Building a budget gaming rig

[disography]

Hi everyone! I'm currently speccing out a budget gaming rig for a friend, and wanted to get some opinions (and to see if I make any stupid mistakes, like usual :D ) The components in consideration are (with prices, and a link to the item in question) :

Maxtor STM3250310AS 250GB SATAII £36.98 (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/131214)

Athlon 64X2 4200+ Socket AM2 EE £40.00 (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/136868)

ASUS M2N ATX £45.62 (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/121143)

2x Kingston 1GB PC2-5300 DDR2 £25.98 (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/91121)

Antec EarthWatts 380W £29.22 (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/120375)

Extra Value Silver Mid Tower Case £9.99 (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/127653)

NEC Optiarc AD-7170S-01 DVD/CD RW SATA £19.26 (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/125206)

PowerColor HD 3850 256MB £91.00 (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/135760)

Acer AL1717 17"TFT Monitor £99.97 (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/129573)

Total: 398.02

Seem reasonable? Any obvious improvements/mistakes? He has an XP installation disk already and I'll create a slipstreamed install for SP2. Oh, and he already has a keyboard and mouse :D . Thanks!

[Bla$nA]

The 17" only got 1024x768 resolution right ? Than the 3850 should be enough.
Maybe get some better Rams that perform like 1000 5-5-5-15.

[Andi64]

Most 17" LCD have 1280x1024. IDK, maybe a 19" Widescreen LCD will do better at 1440x900. Anyway 1280 o 1440 are perfect for HD3850 256MB.

I would get better RAM, some cheap GSkill DDR2 800 C5.

[systemviper]

why are you going with AMD? that would be my question?

[Spectrobozo]

try a e2140 + a p35 mb and some overclock... the rest looks ok

[systemviper]

try a e2140 + a p35 mb and some overclock... the rest looks ok

now your talking......:up:

[disography]

Thanks for the replies. I was going with AMD as they seemed to be good value for money at this price range, for both motherboards and processors. On the intel front I found this: MSI P35 Neo-F (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/128047) for £58.95, and the e2140 for £43.29. Seem any good?

I'm trying to avoid overclocking as my friend is not comfortable with it at all. Personally I would get the e2140 and crank it, but I'm not him :D .

On the memory front, is the Corsair 2GB Kit DDR2 800MHz XMS2 CL5 (5-5-5-12) for £34.98 any good?

[Blacklash]

A single HD 3850 will handle 1440x or 1280x fine. In some games you will even be able to do 1680x. Example; "TheWitcher". You probably won't be using greater than 4x AA in most titles and you can pretty much forget about adaptive AA with the 256Mb versions.

HD 3850 Crossfire actually out performs my 8800GTX @ 661|2040 with a 1600 shader clock in "Oblivion". That's 1680x 4xAA|8xAF + HDR max viewing distance on all things, ie grass, trees, actor etc. They have an 8FPS lead in heavy foliage.

GTX owns them in "DiRT" and "Tomb Raider: Legend". The latter example because Crossfire doesn't work in that title and the former because they only have 256Mb ram. They play "DiRT" fine @ 1440x though. If you consider the mid 20s in FPS playable then they can do "DiRT" @ 1680x. I don't. A single HD 3850 can also run "Jericho" fine @ 1680x provided you keep edge smoothing off. If you turn it on heavy smoke effects in fights will drop you into the low 20s. I keep it off.

I was able to play "Crysis" on a single HD 3850 up to 1680x with 4xAF if I used all medium. If I used Crossfire on the DX9 path I could move quite a few things to high, like- shader, object, texture and water. When I tested them in single and crossfire in that title they were running @ 730|999.

Most of them OC between 735-780 unmodded and may go higher with mods. Mine do 760 and after that the "driver stops working" and I get a crash.

[LightSpeed]

Thanks for the replies. I was going with AMD as they seemed to be good value for money at this price range, for both motherboards and processors. On the intel front I found this: MSI P35 Neo-F (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/128047) for £58.95, and the e2140 for £43.29. Seem any good?

I'm trying to avoid overclocking as my friend is not comfortable with it at all. Personally I would get the e2140 and crank it, but I'm not him :D .

On the memory front, is the Corsair 2GB Kit DDR2 800MHz XMS2 CL5 (5-5-5-12) for £34.98 any good?

If you are not overclocking, the 4200+ would certainly be better than the E2140

however, if u do overclock it for your friend, go for the MSI P35 and the 2140(a better motherboard would be a good investment, but i guess it would be over your budget). i have those two atm, currently running mine at 2.86 prime stable. in dire need of a vdroop mod, havent found any for this board yet

cheers:)

[Jakalwarrior]

Might Consider a board that supports phenom if hes going to keep it a long while. Might also consider some faster ram.
Gotta draw the line somewhere though otherwise it wouldnt be a "budget build" :( . Is there a real limit? or just trying to stay cheap?

Also, what about recycling his old cdrom?

[SnipingWaste]

If you go AMD then take a look at this mobo the Gigabyte GA-MA69G-S3H.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gigabyte-GA-MA69G-S3H-ATX-Socket-Motherboard/dp/B000RGFLYW

I have used 2 of them and one OC to HTT 380 and the other to HTT420. Gigabyte just put out the BIOS with K10 support too. Its a nice full feature mobo for around the same price.

[disography]

Great stuff! Thanks, guys! The Gigabyte GA-MA69G-S3H is actually a little cheaper where I'm shopping, so in the AMD version of the build it goes! :up:

The monitor is 1280x1024, so the graphics card sounds spot on. Good stuff.

I've asked him about scavenging, but its a no-no - the old computer is going to a friend apparently. Otherwise I would have had the lot!

So using the Gigabyte motherboard we get K10 support for future upgrades, and if I upgrade the ram to some half decent 800MHz it should be good?

[systemviper]

Sorry I am just not an AMD fan....

[Jethro]

"Sorry I am just not an AMD fan..." he says to someone that posted in the AMD section. Yet another worthless troll.

[Jakalwarrior]

2gigs of DDR800 5-5-5 can be had for ~20 bucks AR here in the states. 4-4-4 is 37 or so AR. Hopefully you can find some really cheap over there too.

[SnipingWaste]

The Gigabyte mobo does support CrossFire. It will be a 16X/4X setup. The mobo has a 4X PCI-E slot thats open so you can use 4X, 8X, and 16X PCI-E cards in it. Its the orange slot.

[EvilBellyLint]

Sorry I am just not an AMD fan....

It's okay. We already knew you that when you weren't aware that,
at stock cpu speeds, current pricing on X2 CPUs, AM2 Mobos, and
HD38xx GPUs, make AMD the price/performance leader over similarly
featured Intel offerings ;)


EBL

[EvilBellyLint]

The Gigabyte mobo does support CrossFire. It will be a 16X/4X setup. The mobo has a 4X PCI-E slot thats open so you can use 4X, 8X, and 16X PCI-E cards in it. Its the orange slot.

Correct.

I recommend the MSI K9A2 CF (http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?p=MB-K9A2CFF&c=fr&pid=2cdab2894115cc721b7a281318adb1183f9e848b69e117 fce5ebbbeacb355c11) -- $92.70 @ eWiz


EBL

[Blacklash]

K9A2 CF is also @ ClubIT for 89usd. They shipped mine with BIOS 1.1.

http://www.clubit.com/product_detail.cfm?itemno=A4854036

[keithlm]

It's okay. We already knew you that when you weren't aware that,
at stock cpu speeds, current pricing on X2 CPUs, AM2 Mobos, and
HD38xx GPUs, make AMD the price/performance leader over similarly
featured Intel offerings ;)


EBL

I find it interesting that in all the forums I go to... people somehow don't realize that there are some people that are not interested in continuously overclocking their computers. (It somehow boggles their minds.)

Many also have a problem comparing processors that cost about the same. They seem to want to use frequency as the deciding factor. (I've seen $300.00 CPU benchmarked against $1000.00 CPU... and then they act like it was a big surprise that the $1000.00 was 20%-30% faster.)

[Blacklash]

People that find overclocking uninteresting or even distasteful probably shouldn't waste their time haunting a forum called XtremeSystems.

[Jakalwarrior]

I anti-reccomend the K9A2 CF ;)
Something just isnt right about its power regulation setup. Might be ok in a stock setup but when picking, why pick an iffy board? I cant reccomend the M3A because I havent recieved mine yet so I cant speak from any personal experience. Sounds ok from the in forum review though. Heck, if he isnt ever overclocking get something cheap like a biostar or foxxcon. Even if he does decide to, if they are based on AMD 7xx the over drive can probably help.

As for not overclocking a budget build I think of it like this. We spend more on a motherboard and ram while less on a chip in hopes of going really fast. For the same money you could get a cheapy motherboard, moderate ram, and a faster chip for a guaranteed spot somewhere in the middle. No luck involved.

My computer isnt just my gaming / general usage though. its my tweaking entertainment! Sadly though, overclocking isnt a continous thing (unless you are rich). It usually never takes me more than a day to find the bleeding edge of perfect stability on my new hardware. Then its a year or so of just plain ol usage. Maybe some occasional prodding to see if all of a sudden it decided to get some extra headroom, but overall its far from continous :(

[keithlm]

People that find overclocking uninteresting or even distasteful probably shouldn't waste their time haunting a forum called XtremeSystems.

But this is where all of the amusing fanatics live! I didn't say it's not amusing and entertaining.

I find it interesting watching people backpedal when they spout current dogma and then are presented with facts. Usually they spout more dogma instead of trying to refute the facts.

Besides... I overclock. I just return the system to stock for normal use when I'm done.

[VSpecII]

Overclocking ultra-budget rigs I find much more fun anyway. Mainly in that it's no big deal if I break something. If I'm about to trash an old rig, it goes to hell before it goes to recycling. :p:

[adamsleath]

spout current dogma
http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:S7FiIVsTHx1snM:inverse.physics.berkel ey.edu/archives/nelson.gif

are there adequate dividers to suit 667 ram?
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/139177 - saw this screen dunno if its of any interest: acer 20" ws. quite cheap. 1400x1050@75Hz?? 3850 should handle it.?