RF Generation Message Board

Hey guys, I'm looking for a good gaming computer between $500-$700, any suggestions. Also, it would be best if I didn't have to build it myself. So just give me some ideas.

Doesn't exist. Sorry. If you build it yourself, then maybe. But other than that, nope. Good luck.

Aww... Well then any other suggestions logical?

Nope. Build it yourself. That's all I can say. And even that's not too hard. If you want, I can tell you of some good places to buy parts online. :P

Define "good"? A decent video card alone with cost you $200 minimum, add another $100 for more RAM as at that price range, you'll only have an adequate amount not a healthy one. For a good basic tower it'll cost $500 + that $300 I just mentioned, then you need a monitor and good speakers assuming your going to use the onboard audio.

Assuming you can squeeze it all under $1000, you won't be able to play the newest titles either. It all depends on what you want to play and how long you want to keep it. But if your wanting to get serious into PC gaming and have a good system that will last a couple years, $1500-2000 is a more reasonable budget for the entire package, monitor included. $1000 will let you play PC games 2 years and older.

Brilliantly said.

All I want to do is to play all of my old Valve games and some recent ones. (Portal, TF2) And I'm not looking for something really serious, just something decent.

Then spend $800 on a build it your self computer.

Thanks Rob.

AMD Phenom X3
Intel Core2 Quad Q6600
AMD Athlon X2 4200+
Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5200

ATI Radeon HD 3650 1024MB PCI-E
GeForce 9600GT

2GB RAM absolute minimum
Creative Sound Blaster X-FI Xtreme Gamer Sound Card
A monitor with a 6ms response time or faster (2ms and 5ms are quite common).

Those are all minimum spec hardware as examples. Far from serious gaming rigs but good enough for a few newer games like Portal and TF2. You could go lower but the lower you go the less future a machine like that has for other games you may want in the future.

Avoid AMD XXXXe series, AMD Athlon LE series, Intel Duo Core (not to be confused with Dual Core 2). It's not that they are crap per se, but they are definitely behind the times for performance. Also don't cheap out on the RAM, 1 GB for gaming is inadequate, even for XP let alone Vista.

Also avoid using Onboard graphics, especially Intel based ones. Good enough for office computing, terrible for gaming.

EDIT: Avoid Intel Celerons as well. I tend to forget about those ones, they aren't much good for anything.

Alright, thanks for the help Tan.

The only US PC parts website I know of is Newegg. I'm sure there are others.

My favourite UK one is Scan. I do use others but Scan often have the best price, and I get free postage because I'm a member on a PC forum, otherwise it starts from £8 for a courier.

You could look into overclocking your CPU. It's very easy to do. However, it's very likely it will invalidate any warranty. From what I gather, Corsair support overclocking their memory up to a certain amount, or as long as the voltages are within the stated range. Overclocking means you can buy a cheap CPU then get similar performance to the more expensive ones.


The general consensus is to avoid AMD CPUs and go with the Intel Core 2 family because they perform better. The upside to AMD is they tend to be cheaper.


(The following parts might not necessarily make a good match. I'm just using my judgement.)
There are nine essential items to building a PC.

CPU
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Intel-Core2-Duo-E7400-Wolfdale-Core-S775-28GHz-FSB-1066MHz-3MB-Cache-105x-Multiplier-Retail

I haven't been keeping track of chipsets. But this one would probably be adequate.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigabyte-GA-EP35-DS3L-iP35-Express-S-775-PCI-E-(x16)-DDR2-1066-1200-800-SATA-II-SATA-RAID-ATX

2 x 2GB of DDR 6400
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-(2x2GB)-Corsair-TwinX-XMS2-DDR2-PC2-6400-(800)-240-Pins-Non-ECC-Unbuffered-CAS-5-5-5-18

Hard drive
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/500-GB-Western-Digital-WD5000AAKS-Caviar-Blue-SATA-300-7200-rpm-16MB-Cache-89-ms

Vista Home Premium 64bit OEM. You will need 64bit to be able to use all 4GB of memory. OEM is cheaper but you can only install it on one computer.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Microsoft-Windows-Vista-Home-Premium-SP1-64Bit-1Pk-OEM-(DVD)

Don't buy a cheap PSU. They often don't deliver the rated amount and are more likely to blow. If the PSU blows it can take other components with it. This Corsair seems to be £30 more than the Corsair 520HX I bought two years ago for some reason. There are other good makes around 500W for less than this, though.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/550w-Corsair-VX-Series-PSU-ATX-PS-2-5-year-Warranty-see-specs

Ati 3850 512mb. A lot of people say a 1GB card is overkill for a monitor under 22".
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512MB-Sapphire-HD3850-PCI-E20-(x16)-1656MHz-GDDR3-GPU-668MHz-320-Cores-2xDVI-I-HDTV-HDCP

A DVD-RW DL drive will be needed. They're all pretty much the same but get a SATA one. They are just about all under £20.

Case is mostly personal choice but make sure it takes full ATX. Avoid windows and LED fans. They are the nerd equivalent of ricing a car.



Off the top of my head, it comes to around £500-550, or about $750-825. Someone else can give an opinion on the parts I've chosen. These aren't super-high end parts, so you aren't going to get 200FPS in Crysis at 1920x1080, max settings. But it should run modern games comfortably.

Ok, thanks James. I'll probably order off Newegg once I get the money. :)

Hah, no. Newegg is not the best place to go.

Okay, some sites:

http://www.newegg.com

http://www.tigerdirect.com

http://www.geeks.com

http://www.keenzo.com

http://www.directron.com

There are more, but those are the good ones. The problem is, you kinda are... well... knowledgeable on the subject of computer building, so you will need to do a bit of reading so that you don't fuck up and ruin a perfectly good part. OR... (:P ) you could always pay me $45 or so and I'd build it for you. ;)

Eh, last Christmas I was going to build my own PC, but shopping around I found for $549.99 a Gateway machine with a quad core processor, 2 gigs of RAM, 250g HD, DVD Burner, free printer, and all that good stuff.

I then bought an extra two gigs of RAM, an "overclocked" 8600 GTS Nvidia card, and a 500 watt power supply. Also picked up a 19" monitor. In the end I spent about $700 for the machine and $150 for the monitor. It runs current games just fine on max settings (I did overheat the card playing Crysis on Very High for like four hours, and of course GTA IV is shitty like it is for everyone) and blows Source games out of the water.

I would at least look around for deals before you start with the hassle of building your own, even though it isn't THAT much of a hassle.

Second option mon ami. And we can always just steal my sisters video card while we're at it.

Get a 8800gt its still good and cheap and also get a duo core you dont need quad core.Reuse all the part you can from your old pc like harddisk

Um jackttt, I really wouldn't be able to reuse much because my computer is from the 90's. So I would think I'm better off buying new parts. But thanks for the advice.

Um, no again. That video card is probably the last gen of the video card slot, so it would just be a waste putting it in.

But it's just sitting there and it's a nice thing!

Ok, I just disemboweled my old computer for it's case... And now, I wait.

I picture you sitting in the dark cradling an empty computer case.

Chortle.

Chortle indeed. Chortle indeed Mr. Leon. And that's only partially true!

I hope for your sake you realize that there are different form factors for cases. If you've just gutted a 90's computer it's probably an AT case which doesn't conform to new mobos. You'll need an ATX case or BTX, a Micro ATX may work as well but that'll be up to the motherboard you choose. :)

Very true indeed.Freechy,just get a new case you can get one really cheap nowadays unless you plan to be hardcore  gamer and wants really good airflow.

PC's are terrible when you aren't an absolute expert on the subject but are great when you are.

i agree.Building a good pc needs alot of reserch so you wont regret when you buy it later.

No dude, just no. The power supply in that case is a DECADE old. A DECADE. Don't be silly. I gave that computer to you, and you CANNOT reuse any of those parts. They're all just too darn old...

True, but I learnt a lot about PCs by building one. Before, I just thought there was a Pentium 4 with different speeds, or Core 2 Duos with different speeds. Then I learnt about the difference with the cache and FSB etc. Then there are all the differences in the memory, like speed and CAS latency.

Having built my own PC, I know what components are in it and I'm a lot more confident with upgrading or fixing it. There's no need for me to take it to PCWorld for them to charge me £60 just to look at it, then another £30 to plug a loose cable back in.

You can get cheap prebuilt systems but they're usually cheap because they use low quality components. If there's a cheap quad core PC, it's most likely because they cut back on the graphics card and used a low end one. So people see quad core and think it's a powerful PC when it's actually no good for gaming. They also often use the lowest rated PSU they can get away with, so upgrades become a bit difficult.

As Leon said, he had to buy quite a few new components.


Who said he was using the PSU? A good budget case is the Akasa Zen. I have a black one. It looks nice and works well. It doesn't have the features of the high end ones but it's very good for under £30.

Believe me, he'd use the old psu if he could. I know him.  ;)

Yeah, I'd probably do something stupid like that... That's why I'm paying Rob $45 to have me not waste the rest of my money.