Budget gaming build - First time

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ronitrc

n00b
Joined
Nov 27, 2008
Messages
6
Hey guys

I've decided it's time to put together a system for the first time and I need some help. Right now I'm on a Dell Dimension 8400 from 2004.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc

Largely gaming, but some light video editing and photoshop work as well. I mostly play fps games, but enjoy other types too. I'm currently playing TF2, Fallout 3, and Left 4 Dead.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?

$250 - $300. I really don't want to go over $300 but if absolutely necessary I can stretch it.
Tax and shipping included.

3) Where do you live?

Central Pennsylvania.

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.

I need a new CPU, motherboard, case + PSU and ram (3-4gb). Also possibly a new hard drive. I'm not sure if I should transfer the hard drive from this pc into my new one or if I'm better off buying a new one. I believe the HD in this computer is a Seagate Barracuda 160gb (sata).

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.

Thinking of reusing the optical drives, sound card (audigy zs), video card (8600GTS) and like I mentioned above the hard drive as well.

6) Will you be overclocking?

No plans at the moment, but if possible I'd like to have an option to do so in the future.

7) What size monitor do you have or plan to have?

I have a 17 inch LCD with a max resolution of 1280x1024. In the near future I may upgrade to a 20-21 inch widescreen LCD.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?

As soon as possible, ie. right away.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.

Having crossfire/sli would be nice for adding a second video card, but not totally necessary. Don't think I need RAID. Firewire is also not a necessity (but nice to have).


I've done some reading and browsing on Newegg and found a couple of parts that look good, but again as this is going to be my first build I am inexperienced and unfamiliar with a lot of things.

For the CPU, the E5200 Wolfdale looks appealing.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116072

This case also comes with a 585W PSU so it seems pretty good for $80 but I have been warned against buying case + psu combos.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811121065


Anyway what do you experts think? Appreciate all the help I get. :)
 
ronitrc said:
This case also comes with a 585W PSU so it seems pretty good for $80 but I have been warned against buying case + psu combos.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811121065
Click to expand...

Yeah definitely avoid Case+PSU combos unless it's an Antec. Rarely are case+PSU combos have decent PSUs in them.

Anyway, here's what I'd get with your budget:
Intel Pentium Dual Core E5200 CPU - $83
Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3L Intel P43 Motherboard - $85
G.Skill F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ 2 x 2GB DDR2 800 RAM - $45
Antec NSK4480 ATX Case with Antec Earthwatts 380W PSU - $70
-----
Total: $283 plus tax and shipping

Reuse your hard drive, optical drive, and video card. Try out the onboard sound first and then add the sound card. See which one sounds better
 
I mentioned in my post that I'm playing TF2, Left4Dead, and Fallout 3 at the moment. Those games and I might buy Far Cry 2 or Call of Duty. Really not limited to one or a few games, I like to play wide variety and genre of games. I don't expect top of the line performance, but playable at medium - relatively high settings.

For games like TF2 and Left4Dead I currently get 25-80fps on directx9.1 and 50-100 on directx8 with a P4 3.2ghz and 8600gts. Since source engine seems to put emphasis on cpu I'd expect quite a performance increase upgrading from a pentium4.
 
I can't even begin to imagine how poorly a 2004 Dell computer plays TF2, L4D, and Fallout 3.

I built a computer in 2003 that was kicking ass in its day, and after paddling through Half Life 2 with bad FPS I figured that thing had been obsoleted. It looks like you upgraded your video card though? But isn't that 8600 pci-e? I don't think they even had pci-e in 2004?

Anyways, your budget poses problem because it is so low. Case + PSU is going to run you ~$100 at the least. You can probably find something for maybe a little less if you look hard or someone links of a deal here.

That leaves you with $200 for CPU, Ram and Mobo, definitely eliminating the possibility that you can afford a new HD, heatsink/fan or OS, if you need that. CPU Ram and Mobo is challenge at $200 anyways

Edit: Nice call on the case+PSU by Danny
 
Yeah my this dimension 8400 has pci-e, it came with something like an ATI x300...I forget. It's been upgraded twice actually. I bought a 6600gt in 2005, and the 8600gts last year. Suprisingly HL2 and other source engine games run suprisingly well at 1024x768 with a few tweaks here and there without sacrificing too much graphical quality. I can't turn on AA or AF without getting a significant hit, but I've learned to ignore the jaggies.

I don't need a new OS, and I can hopefully reuse my current HD ( I have an external HD otherwise the 160gb would be severely restricting). I do need new ram though because I don't think the ram in my current pc would be compatible with the new motherboard. I upgraded it a while ago, I'm pretty sure it's DDR PC5200.
 
ronitrc said:
I upgraded it a while ago, I'm pretty sure it's DDR PC5200.
Click to expand...

There's no such RAM as DDR PC5200. Did you mean DDR2 667/PC5300?

If you want to know what your RAM speed is, download, unzip, and run CPU-Z. Look under the SPD tab and tell us what's under the Max Bandwidth
 
Sorry my mistake. I downloaded CPU-Z. It says PC2-4300 (266 MHz). The PC came with 2 slots of 512, and I added another 2 slots of 1gb for a total of 3gb.
 
ronitrc said:
Sorry my mistake. I downloaded CPU-Z. It says PC2-4300 (266 MHz). The PC came with 2 slots of 512, and I added another 2 slots of 1gb for a total of 3gb.
Click to expand...

Yeah your RAM won't work with newer mobos these days. The minimum speed supported by most Intel chipsets is DDR2 667 or PC2-5300
 
Danny Bui said:
Yeah your RAM won't work with newer mobos these days. The minimum speed supported by most Intel chipsets is DDR2 667 or PC2-5300
Click to expand...

If I were to up my budget to $350 would I be able to make significant improvements and/or add a decent hard drive? The parts you posted above look good but won't a 380W PSU struggle with future upgrades (video cards/cpu/additional hard drives etc).
 
ronitrc said:
If I were to up my budget to $350 would I be able to make significant improvements and/or add a decent hard drive? The parts you posted above look good but won't a 380W PSU struggle with future upgrades (video cards/cpu/additional hard drives etc).
Click to expand...

That's a good quality 380W PSU with 27A on the +12V rail. You don't strike me as the type to get high-end video cards that require 600W+ PSUs. Many of the newer mid-range cards today don't use THAT much more power than your current 8600GTS. So basically, as long as you keep your upgrades reasonable, that PSU will work just fine.

Just to give you an idea how low power new rigs are today, my rig, specs in sig, takes up about 260W of power at full CPU and GPU load. That's well under the Earthwatts 380W max limit.

Oh and upping your budget to $350 will get you one of the best bang for the buck hard drive in terms of speed, storage capacity and price out there:
Western Digital WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - $70

If you look around the forums, this drive will come up a lot.
 
Since you only have a 17" lcd with 1280 x 1024 res, the Intel Core 2 processor should be able to deliver a boost to your 8600GTS card at that res over your old P4 cpu.
 
I went ahead and bit the bullet and ordered the parts this morning.

I got:

Intel Pentium E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80571E5200 - Retail

GIGABYTE GA-EP43-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ - Retail

Rosewill R5601-BK 0.8mm Japanese Cold Rolled Steel Screw-less Dual 120mm Fans ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail

Rosewill RP600V2-S-SL 600W ATX12V v2.01 SLI Ready Power Supply - Retail

Seagate Barracuda ES ST3250620NS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM


I bought what you recommended for the cpu, motherboard, and ram, but saw that newegg was running some black friday discounts and promotions on the case and PSU and both had many good reviews so I decided against the antec. The Rosewill combo with a black friday code applied was only $10 more. Another reason was that it seemed a bit of a chore to open and close the case and wasn't very user friendly. Rosewill CPUs don't seem to have the best reputation but I couldn't find many dissatisfied customers from the newegg reviews.

As for the the hard drive, the WD drive you linked was very nice but ultimately would have put me too far over budget so I went with the Seagate Barracuda ES 250GB. I have a Seagate in my current PC and it has given me no hassle and performed admirably.

My total with UPS 3 day shipping for all parts came to $351.91.
Everything was free shipping except the motherboard which was $9, zipzoomfly had it with free ground shipping but their estimated delivery time was 9 days vs 3 for newegg.
 
I think the Anetc tri power 550w is more reliable than the rosewill one. Too bad that one is out of stock this morning
 
ronitrc said:
I bought what you recommended for the cpu, motherboard, and ram, but saw that newegg was running some black friday discounts and promotions on the case and PSU and both had many good reviews so I decided against the antec. The Rosewill combo with a black friday code applied was only $10 more. Another reason was that it seemed a bit of a chore to open and close the case and wasn't very user friendly. Rosewill CPUs don't seem to have the best reputation but I couldn't find many dissatisfied customers from the newegg reviews.
Click to expand...

Rather than go through and list the many many reasons why you made a really bad buy, I'm just gonna say this: Good luck.
 
Danny Bui said:
Rather than go through and list the many many reasons why you made a really bad buy, I'm just gonna say this: Good luck.
Click to expand...



ronitrc... Your build is fine. It is still a better buy than what 75% of people out there generally end up with--in terms of value per dollar. Nobody here at Hardocp is going to think you put together a completely quality rig, but then again, this is Hardocp.

So don't feel bad about it and enjoy it. Worst comes to worse that PSU dies and takes down your mobo with it
 
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