So recently I've gotten into Dawn of War II, and most of my friends are signed onto it by now as well. One in particular though, is having difficulty keeping a respectable framerate even on ultra low settings at 1280*768. He's got this Dell he bought forever ago with a GeForce 7600 or something in it...I'm suprised he can even run the game at all frankly. So he comes to me (since I'm the computer guy at work) and wants to know how he can get the cheapest system together that will run the game decently at 1680x1050 (for his 24in monitor).
For the past few years I've stuck mainly to laptops. I've just been on the go a lot, so it was practical. Therefore, I haven't been up to date on the latest and greatest desktop stuff in some time. Since this is not for me I've decided to get a second opinion on the proposed build.
Basically, I say screw his Dell. We'll rip out the HDD, Optical Drive, and WiFi card (if its not on the Mobo). The good news is that we don't have to worry about that. Everything else in it is crap.
From there we'll go:
Mobo: Asus P5QL Pro (the P43) -- Deal on NewEgg for $66
CPU: E5200 --gonna OC the heck out of it. -- Deal at Dell for $56
GPU: Sparkle 9800 GTX+ -- either the 512MB or 1GB about $144 or 175 respectively
RAM: 2GB Mushkin DDR2 1066 -- About 35 a stick...he can upgrade as he goes along.
Also, the Dell case sucks, but I found a decent deal on NewEgg for a Antec 300 + a 500W Antec PSU for about $100.
This brings the total for his upgrade to about $350-$400 plus all the shipping and blah blahs. I think he wants to spend even less than that but I think he'll be shooting himself if he goes much lower than what I've laid out here (for longevity if nothing else). I went with the 9800GTX+ because I don't think he plays any SLI/Crossfire enabled games.
I humbly ask for the community's opinion on this one. In exchange I'll gladly throw up some pics and benchmarks when I polish it off, hopefully as a good example of what one can do on a tight @$$ budget.
Thanks for your time.
For the past few years I've stuck mainly to laptops. I've just been on the go a lot, so it was practical. Therefore, I haven't been up to date on the latest and greatest desktop stuff in some time. Since this is not for me I've decided to get a second opinion on the proposed build.
Basically, I say screw his Dell. We'll rip out the HDD, Optical Drive, and WiFi card (if its not on the Mobo). The good news is that we don't have to worry about that. Everything else in it is crap.
From there we'll go:
Mobo: Asus P5QL Pro (the P43) -- Deal on NewEgg for $66
CPU: E5200 --gonna OC the heck out of it. -- Deal at Dell for $56
GPU: Sparkle 9800 GTX+ -- either the 512MB or 1GB about $144 or 175 respectively
RAM: 2GB Mushkin DDR2 1066 -- About 35 a stick...he can upgrade as he goes along.
Also, the Dell case sucks, but I found a decent deal on NewEgg for a Antec 300 + a 500W Antec PSU for about $100.
This brings the total for his upgrade to about $350-$400 plus all the shipping and blah blahs. I think he wants to spend even less than that but I think he'll be shooting himself if he goes much lower than what I've laid out here (for longevity if nothing else). I went with the 9800GTX+ because I don't think he plays any SLI/Crossfire enabled games.
I humbly ask for the community's opinion on this one. In exchange I'll gladly throw up some pics and benchmarks when I polish it off, hopefully as a good example of what one can do on a tight @$$ budget.
Thanks for your time.
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