Need help with upgrade

[jtsanda]

I need help deciding on what to put into my new system I'm going to build. I unfortunately only have about a $400 budget, so the latest and greatest cutting edge technology isn't really an option for me. I've pretty much already figured out what i want for my case, psu, and memory, and I was thinking that maybe the Geforce 9800 GTX+ would be a good card to run Crysis on med - high settings at 1024x768. (I don't really care about graphics, frame rates are more of my concern).

So what should I do about the processor? I know i'll be limited to a 32 bit operating system, if that means anything. I was considering Amd's Athlon X2 5000+ cause they seemed to have a good price/performance ratio, but how well do you think it would perform in Crysis? Like I said I'm not looking to have all the eye candy, frame rates are more important to me. Medium to High settings would probably make me happy.

thanks

 

[Outlander_04]

what do you have to buy from your $400 budget?

 

[Why_Me]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048%20106793024&name=GeForce%20GTS%20200%20Series <---For Crysis gts 250 1 gig > 9800GTX+

Check out those links down below for reviews and benchmarks.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/913/1/

http://techreport.com/articles.x/16504

 

[jtsanda]

i'll need a video card, hard drive, motherboard, case, psu, and cpu.

 

[jtsanda]

Thanks for the reply Why_Me!!! However i'm not really looking to play games in aa, af, or high resolutions. so the extra 512mb of memory the card has is actually irrelevant in my case. Besides I thk BFG has a 1gb version of the GTX+ for only 139. That's probably the card i'm gonna go after if not the Sparkle GTX+ 512mb for 129.

 

[jtsanda]

i've pretty much figured out what i need for everything except the processor. i don't know if an athlon 64 x2 is gonna be sufficient for what i need. any suggestions anyone?

 

[Outlander_04]

if your motherboard is AM2+ its worth looking at phenom ll processors .

The triple core 710 is $119

 

[Why_Me]

I couldn't meet your budget. You could knock off about $30 by switching out vid cards to a 4830, but this gts 250 eats up that 4830 when it comes to Crysis. This rig is set up for you to over clock it...which I would do if I were you. You can safely bump it up to 3.32Ghz @ 1066 fsb (12.5 x 266). That case is vented, and is set up to run 3 x 120mm fans, it comes with two of them, and I added the third in this build. Anyways with your budget...good luck is all I can say.

http://cmstore.coolermaster-usa.com/product_info.php?products_id=84 $22.99
Centurion 534 Black Mid Tower, W/O window, W/O PSU - Refurbished

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835150070 $4.99
MASSCOOL FD12025S1L3/4 120mm Case Fan - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341021 $59.99
OCZ Fatal1ty OCZ400FTY 400W ATX12V / EPS12V Active PFC Power Supply - Retail

http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-43-UD3L $79.99
GIGABYTE GA-EP43-UD3L Core 2 Quad/ Intel P43/ DDR2/ A&GbE/ ATX Motherboard

http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=E5200 Combo Price: $92.98 Free Shipping
Intel Pentium Dual-Core Processor E5200 2.5GHz 800MHz 2MB LGA775 CPU, OEM
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Fan For Intel CPU
ARCTIC COOLING MX-2 Thermal Compound

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130468 $129.99
EVGA 512-P3-1150-TR GeForce GTS 250 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231122 $39.99 Free Shipping*
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail

http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=HD-SM322HJ $40.80
Samsung HD322HJ 320GB SATA2 7200rpm 16MB Hard Drive

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136152 $24.99 Free Shipping*
LG Black 22X (CAV) DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD+R DL 22X (CAV) DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 22X DVD±R DVD Burner - OEM

Total: $496.71 *(not including shipping and rebates)

 

[Outlander_04]

Why_me is right about the intel system. The e5200 is the budget champion and with a bit of overclocking punches well above its weight .

I would swap out the nVidia card for the ATI 4830 since it will easily overclock to a similar level of performance .

And since you have the 32 bit OS then 2 gig of RAM will do

 

[jtsanda]

well here is what i actually had in mind.

motherboard
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=MCP6PB-M2PLUS&cat=MBB

memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134488

cpu
amd athlon 64 x2 5000+ (around $52)

hard drive
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=WD1600JB-NDW-R&cat=HDD

case
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=939PL&cat=CAS&cpc=CASbsc

and video card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143179

I think the totals of that would be somewhere around $400.
question is will that setup play medium-high settings at a 1024x768 resolution in crysis? (no aa or af)

 

[jtsanda]

actually calculated that all up.. the totals would be 269.95 before s&h and etc.

 

[Outlander_04]

actually calculated that all up.. the totals would be 269.95 before s&h and etc.

My phone has a more powerful mb than the one you have picked . I doubt its intended to run intensive games .

Heres a build suggestion . All from newegg

cpu e5300 $80
mb Gigabyte GA-G31M-ESL2 $53
RAM 2 x1 gigabyte ocz gold series $24
hdd Western Digital Caviar SE16 $52
GFX sapphire 4830 512 mb $ 90
PSU antec neopower 430 W $65
case Rosewill R220-p-bk $30
Asus DVD burner $20

All that adds up to a real computer with gaming potential .

It also adds up to $414

 

[jtsanda]

really? i didn't know motherboards where that important.. i mean it supports the type of cpu i want and it has pci express. the bus speed can't go very high but then again if i get the athlon dual core it won't need to go any higher. however i considered what you where saying in previous post about the phenom processors. it seems like i could upgrade my motherboard to this
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=AN78GS&cat=MBB
and cpu to this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103244

and still be well within my $400 budget with a significant performance boost over my other options. would that be any better for playing crysis?

 

[Outlander_04]

The original mb you picked is quite strange . It doesnt have the standard expansion slots for pci-e and/or pci cards . My guess is that it was designed specifically for media centers . Its definitely a non standard size .

The Abit one is a better choice , but a mb based on AMD's 780g series chipset will be better again if you are determined to go with Athlon or Phenom processors .

The Phenom 9600 is a fairly weak processor .For gaming you are better off with a dual core athlon . All phenoms with serials ending in 00 were built with a fault . AMD only found it after they had spend billions on the factory to make them . It ruined AM's reputation for many computer enthusiasts . Serials ending in 50 are the same parts after the production line was fixed , but still cant match intel chips .
The new Phenom ll's are redesigned again and are very good value .


Your choice of case and power supply is too cheap to be good enough quality to last for long . You get what you pay for , so at that price you are not getting much .

The hard drive you picked is IDE [ big flat cables ]. These are much slower than the newer SATA hard drives .

 

[jtsanda]

thanks for the help Outlander. I think i'm in agreement with you about the motherboard and processor. I think i'm gonna stick with the Abit mobo and go back to the dual core processor. Why pay more when I won't see a big improvement? The hard drive was a choice I made while in a hurry. I didn't even realize it was IDE... whoops I found a 500gb SATA 7200 rpm for $15 more. I think i'll go with that instead. And as for the case/psu i'm thkin...
case
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=Q-519B&cat=CAS
psu
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=PS575XBK&cat=PWR

That should make me a happy camper. After all I'm upgrading from a Socket A system.