building a gamer....

M

MRi6000

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 19, 2005
Messages
158
Hey, im on the move towards building a gamer. Heres the facts....im a poor college student on a budget. Yes I can save money and build one, which is no prob...but would also like to have one reasonably soon. I have the Dell 2400 in the sig below and was wandering if I could build a decent gamer out of it to play games such as BF2, HL2, Doom 3, etc.... I was thinking that it would be cheaper to just add more memory, new sound/video cards and some gaming accessories and have a decent gamer that I would be more than happy with. But, I've never actually had a gamer pc, but have always played games such as D2, War Crafts, Half Life, etc.... I know most ppl on here are prob gonna rag on my P4, but is it so bad to play games on? Or should I just start putting together an AMD pc.... my mom is gonna allow me to buy a few parts as a xmas gift if thats what I truely want... any input will be greatly appreciated, thanks
-cody
 
Well if you just want a decent gamer. A graphics card is all that you will need.

If you want to future proof. Look at getting a new PCI-E board and get a new PCI-E graphics card and keep the rest.
 
BigHubris said:
Doesn't the 2400 lack an AGP slot
Click to expand...

Didn't even think about that - BigHubris is right, though. You're gonna have to build a new system if you want to game.

The cheapest way to go would be to buy a socket 478 mb and an AGP vid. card, and just keep the memory and processor (probably need a case and psu, too). However, that option doesn't leave you any room to upgrade in the future because socket 478 and AGP are both "dead."

The smart way to go would be to save up and build an AMD, PCIe system from the ground up. Then you could just upgrade on top of that a couple years down the road. If you shop used or look around for good deals, you could build the entire system for well under $700. This is what I would do, if it were my money. Good luck.

Here is a link to an article about building a $500 gaming rig:
http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20051014/index.html
 
hey, thats for the quick replies.... that blows, I've never open'd the box up so thanks for letting me know... Well, I do believe I'll be starting my AMD64 rig up soon then. Im just looking to build a competent performer. This will actually be my first complete build of a computer, anybody know any really helpful links that have helped them out in the past? I need to know the exact list of things I will need ex. case, mobo/proc., mem, hd, o/c etc... any help would be greatly appreciated!
thanks,
Cody
 
again, thanks all... im not putting together and pricing what Im wanting to get...thanks for all the help
 
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