CS:S System Build?

O

osk.ocelot

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 14, 2004
Messages
85
Im looking to build a system primarily to play CS:S. I was wondering what the most bang for my buck set up would be to play the game at the highest settings? Im looking to buy everything even would consider SFF. Any help would be great. Thanks
 
osk.ocelot said:
Im looking to build a system primarily to play CS:S. I was wondering what the most bang for my buck set up would be to play the game at the highest settings? Im looking to buy everything even would consider SFF. Any help would be great. Thanks
Click to expand...

it would be nice if you mentioned some kind of budget. finding good value relies heavily on how much you want to spend.
 
Source runs on low-mid video cards without a hitch so it really depends on the amount of eye candy and res you'll be playing on. I can play source decently on an X300 @ medium settings and I can play source with a 7900GT 16x res at maxed settings...all at 30+ fps..

With that said, give us a budget :D
 
Source is a CPU heavy game. I'd reccomend a Core 2 Duo, and a 7900gt, 2gigs of ram, and whatever other accessories you see fit.
 
Riddlinkidstoner said:
Source runs on low-mid video cards without a hitch so it really depends on the amount of eye candy and res you'll be playing on. I can play source decently on an X300 @ medium settings and I can play source with a 7900GT 16x res at maxed settings...all at 30+ fps..

With that said, give us a budget :D
Click to expand...
I really wonder what's up with my laptop. It's got a dothan at 2ghz, and a x300 64mb, overclocked as well. Seems that anytime someone throws smoke (even in cs), fps go down the toilet to <5fps. That's not even at max resolution, since there's no way it could handle 1680x1050. Then again it might be because I'm using ogl and there's some sort of glitch with it??

Regardless of that, I just pieced together a c2d sff with a 7900gs and I can max everything and be bouncing off the fps limit of 60 (haven't bothered to set it any higher at the moment), even in smoke. Then again, here I'm using d3d.

For some reason, d3d cs just seems a little weird to me, and I usually end up with ogl since it seems more natural (maybe back from the hl days when there was only ogl, if that is true).
 
What resolution will you be playing at? What size is your monitor?

If I had 1200, I'd get something similar to this:
$311 - Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz
$116 - Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 Socket T (LGA 775) Intel P965 Express
$205 - G.Skill 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2-800 F2-6400CL4D-2GBPK (on sale)
$245 - eVGA 512-P2-N635-AR Geforce 7950GT KO 512MB
$90 - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS 320GB 7200RPM SATA300 16MB Cache
$55 - XClio GOODPOWER 500W ATX 500W
$35 - Cooler Master Centurion 5 CAC-T05-WW Black/Silver w/ Side Window ($50 - $15MIR)
$30 - NEC 18X DVD±R DVD Burner 7170A-0B
==========
$1087 + tax and shipping (after rebates)
 
CS:S online onc you get into larger servers and alot of action can kill your FPS real fast

i got a dual core intel 840 (3.2ghz) 2g ddr2 ram and an x1900Xt - i got AA at 4x and AF at trlinear and everything else high, iusually stay around 60fps max, but in big fight i can drop down to 30FPS easily, especially when there are a few smoke nades around.
 
Please tell me you aren't building a computer around ONE game. Plan ahead. Can you really be content with one game that isn't as graphically-intense as others? You should make it future-proof. More games will come out. I bet there'll be more CS games too.

And for $1200, you can definitely design a system for games that need more power.
 
GJSNeptune said:
Please tell me you aren't building a computer around ONE game. Plan ahead. Can you really be content with one game that isn't as graphically-intense as others? You should make it future-proof. More games will come out. I bet there'll be more CS games too.

And for $1200, you can definitely design a system for games that need more power.
Click to expand...

You do not understand the CS mentallity.
 
GJSNeptune said:
Please tell me you aren't building a computer around ONE game. Plan ahead. Can you really be content with one game that isn't as graphically-intense as others? You should make it future-proof. More games will come out. I bet there'll be more CS games too.

And for $1200, you can definitely design a system for games that need more power.
Click to expand...
CS is still really the only game that I play.
 
enginurd said:
What resolution will you be playing at? What size is your monitor?

If I had 1200, I'd get something similar to this:
$311 - Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz
$116 - Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 Socket T (LGA 775) Intel P965 Express
$205 - G.Skill 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2-800 F2-6400CL4D-2GBPK (on sale)
$245 - eVGA 512-P2-N635-AR Geforce 7950GT KO 512MB
$90 - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS 320GB 7200RPM SATA300 16MB Cache
$55 - XClio GOODPOWER 500W ATX 500W
$35 - Cooler Master Centurion 5 CAC-T05-WW Black/Silver w/ Side Window ($50 - $15MIR)
$30 - NEC 18X DVD±R DVD Burner 7170A-0B
==========
$1087 + tax and shipping (after rebates)
Click to expand...

The only thing i would do is drop from an e6600 to an e6400 and get a better psu so you can upgrade to g80/r600 when you feel like it. should end up costing about the same, and the e6400 is every bit as overclockable as the e6600.
 
GMoney42392 said:
The only thing i would do is drop from an e6600 to an e6400 and get a better psu so you can upgrade to g80/r600 when you feel like it. should end up costing about the same, and the e6400 is every bit as overclockable as the e6600.
Click to expand...
500W is all you need for a G80. You can OC all you want with the E6400, but it wont get you that extra 2MB cache... which actually only adds about a 10% performance boost right now. So an E6400 is nice, but then you might as well get the E6300, because it, too, can OC jus as high as the E6400. As long as your board can reach high FSB speeds, you wont need the higher multipliers.

If you can afford to spend abit more, dropping to the E6300 and goin for a G80 8800GTS would be more future-proof. Although, you can always upgrade that 7950gt in about 6-12 months (and sell it to help offset the upgrade cost).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top