Budget Gaming PC

Smaccoms

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My thoughts on the red items...

1.) The AMD's are cheap for a reason. Remember that, because for a bit more you can get an Intel with performance that will blow the P2X4 out of the water. A big area where they are lacking is in memory performance. Intel slaughters them there... and as memory is cheap, memory performance is a big-deal.

I've looked at a couple reviews and benchmarks, and when O.C. it looked to perform just as well as intel equivalents, or better. I'm not going to O.C. at first, but my system will be able to once I upgrade the heatsink fan.

Also, I changed a couple of my choices on that ariginal list. Going to get the Gigabyte 990FXA UD3 instead of the 970A UD3.


2.) The Radeon 6850 is ok. It's a good card for a good price, and AMD makes a really nice video card. What they don't make, however, are decently acceptable drivers. My CrossFire 5850's make me want to gouge my corneas out with fingernail clippers then set fire to them. Literally. OpenGL games are also a BIG issue. Rage wasn't even playable when it came out... took AMD like 6 driver revisions to get OpenGL in a functional enough state to work properly with Rage. Had the same issues with BulletStorm. Suffice it to say, I went NVIDIA not too long ago. The hardware is more expensive up-front, but my God it's so much better/consistent.

I think I'm going to get the Zotac GeForce GTX 560 Fermi instead of the one above. It has 2 Gigs of ram on board and has jsut as good or better specs otherwise. It runs hot, but I'm going to get the Sentey Arvina Red edition for a computer case, which has excellent cooling, including right over the video card.

3.) I have that exact monitor x3. I have nothing but praise for it. A plethora of inputs, CCFL backlit so colors are right, almost perfect 6500k white values, decent brightness and it's handled everything I've hooked to it (including a PS3) with no DRM issues at all. Matter of fact, outside of my Apple displays, it's my absolute favorite.



You're probably just having logic board failure... common Apple problem with older MacBooks.

Yea, I'm not upgrading my laptop anymore. Like I said, it doesn't suit my needs, so there's no point in putting any more money into it. I was thinking of buying that monitor used on Amazon for $110 instead of the full $160. It looks great. Thanks for the information, it's good to know it's as good as it looks!

I have posts on the first page saying what I'm going to get instead of what's on that original list, but I think I said everything here so.
 

Smaccoms

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My fave toon in D3 is Demon hunter. :) Mage/Wizard is good too :)

I highly recommend DC Online universe...it's free to play and download. **Hint..pay for 1 month legendary and it opens up ALL download packs....Then go back to free. Each download pack is 10$ if you buy separate and there are 3...so you'd pay 14.99 instead of 30$ :) They do a GREAT job of staying with all the DC stories....*if you're into superhero stuffs* :)

In D2 LOD, my favs were always the barb and druid, but I think I may have finally out-played them. The Demon-hunter does look pretty awesome, but I think I may try out the monk when I play this game for the first time!
 

balsary

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Regardless... for a gaming system, you'd never want a mac. They are great for music, drafting and such...but for gaming, PC all the way. :) Check Costco or Sam's Club for your monitor. I have a 27" Samsung LED 1080p flat screen monitor I got a Costco for just over 200$. Gaming on a big screen...mmmmmmmm *I play ps3 on a 55"* HEAVEN!

lol

I play Xbox on a 100" projector. It definitely makes games easier when they are life size. I'll add that it's really nice when playing any type of 2 player, split screen racing game as well, as each player has a full size screen to watch.
 
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LuciferChild

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SIm CIty 5? HOLY SHIT, I've got to look that up RIGHT NOW!!!

Why do you like civ 4 better? The civ 5 expansion, Gods and Kings, adds religion back in, but with a much better set up. Much more flexible, and influences the game I think in a much better way.

Populous the Beginning 3 came out in 1998...

because civ 4 have all the civs while the 5 doesnt...

oh I knew it as Populous the beginning, sorry didnt remember it was 3, I played that a lot too, I remember the demo from Simcity 3000, my first game on my first pc, second was final fantasy VIII the game which I really lived into, loved the feeling of being part of such a long story game....

I also love Vampire Masquerade Bloodline, Silent Hill, Dark Messiah, Tomb Raider 3, 4, Angel of Darkness and Legend; The Witcher, Neverwinter nights 1 and 2, Elder Scrolls Morrowind....

Now I need to get a job to update my computer because I want to play recent good games :(
 
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Smaccoms

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Just placed my order on newegg for $940! WWWWWAAAAAAA!!!

I like the Witcher and Neverwinter Nights. The others I haven't heard of. They are adding more civilizations into Civ 5 with the expansion. Perhaps they just wanted more time to perfect the graphics of them. The Expansion looks totally legit.
 

LuciferChild

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Just placed my order on newegg for $940! WWWWWAAAAAAA!!!

:eek:

I wish to find more guys who love video games like you near me, I love to share games and stuff....

Did you played Thief Deadly Shadows? I loved that game a lot too, shame they dont do more... I also had played Prince of Persia, the last two....

arghh I want to play those games a lot......but the laptop i have now sucks....and i dont have money to buy a proper good one arghhhhh
 

Dorian_Gray

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Exactly what I was saying.

The system stated in that thread at Tom's Hardware (i5-2400 Quad-core, AMD 6950 [ಠ_ಠ no], Blu-Ray, 8GB of DDR3, etc.

That configuration will fare much better than the AMD system you had listed above, aside from the GPU which you yourself changed to NVIDIA. Plus, O/C'ing that AMD CPU will eat your PSU alive, possibly kill it. Trust me. The GPU you picked + that CPU will easily over-do 530W. Heck, my old Phenom II 9750 with a SINGLE AMD 4850 has killed 2 PSU's so far.

Now, I'm certainly not trying to be mean or condescending, so please don't take it that way... but there's much better, more efficient hardware for $940. Especially now that Ivy Bridge has been announced. That means certain Sandy Bridge parts will be EOL.
 

B_Marius567

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my Ivy Bridge computer can record 2 HDTV channels and 4 HD cable channels all at the same time. play 3D blu rays with 7.1 lossless audio.

I still need a video card.
 
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Smaccoms

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That price included the monitor, keyboard, and mouse, none of which I have right now. Take that off, and the price comes down to about $800. PLus, I wasn't planning on O/C'ing this thing right away. I do not believe that the build I am buying is crap just because it's AMD based.
 

Dorian_Gray

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That price included the monitor, keyboard, and mouse, none of which I have right now. Take that off, and the price comes down to about $800. PLus, I wasn't planning on O/C'ing this thing right away. I do not believe that the build I am buying is crap just because it's AMD based.

Ok, that seems a bit better if you're factoring in literally everything.

Also, I'm not saying AMD is crap, or the PC you've configured is crap... just that performance:watt on AMD's Deneb core is terrible. A 140W CPU that doesn't outperform Intel's 1st generation Core i7's, much less Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge.

All in all (and I guess I'm just a nitpicker :redface:) I would have gone with the Zambezi Hexacore FX6100 over the Phenom II. Same price... $140. Two more cores with a slightly improved architecture on a smaller process.
 

Smaccoms

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The Watt usage listed for the PII 965 is 125W, not 140, and the price for it is $120, not $140. The Watt usage for the one you listed is 95 though, so that's legitimate. SInce it was $20 more, and considering the fact that I didn't need the two extra cores as a gamer (games right now use up to 3 cores effectively), it made sense to me to go for the P2 965.

Also, when I did the math out, I spent $780 on the case and everything that would go inside of it.

The full number was everything, one full order. That is where it come from. If I spent that much on only the things in the case, it certianly would be much nicer! If only money grew on trees...:tongue: I would like to over clock this thing eventually when what I want to use it for requires it, but I do not believe the games I want will ask for it. I could be wrong though. I also thought of entering O/C'ing as an upgrade. I'm using the CPU heatsink fan for now, and I'm nto sure how much power I will be using. Just looked up a youtube video of a guy running my amount of ram, the exact card I got, and a lower end CPU of the same series (820). He was getting 40-60 fps on GTA4, so that's pretty good. I'm not too worried about the configuration really!

Thanks so much for your concern though. I really want to look through everything so I KNOW what I'm doing. This is my very first build, so I'm pretty excited!
 

Dorian_Gray

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The Watt usage listed for the PII 965 is 125W, not 140, and the price for it is $120, not $140. The Watt usage for the one you listed is 95 though, so that's legitimate. SInce it was $20 more, and considering the fact that I didn't need the two extra cores as a gamer (games right now use up to 3 cores effectively), it made sense to me to go for the P2 965.

Also, when I did the math out, I spent $780 on the case and everything that would go inside of it.

The full number was everything, one full order. That is where it come from. If I spent that much on only the things in the case, it certianly would be much nicer! If only money grew on trees...:tongue: I would like to over clock this thing eventually when what I want to use it for requires it, but I do not believe the games I want will ask for it. I could be wrong though. I also thought of entering O/C'ing as an upgrade. I'm using the CPU heatsink fan for now, and I'm nto sure how much power I will be using. Just looked up a youtube video of a guy running my amount of ram, the exact card I got, and a lower end CPU of the same series (820). He was getting 40-60 fps on GTA4, so that's pretty good. I'm not too worried about the configuration really!

Thanks so much for your concern though. I really want to look through everything so I KNOW what I'm doing. This is my very first build, so I'm pretty excited!

Ahh... ok. I wasn't aware that AMD had another stepping of Deneb. Seems I got the short stick. LMAO. Mine is the 140W C2 stepping. Yours is the 125W C3 stepping. Nice! And I'm not sure why I read that as $140. :confused:

Coming from that MacBook, I think this system you've configured will blow you away. The X4 965 BE will SMOKE your MacBook... at literally everything.

NP! :) I've been around the AMD block so many times... if you need help with anything let me know!
 

Smaccoms

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I still can't imagine what this system will be like. I've been with this thing since 2007, and before that my father only ever bought pre-made models. I suppose that means I never have played on a proper gaming system. This is going to QUITE the experience! *giggles incessantly*.

That's very kind of you! I will keep it in mind, especially when the parts arrive. I went out to buy a 16 GB USB drive (that last one I owned was 2GB, holy crud!) and a wireless adaptor. I noticed after buying the thing that the wireless adaptor supports wireless-G and wireless-N networks. What does that mean? How do I know if it will support mine or not?

It was a little annoying because I can only use wireless in this apartment. I'm moving into a new place by September though, where I totally plan on just going ethernet for the speed and ease of use. I want a studio apartment so. Anyways...