have one of those myself. Reliable and fast, what more can I ask.

Atrix CSCI Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811209022
$43

OR, if you're willing to spend a little more for a better-reviewed item,

Atrix CSCI
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811209018
$59 - 49 after 10 mail-in-rebate.

LG Black 18x DVD R+
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827136119
$28

EVGA GeForce 8600GTS
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130084
$164, but has 15 mail-in-rebate.

That gets us to a total of roughly $640 - A little above your original budget, though it gets down to around $595 with the rebates.

But again, you're getting a Core 2 Duo, a reliable, enthusiast-intended motherboard, two gigs of ram and a 480W PSU that, from the reviews I've read, seems really reliable.

Now it's up to you to see what you want. Good luck.

SLi is the biggest PC scam going around. Who has a reason to sli two 320mb 8800gts? the 640mb gts will still perform marginally less than two 320mb gts in sli we're talking about <10 fps, not to mention you don't have to buy a 750w+ psu as well as the additional cooling as wells as electricity bills. Plus two 320mb 8800gts are $500+ and a 640mb 8800gts is around $400. two 7600gt's in sli are still smoked by a single 7900gs, two 7300gt's are smashed by a single 7600gt etc etc. all the way through the nvidia product range two lower cards are smoked by a single higher model. SLI gives you about 20-30% better performance at most.

Only reason I can think of to sli is if you're running 4 monitors, but even then it's cheaper and more efficient to buy 2 bigger monitors than 4 small ones

Also I must repeat that nothing in the nvidia 8 series is worth a cup of spit for gaming other than the 8800gts. save your money and go buy an x1600 or 7600gt for similar performance

specs
GeForce 8600 GT
Codename: G84
Process: 80nm
Universal Shaders: 32
Texture Units: 16
ROPs: 8
Memory Bus: 128-bit
Core Speed MHz: 540
Memory Speed MHz: 700 (1400 effective)

Radeon X1950 PRO
Codename: RV570
Process: 90nm
Pixel Shaders: 36
Vertex Shaders: 8
Texture Units: 12
ROPs: 12
Memory Bus: 256-bit
Core Speed MHz: 575
Memory Speed MHz: 690 (1380 effective)

GeForce 7900 GS
Codename: G71
Process: 90nm
Pixel Shaders: 20
Vertex Shaders: 7
Texture Units: 20
ROPs: 16
Memory Bus: 256-bit
Core Speed MHz: 450
Memory Speed MHz: 660 (1320 effective)

What's the point of dx10 if you're crippled by 128 bt memory bus asking it to play games is like going to war armed with a toothpick

You can't even have dual monitors running with SLI enabled.

Honestly though, why the hell would you buy the 8000s or the 2000s for DX10 support? You buy them for the amazing FPS you get in DX9, not the piss poor FPS in all those badly ported DX10 titles.

Too bad the midranged market got raped so badly this round. AMD's midranged sucks even more than Nvidia's and Nvidia's midranged sucks some serious ass.

exactly the 7600gt was the mid range for dx9, and it performs quite well. It performs exactly better than the 7300gt but not quite like a 7900. what the market is screaming for is somethng like an 8700gt in between the piss poor gaming of the 8600 and under series and the awesome 8800gt, 256bit memory bus and maybe 256 mb. I look at the most popular card being sold now in Australia and its the 8600gt why? Because people think it will play the big games out at he end of the year like Crysis and Bioshock, fact is it won't unless you plan on playing a 640x480 to get decent (30+) fps. Even then I doubt it can do that looking at how bad the benchmarks are under 3d mark 05 and 3d mark 06. Even overclocked to its limits (which requires aftermarket water cooling) it barely shades the 7900gs and x1950's.

Although the ati range of Hd 2400 and 2600 are better buys than the nvidia 8500 and 8600's, everywhere I've seen they're $20 - $30 less which makes them priced more realistically in terms of performance

I disagree with last part: http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...600/page4.html

Yeah but HD2600XT = $105Aus
8600gt = $144Aus

Is the marginally better performance of the 8600gt (we're talking barely 11 fps) worth $40Aus?

For $40Aus I'd be expecting a step up in class. (about the jump from a 7300gt to 7900gs or an x1600 to an x1950). They're bad but not quite as bad considering the price difference.

Keep in mind if you go for a bigger GPU then you normally need to go for a bigger PSU. But then again I always advocate getting a decent PSU as it can save you a world of pain in troubleshooting later...

And I agree with SLI being the biggest scam around, I don't get it why people will spend so much on a SLI setup when as hobbes_fan has already pointed out, if they wait a few months they can sell their old card and upgrade to a newer card for far less. GPU tech grows at a crazy rate...

thanks for all the help so far guys. The budget is now around 650 dollars and i will probably stick with most of the things that u guys already told me. im thinking about what hobbes_fan said and either getting a better processor or a better video card. hobbes_fan what brand is the 8800gts i really dont know alot about these things and cant seem to find it on newegg.