Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

So i've finally received my tax return and decided its time to move on from my awesome Pentium 4 2.6g with a 20 gig hard-drive and onto something more modern. I've done a bit of of research - all of 2 hours last night and have come up with the following list of parts. Keep in mind im on a strict $900 Budget.

The PC is predominantly used for Gaming. What do you guys think about it? REMEMBER BUDGET PC HERE SO $950 is the absolute Max!

Processor: AM3 x4 955 $187

Motherboard: Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H $180

RAM: 4GB Kit DDR3 1333 G.Skill $116

Graphics Card: Gigabyte GTX260 $238

Power Supply: Corsair VX550 $ 102

Case: Antec 300 $65

Hard Drive: WD SATA 500 GIG $48

Total: $936

Thoughts?

Daniel

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/333157-budget-gamer-pc/
Share on other sites

Boys i do understand that the 5850 and the GTX 460 are better cards but lets keep in mind the $900 budget

r31 - I have no idea what you're talking about in terms of screen and resolution - Ill be playing games like starcraft 2

please please please remember im not looking for a computer which will eventually turn into Skynet and enslave mankind here

and im not being a smartass here but i have nfi what you're talking about when you say resolution rah rah rah... all i know is i have a 22inch monitor and want to play starcraft 2 lol

Why does everyone go for a i5? i mean the AMD process i looked up is a quadcore and runs at 3.2 whereas the i5 is a dual core and runs at 3.2 but costs $100 more?

Would the above system cut the mustard or can anyone suggest better replacement parts at the same cost?

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/333157-budget-gamer-pc/#findComment-5401801
Share on other sites

I'm guessing the monitor resolution is either 1680x1050 (if its old) or the more common 1920*1080... it is the # of pixels the monitor has.

& Gaming performance is largely depended on the GPU (video card) than the CPU, so forces your $$$ more on that area...

That AMD CPU is fine for your application IMO, although I would look at getting a current gen mid range video card instead.

Edited by Mayuri Krab
Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/333157-budget-gamer-pc/#findComment-5401836
Share on other sites

I ask my questions for reasons - i understand a tight budget here, so fear not i'll work within that no problems.

I'll do a price up for you later on when i get home.

However SC2 & similar games, all RTS, do require resonable CPU. Given the amount of processing and so on.

It's not as important in FPS games where the GPU does more of the work.

That said, with "ultra" on SC2, even my ATI 4890, overclocked, was struggling with one of the missions there was that much shit going on. (im running 1900x1200), Core2Duo @ 4.3ghz lol... And that was just campain.

I'd imagine online, 3v3 armies or similar it could be much worse. I'm yet to find that out though given I've not had much of a play at it yet.

CPU wise though in only sitting on around 50% for both cores, so not too intensive but then if it wasn't so highly overclocked i'd say at least 70%.

I'd also say a 22" monitor means 1080p (1900x1080), so you'll definately need a nice card to run the game.

The reason people chose I5 over AMD at the moment is not the chip clock speed, it's the way the chip works. Intel as so much further infront at the moment, and will be for at least the next 18months if not longer IMO. AMD is good for a super tight budget, but if you can afford the Intel then it's without question the choice at the moment.

I'll have a think either way as i currently have 4x PC's on order that i have to build for friends lol, all of them varying budgets too.

So hopefully a 5k order will get me a bit of a discount :ermm:

Would you be open to 2nd hand parts? Given i might be upgrading in the near future, it could open a few doors for you.

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/333157-budget-gamer-pc/#findComment-5402010
Share on other sites

well tbqh, spending over 200 bucks on a GTX 260 is quite frankly insane when even the 768mb 460 is the same price. Low power consumption too. However if you're willing to spend a tad more, you can get the 1gig version, most of which come with factory overclocks up to around 5850 like performance.

IMO on such a tight budget i'd stick with the AMD, given their quad core is 100 bucks less than the equivalent i5.

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/333157-budget-gamer-pc/#findComment-5402048
Share on other sites

Also I'm waiting to see what AMD do in turn against the Intel release of their cards.

It's going to force AMD to price cut as they are now priced incorrectly for their segments, hopefully it comes in the next few weeks and the 5850 drops down perfectly to mathc the NVidia offering :ermm:

But ye, i wouldnt get a 260 either way.

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/333157-budget-gamer-pc/#findComment-5402061
Share on other sites

well tbqh, spending over 200 bucks on a GTX 260 is quite frankly insane when even the 768mb 460 is the same price. Low power consumption too. However if you're willing to spend a tad more, you can get the 1gig version, most of which come with factory overclocks up to around 5850 like performance.

IMO on such a tight budget i'd stick with the AMD, given their quad core is 100 bucks less than the equivalent i5.

It's true the 260 is not worth buying anywhere near that price.

Don't include overclocking or the 5850 wins easily at 5870+ speeds. Putting it in the realm of a $450-600 card.

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/333157-budget-gamer-pc/#findComment-5402072
Share on other sites

well tbqh, spending over 200 bucks on a GTX 260 is quite frankly insane when even the 768mb 460 is the same price.

Theres a GTX 260 896MB on PC case gear for smack bang on the $200 mark.

also personally i dont touch the newer cards unless theres some form of aftermarket cooling ( be in air/water) available for them. After killing a GTX285 card because of the constant 90*c temps. i've learnt my lesson the hard way.

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/333157-budget-gamer-pc/#findComment-5402073
Share on other sites

See thats the joy, the ATi cards dont get anywhere near that hot, and the Nvidia 470 (or 475?) runs PERFECTLY cool as well.

Was only released in the last 2-3 weeks so you might not have seen it around.

Same as the ATi cards almost for temp which is some 20 degrees cooler than the GTX 2XX series.

Only taken Nvidia nearly 2 years to get a cooler card out :ermm:

So hence ATi need to revisit pricing as the 470 (or 475?) is signifigantly cheaper.

Although doesnt fit into the OP's budget at this stage as it'll be around $320 AUD if my guess is accurate.

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/333157-budget-gamer-pc/#findComment-5402094
Share on other sites

I lol'd hard at the SC2 bug that fried GPUs

haha same. Blizzard testing at it's best :ermm:

Such dumb fken coding when you think about it. Doesnt even make logical sense why you'd leave it uncapped like that.

That said SC2 graphics honestly shithouse... But that's what you get for dragging your feet for 2+ years and deliberately delaying a release to offset WoW patches/installments etc.

DX9, graphics that dont look majorly better when compared to WC3 (8yrs old that is now)

Even the cut-scene's are pathetic IMO, could be SOOO much better.

The gameplay is good, online setup is hands down the worse system I've ever played with though.

I start a SC2 thread later :)

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/333157-budget-gamer-pc/#findComment-5402102
Share on other sites

You can cap the frame rates in SC2 until Blizzard comes up with a patch, by putting:

frameratecap=60

frameratecapglue=30

In the Documents\StarCraft II\Variables.txt file.

Got them from a video.

There was another problem where I couldn't log on when I first got SC2 cause it said that battle.net is down and to try again later, even though my brother could log in fine. A lot of people had this problem actually...although this is getting a bit off topic so I'll leave it for the SC2 thread.

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/333157-budget-gamer-pc/#findComment-5402214
Share on other sites

nah you need to be there for 3 months I think Div, PC Case Gear in my researching are the cheapest, occasionally you can find slightly cheaper prices through StaticICE, but that could be at any shonky vendor online.

TBQH, the ATI drivers suck donkey balls, and that alone was enough to make me look at a Nvidia solution. Pretty much all of the 460's on the market run some kind of aftermarket cooling, and yes most can be overclocked up to a 5870 spec, but you get less power consumption, noise and you do get the dubious benefit of CUDA and PhysX. Things get even better in SLI, but that's not applicable to this build.

No point buying hardware that's already well out of date.

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/333157-budget-gamer-pc/#findComment-5402988
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Latest Posts

    • Very decent bit of kit. Definitely black it out I reckon.  
    • Because people who want that are buying euros. The people with the money to buy the aftermarket heads and blocks aren’t interested in efficiency or making -7 power, they’re making well over 1,000hp and pretty much only drive them at full throttle  best way to way make money is know your customer base and what they want and don’t spend money making things they don’t want. 
    • It's not, but it does feel like a bit of a missed opportunity regardless. For example, what if the cylinder head was redesigned to fit a GDI fuel system? It's worth like two full points of compression ratio when looking at modern GDI turbo vs PFI turbo. I'm pretty reliably surprised at how much less turbo it takes to make similar power out of a modern engine vs something like an RB26. Something with roughly the same dimensions as a -7 on an S55 is making absolutely silly power numbers compared to an RB26. I know there's a ton of power loss from things like high tension rings, high viscosity oil, clutch fan, AWD standby loss, etc but it's something like 700 whp in an F80 M3 vs 400 whp in an R33 GTR. The stock TF035HL4W turbos in an F80 M3 are really rather dinky little things and that's enough to get 400 whp at 18 psi. This just seems unwise no? I thought the general approach is if you aren't knock limited the MFB50 should be held constant through the RPM range. So more timing with RPM, but less timing with more cylinder filling. A VE-based table should accordingly inverse the VE curve of the engine.
    • I've seen tunes from big name workshops with cars making in excess of 700kW and one thing that stood out to me, is that noone is bothering with torque management. Everyone is throwing in as much timing as the motor can take for a pull. Sure that yields pretty numbers on a dyno, but it's not keeping these motors together for more than a few squirts down the straight without blowing coolant or head gaskets. If tuners, paid a bit more attention and took timing out in the mid range, managed boost a bit better, you'll probably see less motors grenading. Not to name names, or anything like that, but I've seen a tune, from a pretty wild GT-R from a big name tuner and I was but perplexed on the amount of timing jammed into it. You would have expected a quite a bit less timing at peak torque versus near the limiter, but there was literally 3 degrees of difference. Sure you want to make as much as possible throughout the RPM range, but why? At the expense of blowing motors? Anyhow I think we've gone off topic enough once again lol.
    • Because that’s not what any of them are building these heads or blocks for. It’s to hold over over 1000hp at the wheels without breaking and none of that stuff is required to make power 
×
×
  • Create New...