• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Budget Gaming Rig

B

Bennyb

2[H]4U
Joined
Dec 31, 2002
Messages
2,556
So i'm trying to throw together a budget gaming rig here. What i've got so far is:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-2100 3.1GHz Dual-Core Processor ($111.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H77M Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($38.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Thermaltake VL80001W2Z ATX Mid Tower Case ($24.46 @ Microcenter)
Power Supply: Antec 550W ATX12V Power Supply ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $300.42


I currently have two HD 4850s with no home so I was planning on using these until I put away enough to grab something a bit more powerful. Also already have a harddrive, but will eventually get a SSD once I can afford.

I'll be playing GW2, LoL, CS, Tribes:Ascend and maybe D3.

I'd be coming from a laptop with a 2.5ghz c2d, geforce 8600GT M, 4 gigs of ram from 2008 so i'm hoping this will be able to at least run the games listed at 19x12 at medium settings.

Any suggestions?
 
I have a gtx460 (pretty equivalent to xfire 4850's) with a slower qx6700 cpu.

I have a 1920x1200 monitor as well and I play BF3 @ medium settings and get 40fps. The games you listed have lower requirements so you should be fine. For budget gaming you can't go wrong with the 2100 - at 19x12 I dont think it will bottleneck any gpu.

Since it is a mATX mobo I would also think about getting a smaller case. I have the CM elite 343 (which is like $25 AR from Frys) and its pretty much an ATX tower shrunken for mATX boards. You can fit a full ATX heatsink and PSU as well. Looks similar to the TT case you have above too. its awesome :) I do suppose that a bigger case would give you better cooling for those 4850's, but if they run cool I'd definately consider the CM case.
 
Don't buy the Antec Basiq BP550 Plus. It's a poor PSU in spite of the Antec name. Get the following instead while it's still on sale:

$51 - Antec NEO ECO 520C 520W PSU (included 15% discount promo code EMCNBHG22, expires 8/29)

The HD 4850s on their own aren't that much better than the 8600GT. When were you planning on upgrading the video card(s)?
 
Do not go with that CPU/Motherboard setup. Go with this one.

I would rather you with this motherboard/CPU combo paired with that RAM you selected.

$176.98 - Intel Core i3-2120 Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz LGA 1155 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 2000 BX80623I32120 bundled with: 1x Intel BOXDH61CRB3 LGA 1155 Intel H61 Micro ATX ...

Much better motherboard than that AsRock.
 
mnagrecha said:
I like Antec a bunch, but the Corsair series has impressed me quite a bit:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139028&Tpk=corsair builder 600

Two of my friends have that in their PCs and are very happy. The cables are really long, and go quite a ways to help with cable management. Both should work quite well for your applications, and cost about the same (after MIR)
Click to expand...

Unfortunately that's a bad buy (we don't factor in MIR around here btw): It only has 40A on the +12V rail, which is low considering that many 600W+ PSUs have 48A to 52A on the +12V rail. Not to mention that there are significantly higher quality Antecs out there for the same or lower price
$60 - Antec NEO ECO 520C 520W PSU (40A on the +12V rail)
$70 - Antec NEO ECO 620C 620W PSU (48A on the +12V rail)
 
Danny Bui said:
Unfortunately that's a bad buy (we don't factor in MIR around here btw): It only has 40A on the +12V rail, which is low considering that many 600W+ PSUs have 48A to 52A on the +12V rail. Not to mention that there are significantly higher quality Antecs out there for the same or lower price
$60 - Antec NEO ECO 520C 520W PSU (40A on the +12V rail)
$70 - Antec NEO ECO 620C 620W PSU (48A on the +12V rail)
Click to expand...

Interesting! I didn't really factor that in when considering PSUs. Usually, I recommend that PSU to reasonably tame builds with nothing fancy going on. I have a friend who is running it with a 2500k/GTX570 and is doing just fine (or so it seems)

Thank you for the heads up on the MIR thing as well. I'll make sure to not factor it in the next time around.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top