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Medium price gaming rig

S

steven_d02

n00b
Joined
Feb 15, 2005
Messages
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I'm loking to try and build a gaming system for my brother, he was looking at Dell and things like that and I told him I could save him a lot of money if I build it for him. That and he only has a budget of $600-700. His only concern is he wants something that will have an upgrade path that would be able to last about 2 years. I've seen recomendations for the 6600gt video card. He isn't looking to overclock anything, just something that will be able to support some upgradability. Thanks for any help you guys can give me.
 
Does your brother have anything to recycle from a previous computer? A monitor and operating system could take a good 200$ out of the budget easily. In this case having 500$ left for the rest of the stuff would make things tight.
 
banned_user said:
Does your brother have anything to recycle from a previous computer? A monitor and operating system could take a good 200$ out of the budget easily. In this case having 500$ left for the rest of the stuff would make things tight.
Click to expand...
Wait, you actually factor in the cost of software? (Oops, I've said too much... :rolleyes: )

I'd say that the Xpress200 IGP motherboard is your best friend, for $93. Its built-in graphics are on their way to being halfway decent, while still leaving you a PCI Express slot with which to upgrade later on.
Then get the retail s939 3000+, which comes with a good-enough HSF while still costing less than its OEM counterpart at NewEgg- $146.
512MB of RAM is enough for a budget comp today, so get 2x256MB of ValueRAM with a major name behind it for $48- the extra latency isn't an issue on such a limited budget, and it only costs you a few percent anyway. Wait, you're using a lower-speed CPU anyway- WHO CARES about a few percentage points? I trust Corsair, though there are mixed reactions to their Value Select series.
That'll leave you about $200 for a case, PSU, and drives. Figure around $100-120 for drives/storage depending on size and capabilities (CD-RW, DL DVD+/-RW, that sort of stuff), and you've still got about $80-100 for a case & PSU- you can find plenty in that range, just be careful to get a reliable Power Supply.

Try NEC's DL DVD+/-RW drive for $52, it's one of the best while still keeping a low price tag.
NewEgg also has your choice of 80GB, 7200rpm, 8MB cache hard drives in the $60-70 range, I'd go with the Seagate SATA drive for $60 after instant rebate.
Pick a case and PSU. Here's a suggestion for $70. It's an awesome, reliable case, and it comes with a 350W PSU- most likely Cooler Master's own RealPower. I have their 450W model, so I trust their manufacturing. Keep in mind that 350W won't let you upgrade to SLI or anything heavy-duty later on, but it'll do for a budget PC like this one.

That'll satisfy the $500 budget posted above. If you already have software/monitors/keyboards/mice/etc., you can put the extra $200 into a larger hard drive, faster processor, upgrading the graphics, or adding RAM. For gaming, graphics are probably the most beneficial depending on age/type of games. Second place would be upgrading to a gig of RAM.
 
 
I like the Dell outlet for cheap computers. Here's my latest budget gaming system:

$240 http://outlet.us.dell.com/Dispatcher?target=SpecPage&serviceTag=ZRB8EEM7 ($150 instant discount expired last week, so it doesn't show in the link)
P4 630
512MB DDR2-533MHz
80GB 7200RPM SATA
16x DL DVD burner
16x DVD-ROM
WinXP MCE 2005
MS Works Suite
ATI E-Home Wonder w/MCE remote control
x300 SE 128MB PCI-E

Plus $30 for an upgrade to a Gigabyte 6200 128MB/128-bit PCI-E from newegg for $80 - $50 from selling the x300 SE 128MB.

Total price: $295 after tax and $1.99 shipping from newegg (free shipping from Dell).

I have some extra DDR2 memory already. The 6200 unlocked all 8 pipelines and overclocks stable to 550MHz core and 700MHz memory. :D

The outlet deals haven't been as good the last couple of days, but it's still possible to find a similar system for under $400 shipped. My nephew managed to grab a similar system to the one I listed above without a DVD burner and only a P4 530 for $242.

I think there's a 5% off coupon for the outlet right now.
 
the things I have available for reuse are an old monitor, keyboard, mouse, CD-RW, DVD Drive(not interested in DVD burner), 60GB HDD, Floppy, and speakers although he likes to use his headphones to play his games. He also needs a copy of WinXP but that isn't really a factor at this point. I really apprciate all the suggestions so far. That dell refurb loked like a good deal, I tried to go to outlet.dell.com and it told me there was an error, is there an address that I could go to for some more dell refurbs? Again thank you for you time.
 
steven_d02 said:
I told him I could save him a lot of money if I build it for him.
Click to expand...

Truth is, you're probably going to spend more building it yourself.
 
Thats kinda what its looking like at this point... I'm starting to consider that Dell refurb someone post earlier...
 
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