Under $400 dollar PC for a friend. What do you think so far?

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milkshakez7z

milkshakez7z

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Jun 6, 2011
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So guys I have $400 to spend on my friend for his basic gaming pc. He is Running at 1920x1080p.
He wants to play skyrim,Fallout and maybe BF3. He is a nvidia fanboy.
Also he doesn't expect to max any games out. just playable at low to medium.


OS is already bought (Win 7 64bit)
Monitor already owned.
 
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That's not a bad set of hardware for the price.

Just wanted to let you know though, that case might not support the motherboard you've chosen. The case supports ATX and mATX boards, but the motherboard you've chosen is an ITX board. (For media centre pc's usually).

I'm not saying it definitely won't fit i'm just saying that the case might not have the right fittings for it so you might want to go for a similarly spec'd mATX board. (You do have 13$ left afterall)

Also, that graphics card is quite low end.. it may struggle with BF3 even on medium settings. Possibly see if the budget can be increased for a better card maybe? A decent card can be had for 70-80 bucks. If not, try shaving off some money from other parts, such as a cheaper PSU maybe?

Hope this helps

KB
 
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I would not go with the nividia card, you can better get a AMD 6000 series card beacuse they support direct x 11 and have 3d support and have a cheaper price for more perfomance.
I dont see the cost of each component so i cannot comment on it.
With the card u choose , i am positive you cannot get high resolution for those games.
Please give a price list.
 
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Hello.

The monitor resolution is a little too much for that gpu (mostly cause of its low VRAM).

Here is my suggestion:

Case: NZXT GAMMA Classic Series $39.99 Best sub-$50 case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146061

Mobo: ASRock H61ICAFE LGA 1155 Intel H61 $64.99 4RAM slots, ATX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157246

CPU: Intel Celeron G530 Sandy Bridge 2.4GHz $51.99 Sandybridge for gaming
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116409

RAM: Pareema 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 $19.99 No need for 8GB RAM. your rest system will bottleneck this PC long before its RAM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820576003

HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKX 500GB 7200 RPM $84.99 My 320GB version is becoming 7 years old this year without any problems...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136769

GPU: SPARKLE X450S1024KDL GeForce GTS 450 (Fermi) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 $109.99 far better for 1080p
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814187174

PSU: Antec VP-450 450W $39.99 About the psu. This is better choice. There is no need for 700watt from a non good brand.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371045

Optical: SAMSUNG 22X DVD Burner $16.99 No point changing that 😛
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151244

Total: $428.92 without rebates.

You might want to change a few things so you can go down with the price a bit (like buying a cheaper mobo), but really lower than this can make the system not so good (the $20 more for mobo gives your friend the opportunity of good upgrade in the future, you can add yours and you can stay at $400). 1080p gaming is a little demanding and a 512MB card will have problems for sure. (lots of stuttering, low performance, etc etc). Also as you can see from my comments 8GB RAM isn't something gaming needs (at the moment) for 1080p. 4GB is enough and in all scenarios, the rest system will bottleneck the game long before the RAM will do.

edit: For $20 more (assuming that you can reach $450 as you said) I would change the celeron and add
CPU: Intel Pentium G620 Sandy Bridge 2.6GHz $69.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116399

So with Sandybridge 2,6GHz, 4GB RAM and GTS450 (or an HD6770) should play games like skyrim from medium to high settings.

:)
 
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Thankyou for the detailed response! My friend is basically picking things from over my shoulder haha so we will look through your build now. ^_^ also what would the amd equivalent be of that GPU? I wanna compare it. ^_^ thanks again! also 4 slots of ram. maybe add another pair of RAM. he is obsessed with 8GB of ram now -__- haha
 
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yeah. I think he will be happy with this pc for a while. ^_^



THANKS ALL THAT CONTRIBUTED! :wahoo:
 
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😀. You welcome.
And since you consider to build this pc in 2-4 weeks, things will change a lot at that time.
In a little more than 3 weeks, Ivybridge will be out. Prices of sandybridge should be dropped a bit.
Also lower Kepler products should surface in that time too. So you might have a third option of buying a lower $150 Kepler card (GK106/107) which from what we saw at GK104(aka GTX680) vs southern islands (7970), it will consume less power, generate less heat, less noise, perform better and all of this while being cheaper. If not you can buy the 6850.

:)
 
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