[Solved] New Gaming Build Sub $700 Thoughts or Suggestions?

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life626

life626

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May 29, 2008
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Hello all,

I'm helping a friend of mine upgrade from a laptop for gaming to a desktop. He doesn't have a large budget so I'm trying to keep the cost down as much as possible. He only has a desk so he'll have to buy everything needed for a desktop. There won't be overclocking on this rig unless we went for a cheaper AMD X2 555 or something with an unlocked multiplier. He won't be needing a lot of multitasking CPU power being it will be used for games primarily. Everything here is from newegg.com. I'm open to any thoughts or suggestions.


(Edit) Here a little easier to see.

Acer S201HLbd Black 20" 5ms LED-Backlight LCD monitor.................................-$99.99
GIGABYTE GK-K6800 Glossy Black Wired Keyboard...........................................-combo
GIGABYTE GM-M6800 Noble Black Wired Optical Dual Lens Gaming Mouse...........-$27.99

Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case........................-$58.45
CORSAIR Builder Series CX500 V2 500W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS Certified............-$59.99
SAMSUNG CD/DVD Burner Black SATA Model SH-222AB...................................-$19.99

Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5"........-$49.99
ASUS P8H61-M LE/CSM (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel H61 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard...-$72.99
Intel Core i3-2100 Sandy Bridge 3.1GHz LGA 1155 65W..........................................-$124.99
HIS Radeon HD 6770 1GB....................................................................................-$109.99
(With a free AMD Gift - SHOGUN game coupon)


Subtotal: $654.36


Shipping: $12.98


Grand Total: $661.34 (not including rebates)



Life626
 
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Don't get Dual Core CPUs today. If you're on a budget and want a reasonable good gaming machine go for AMD A8 3850 along with a 6670 for Hybrid Crossfire X. I have build a system like this for a friend and we are very happy with it's perfomance!
 
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Processor : Intel Core i3 2100 - $124.99
Motherboard : ASRock H61-M GE - $69.99
Graphics Card : XFX HD-687A-ZDFC Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 - $166.99
RAM : Corsair 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333Mhz Dual-Channel Memory - $45.99
Storage : Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS 1TB 7200 RPM - $59.99
Optical Drive : LG DVD R/W - $18.99
Case : Any Decent ATX Mid Tower - $50
PSU : CORSAIR Builder Series CX500 V2 500W - $49.99

Total : $585 after rebates

$60 more for an i5 2400. Still fits in your budget.
 
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^ Disagree. The Llano's Hybrid Crossfire is just not to the level of perfect drivers that can validate it being used over a single 6670. $700 or $550 (Not including monitor) is defiantly a large budget and you don't have to use Llano. In most cases 6670 performs better than the Hybrid Crossfire offered by the 6670+6550D.

Also, the i3 2100 has HT giving it 2 more virtual cores. So 2 physical 4 virtual. That is enough to perform rather OK in BF3 and pretty well in most games now-a-days. So with that said, I do disagree with a few choices OP. Overall I think the structure of the build is good. But just to have a little tweaks. Check my build guide here.
http://www.squidoo.com/electronicandmore
 
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It looks like that card is $184.99 with a 30 dollar rebate at #154.99 if you can get it.

Plus another ~$130 for mouse/keyboard and monitor. And if I added the i5 that would bring the total to $775/715 w/out respectively. I think it's safe to be willing to buy the product(s) without the rebate first. Because four months down the road you might not get them or even forget whether you got them or not, and it's just less of a hassle.

Do you think it is worth having the extra 4gbs of ram? It would future proof it I guess but I don't see that it would be needed by any game.

Looks like a good build but it is just that much more.


^ Disagree. The Llano's Hybrid Crossfire is just not to the level of perfect drivers that can validate it being used over a single 6670. $700 or $550 (Not including monitor) is defiantly a large budget and you don't have to use Llano. In most cases 6670 performs better than the Hybrid Crossfire offered by the 6670+6550D.

Also, the i3 2100 has HT giving it 2 more virtual cores. So 2 physical 4 virtual. That is enough to perform rather OK in BF3 and pretty well in most games now-a-days. So with that said, I do disagree with a few choices OP. Overall I think the structure of the build is good. But just to have a little tweaks. Check my build guide here.
http://www.squidoo.com/electronicandmore
Click to expand...

Thanks for your input. With the research I've done it looks like I3 is good for gaming, but I don't know if the four core Phenom II 955 is better in the long run as games start to utilized more than two cores. For now it seems that two efficient cores are better than the four cores when it comes to gaming and he could upgrade to a i5-2400 if ever used his computer for anything else besides games, but for now two should more than fit his need.
 
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Thanks for your input everyone, I used all of it to help me decide. I appreciated your site aznshinobi it was helpful to see a few last minute things. 008Rohit I went for the 4gb of ram anyways mainly to keep the price below $600 and because I know he really won't need anymore. In the end I went for the I3-2100 with a ASUS H61 MB and the XFX HD6870 crucial 4gb ram with 500w psu. My friend decided he wanted to buy a monitor at a local store.

The total price was $592 with a $30 mail-in-rebate could make it $562. For that price and the performance he'll get will be very solid even in a year or two. And he'll have money for a nicer monitor. I have a 9800gt from a few years ago and I am just fine with it today, I still get smooth game play which is all I really need.
 
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Thanks, I also forgot to mention he has a Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache hard drive. He won't have a clue what to do with that much space, but I'll partition it make it a little bit easier/faster in the long run.

Ah, I should have gone with this psu, could've possibly saved $30, oh well. It's the Antec NEO ECO 620w.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371031

That's a good deal. :)
 
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Not worth hanging it all on the rebate, and the 520w is more than enough anyways.


Wish I could pick more than just one for best answer. But this thread in concluded. Thanks all again.
 
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