$500 budget gaming machine

[ben805]

My brother is on VERY tight budget and only has $500 to build a budget gaming machine so he can play some BF2, he will also need this pc when he go back to college to finish his degree soon. For starter I'll donate him a 21" CRT monitor, my spare DFI Ultra-D mobo, SoundBlaster Live 5.1, and an optical mouse. Here's a list of hardwares that I came up with but if you guys think of anything else or have better options please let me know....




Saphire X800GTO2 $189
Fortron AX450-PN PSU $49
Foxconn TLA624 Mid tower $33
NEC DVD combo drive $38
Hitachi TK250 160GB HDD $82
Gskill 1GBHZ 1 stick $89
Floppy drive $10
Keyboard $10


Total: $500

what do you think?



Edit: hardware list updated

Since this setup is right on budget, I'll chim in $75 for him to get the used Winchester 3000 from my colleague.

[icyroy05]

The only thing I don't see listed is a keyboard and speakers. Other than that it looks like something I would buy if I needed a budget gaming system.

[nn_step]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102644 cheaper and more Pipelines
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231031 1x1Gb would make upgrading Cheaper
other than that.. I think it will make a great set up...

[KoolDrew]

I would buy a cheaper PSU. Perhaps a Fortron AX450-PN? It will be plenty for this rig and will save you about $25. With a given max of $500 you could pick up a X800GTO2. This will give much better performance then the 6600GT. The pipes can be unlocked for a total of 16 and can be overclocked to surpass the X850XT.

Also, I just picked up Corsair VS and they run 242MHz @ 2.5-3-3-8 w/ 2.6v. I have not tried with looser timings or more voltage yet, but they are UCCC. So they should do above 260 @ 3-4-4-8 easily. I am not saying you will get lucky and get RAM like I did, but you may.

[ben805]

Ok cool, keyboard he'll get a generic one from bestbuy, as for speaker he will hook it up to his compact JBL speaker set. video card...if you guys suggested the X800GTO2 then I'll look into it and see if I can unlock the pipe for him, as far as ram goes....memory bandwidth doesn't matter to him as he doesn't know jack about benchmarking but if there's better value ram out there I'm all ears

[KoolDrew]

There is actually a Saphire X800GTO2 at Newegg where one of the reviewers said that it came unlocked with 16 pipes. It isn't any more expensive then the other ones either. For RAM, I would just suggest buying the cheapest stuff you can find from a reputable manufacturer.

[ben805]

Just went to newegg to check out some stuff, the Forton AX450-PN appears to be a decent PSU for cheap, and yes total of 36A on 12v rail should be enough to power everything. the Saphire X800GTO2 looks like a good video card eventhough the price is steeper than the 6600GT, since this rig is being built with gaming in mind it does make sense to invest on better video card...nice catch

[nn_step]

see if you can get a good heatsink and overclock the nuts off of it...

[ben805]

I'll strip off the IHS and give him an old XP-90, or the new AMD heatsink that came with my 170 opty, either one should do it, it's going to be his only computer and I hope it last him for atleast 3~5 years, so I'll try not to go too crazy on the overclock, it might be stable for now in winter but I'll have to factor in the summer heat as well, once I put everything together, I'll crank up the heater in the computer room to simulate summer condition at around 75~80'F and let it prime overnight, my feeling is....this Winchester probably won't do more than 2.50Ghz.

[[XC] leviathan18]

wow 500$ and you have a nice little machine...

as other said 1 stick of 1 gig is better latter add another gig and he has 2 gig and he is going to be happy to have that to play bf2

[nn_step]

if you can stretch your memory budget to $148
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231039
I can't find a cheaper 2Gb set on newegg or Zipzoomfly

[ferrari_freak]

Wow, I can't believe how cheap this thing is costing . Congrats on building a smart rig rather than what most people do: "Ok, I have $5000, what's the most expensive thing that money can buy?" Hope he has fun playing his BF2. And yeah, I would like to agree with nn_step on the RAM there. That is an awesome price for 2 gigs of RAM, hopefully you can stretch the budget to fit that in. If not, that 1 gig stick is great as well.

Usama aka Ferrari Freak

[AJF]

Floppy? Forego it.

[ben805]

he'll more than likely need the floppy drive, only $10 so might as well get it now hardware list updated and it went slightly over budget so I'll buy him the Winny 3000. I know it's better off to start with 1GB stick then upgrade later, but gaming will suffer more to run on single channel in 1GB stick instead of 2 x512MB in dual channel. Maybe on next X'mas or his b'day I'll buy him a pair of 2GB kit as present or something, he doesn't has much money so for now 1GB should get him by for awhile. Overall system performance is going to suck hardcore if he use my 4200rpm old 8GB EIDE hard drive (ATA100) so a new hard drive is pretty much mendatory, the Hitachi SATAII TK250 160GB is the best choice, plenty of space to install games but down the road if he ever ran out of space then he can get another one to run on RAID.

[[XC] leviathan18]

that hd is nice i have it.... silent faast and cheap

[turtle]

Looking very nice for the price. Bravo.

I can also voutch for the hitachi's. I have the 250gb's in raid, but they are darn nice drives, and cheap. I can't imagine the 160's being of lesser quality.

I don't know what his JBL setup is, but decent 5.1 setups can be found for almost nothing. Might be something to look at in the future if his portables are needed elsewhere.

[ben805]

yea I have two TK250 in 250GB as storage, very nice drive indeed. the 160GB version has the same size platter so performance wise they're about the same. he only use this computer for gaming, browsing net, and do homework when he go back to college, so he shouldn't need more than 160GB, if he needs to store big files I would recommend him to burn them onto DVD-R

as for the JBL, he has those tiny little white JBL in 2.1 setup, the sub looks like a mushroom...not sure what model it is but i think it's made for portable devices like walkman or mp3 player with mini stereo jack, it sounded ok to me so shouldn't be a problem as computer speakers. I'll also try to look around on egay and see if I can find a cheap venice instead of winchester, I never had any luck to overclock winny in the past

[nn_step]

Honestly for just collage use he wouldn't need more than 40Gb..
unless of course he uses it also for Pron then you might have to factor up to an extra 200Gb depending on how pathetic he is... [/joke]

[ben805]

Honestly for just collage use he wouldn't need more than 40Gb..
unless of course he uses it also for Pron then you might have to factor up to an extra 200Gb depending on how pathetic he is... [/joke]

I didn't rule out the possibility of pron that's why I left some headroom for him just incase he needed it, whatever stuff he wants to store.

[JamesAvery22]

If he didnt already have the DFI ultra-D mobo what would you guys recommend for a budget mobo? DFI nF4-DAGF?

[JamesAvery22]

I'm sorry to thread hijack but I think my question is pretty close to Ben's. If he didn't donate some of the parts I'm guessing that he'd be in the same pricerange as me.

I'm trying to keep it below $1k. Heres what I was thinking so far:
opteron 165 328
DFI nF4-DAGF 82
G.SKILL Value 2GB 145.25
X800GTO2 162
Hauppauge WINTV-PCR 69
2 x 7200.7 120gb
150
LG GSA-4167B 39.99
GDR-8163BB 20.99
AX450-PN 49.99
case CAC-T05-UW 44.99
HSF XP-120 40
1132.21


But thats without shipping =\

Was hoping to just get any suggestions to lower price or keep the price the same and get better parts to OC.

[nn_step]

Replace the 165 with a X2 3800+ manny
Don't even look at the DFI nF4-DAGF, MSI Neo4-F would be more your level
Do don't even think about overclocking with Value ram.. Get the G.Skill Hz.. JUST GET ONe stick right now..
The X800GTO2 should work fine
You don't need the Hauppauge WINTV-PCR But what ever floats your boat
You only need one drive right now
You don't need 2 DVD drives
Just a Generic Black Case..
Just don't forget to put a fan on the XP

[[XC] leviathan18]

change the x800gto2 that video card isnt sm3.0 buy at least a 6800gt

[JamesAvery22]

Replace the 165 with a X2 3800+ manny
Don't even look at the DFI nF4-DAGF, MSI Neo4-F would be more your level
Do don't even think about overclocking with Value ram.. Get the G.Skill Hz.. JUST GET ONe stick right now..
The X800GTO2 should work fine
You don't need the Hauppauge WINTV-PCR But what ever floats your boat
You only need one drive right now
You don't need 2 DVD drives
Just a Generic Black Case..
Just don't forget to put a fan on the XP

thanks for the 3800+, dunno why I just thought opteron, he wont notice the lesser L2.

I can find very few threads on either board. Theres a refurbished Neo4-F for <$60 so I'd take that But what are the major differences in terms of overclocking between the two boards?

You mean this stuff?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231021

I'm knocking the gto2 down to a gto. He might game a little so he'd be mad if it was horrible but would be happy with so-so performance. I was 50/50 on trying to unlock the GTO2

Need an analog TV-tuner, its a PVR box... Is there anything cheaper?

Need a dvd burner and a dvd-rom. Need to burn DVDs and need to rip other cds.

I think 2HDs would be priority. One for OS, another to put all the recorded shows on and temp space for encoding to DVDs. If one big drive won't make a difference I'd do it. Will it?

I'll probably get a used case off of ebay for cheaper. An old lian-li like I did with mine. Just threw that in for general pricing.

So heres what I have now:

x2 3800+ 297
MSI K8N Neo4-F 58.45
G.SKILL HZ 2GB 192
X800GTO 102
Hauppauge WINTV-PCR 69
2 x 7200.7 120gb 150
LG GSA-4167B 39.99
GDR-8163BB 20.99
AX450-PN 49.99
case CAC-T05-UW 44.99
HSF XP-120 40

1064.41

[nn_step]

You could go with an Epox board..
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813123264
it is $71.50.. it is a good Oc and it'll save you a little bit...
But if he doesn't Game Much I would just get a MSI 6100 board and drop the Graphics card all together
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130041
$60.99