Cheap Gaming Build

[nate88]

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Around $700
3) Where do you live?
Chicago, IL
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
PC parts, not a monitor.
6) Will you be overclocking?
Probably.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Now
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
Raid and either crossfire or SLI
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
yes

Here's what I have so far:
Raidmax Sagitta 2 $55
AMD 9950 $105
700W OCZ $70
DVD Drive $26
2X 1tb Seagate HD $170

Current subtotal: $426

What I have left to decide is the motherboard, graphic card (s) and RAM. I was sort of stuck deciding between SLI and Crossfire. I was thinking of either getting one GTX 260 off of ebay for around $130 with cashback and then later eventually picking up another GTX 260, or buying two radeon 4830 for about $140 total after cashback. I'm pretty new to building PC's and don't have the slightest idea as to which setup would be better. I also would like a decent motherboard that would be good for overclocking. Any help or alterations to the build would be appreciated, thanks!

 

[King of Heroes]

I'd suggest taking a good look at Techreport's Utility Player build for ideas:

http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/16721/4
http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/16721/5

Below $700 and should be awesome for games.

 

[tiraides]

What is the size and resolution of the monitor you're using? That information can help us determine the right video card for your system.

Also, why do you need two 1TB hard drives?

 

[DrFreeze]

last week i built my GF a new machine, for a grand total of 750 euros, i got her:

Antec earthwatts 500 psu (re-using an old cm centurion case, so that wasnt needed)
phenom x4 940 be (before the pricedrop sadly, so its cheaper now)
gigabyte ma790x-ud4 mono
8gb of ocz ddr2-1066 gold (4x2gb sticks)
1 TB hdd samsung
1 dvd-rw, 1 dvd-rom
asus 4670 512 mb
vista x64 home premium

now, strip out the vista license, drop 1 kit of ram (4gb should do for gaming right now), pick a cheaper hard disk, drop the dvd-rom, compensate for the 940 pricedrop and that saves you 200 euros, now within your budget that leaves 150, pick a better psu (30 bucks extra), get a cm centurion 5 (50 bucks) and use the remaining 70 bucks to upgrade the 4670 to a 4850/4870 and presto!


The dual 1 tb hard drives are massive overkill if you only need the system for gaming, i assume by the fact that you went for two drives, that you want to raid 0 them. If you are dead-set on raid0, get two 320 single platter drives (IE new, fast ones, based on the same tech as the 640 drives) and save on the cost, 640 gb should cover all the games you will want to have installed.

Drop the 9950, spend a bit extra and get a phenom II, performance is better, the heat is less, so overal you will have a much better system..

 

[Dangman]

What is the size and resolution of the monitor you're using? That information can help us determine the right video card for your system.

Also, why do you need two 1TB hard drives?

+1 to these questions.

Also ditch that OCZ PSU. You can find significantly better PSUs for the money that won't have a high potential to harm your hardware like that OCZ will.

 

[nate88]

I picked two 1tb drives because in all my previous computers I have ran into the issue of not having enough storage, also at $85 each they seem to be near priced smaller sizes.
As for my monitor, I'll be using it both on a regular 4 year old dell 19 inch flatscreen and a 56 inch 1080p television.

 

[tiraides]

For a $700 gaming build, you need to readjust your priorities. Here's a different build to consider:

$214 - Cooler Master Centurion 690 case & AMD Phenom II X4 920 combo deal (free shipping on both)
$81 - Antec Earthwatts EA650 650W PSU (free shipping)
$110 - Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P (free shipping)
$24 - Samsung SH-S223F SATA DVD burner (free shipping)
$85 - Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA HDD (free shipping)
$180 - EVGA GTX 260 (free shipping & $20 mail-in rebate)
=====
$694 - Subtotal (not including taxes or rebates)

You should also buy at least two more 120mm case fans -- the Centurion 690 case can support up to seven -- but they would end up breaking your $700 limit. Regardless, two good options are the Scythe "Slipstreams" and the Yate Loon D12-series fans.

The GTX 260 was chosen more for the HDTV (under the assumption that you would be playing a few FPS games) than the 19" monitor. If the monitor is going to be used more than the HDTV, you could pick up the HD4850 and still get decent (if not great) performance while using it on the HDTV.

The hard drives were the biggest issue for me to address. I decided to go with a more reliable hard drive, as some of the Seagate 7200.11 drives are still suffering from firmware issues. For now, however, just get one 1TB drive. Pick up the second one when you have the funds (or the need) for it. That, or offload some of the files that you won't use as much onto an external HDD. (You could even buy an external enclosure or a NAS box to use with your old drives.)

 

[nate88]

Thanks for the reply tiraides, just a couple questions. Would 650W be enough if in the future I decide to add another hard drive and graphics card? Is Antec a reliable PSU maker?

 

[Jospeh]

I have 5 HD, 4870 OCed e8400 OCed. Kill-a-watt meter doesn't pass 400watts drawn (probably less but I don't remember the exact figure).

 

[Dangman]

Thanks for the reply tiraides, just a couple questions. Would 650W be enough if in the future I decide to add another hard drive and graphics card? Is Antec a reliable PSU maker?

Yes the Antec 650W would be enough. And yes Antec is a reliable PSU maker.

@ Jospeh
Take those Kill-a-Watt readings with a grain of salt. Straight from our PSU editor:

Yes and a quick search would turn up this topic a million times over. Here is the recap:

1) APFC can fool Kill-A-Watts into giving you abnormally low readings (some times giving better than 100% efficiency)

2) Power supplies derate with temperature anywhere from 2w/c above a nominal rated at value to 10w/c.

3) Kill-A-Watt's and most power meters sample too slowly to catch transient loads (the Transient load from our tests is 117w and is COMPLETELY missed by Kill-A-Watts).

4) Power supplies last longer if you stay in the 40% to 60% range of their output.

5) power supplies are quieter if you stay in the 40% to 60% range of their output.

6) Power supplies are cooler if you stay in the 40% to 60% range of their output.

The power meters in UPS software are just as bad. You have to spend some change before you get anywhere near an accurate power meter when your PSU has APFC.