Budget Gaming Rig

[dispair]

Well the time has come for me to move on from my 2 year old rig I built. It's been a great system, but I'm looking forward to getting my hands dirty again. That being said, I need your help.

Budget - $600

Parts Already owned - Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse, Speakers, Floppy(just in case?), BFG 8800 GT OC

Use-Light gaming and just your average daily use. Might consider using it for Media Center capabilities with my 360 for streaming to my tv. Would like to put a Tuner card on it, if it won't bump up the price too much.

OS - Vista Home Premium or XP Pro? Either one, should I go 64 bit?

To OC or not to OC - I would like to OC if I can find the time to sit and do it thoroughly. Until then, it will be stock.

When - Sooner than later, hate having a great GPU just sitting in a box. LoL

Case - Sonata III w/Earthwatts 500

CPU - Intel 21xx or Intel 4500, is the $70 dollar premium worth it? Ideally, even if I do OC, it will only be up to 3.0ghz as I hear that is the threshhold for most of these budget systems

Board - Abit IP35-E - I heard it is a decent board for normal use and to OC. That being said, better to spend 20 bucks more for the Gigabyte DS3R or something like that?

PSU - With Case

Optical - Basic black DVDRW

Cooling - Arctic Freezer Pro 7

HDD - 300gb is what I would like, WD, Samsung, and Seagate? I would like something quiet

Memory - 2GB or 4GB, I guess it depends on the OS/OC, but a link to the memory would be nice.

I think that is everything, I appreciate those who have helped me so far and I hope to have this wrapped up sometime this week. Thank you again.

 

[dispair]

TTT... anyone?

 

[DSF]

For a $600-700 budget, I think you could find a better value on a case than the Antec Nine Hundred. Are there any specific features you're looking for in a case? Particular design cues? Window a must, or optional? Good cooling, low noise, etc?

 

[MarcVenice]

Abit ip35-e, no firewire, you'll have to buy a seperate firewire PCI card if you want firewire, or be prepared to pay 150+ for a mobo with firewire. I think e4300 would be a decent CPU for you. You could buy 2gb of HP ram for 10-15$ AR, check the HOT DEALS forum. PSU, antec earthwatts 500w, maybe buy a antec sonata III which comes with a earthwatts 500w, it should cost 100-120$. So in the end you pay 50-60$ for the case. Optical, pick something in the color you want. HDD, pick a 250-320gb HD for 75-85$, 16mb SATA 3.0gb/s. WD/SEAGATE work. Cooling, arctic freezer 7 pro, easy to install, cheap, will allow a decent overclock. That's prolly a lot less then $600-700. Could buy 2gb of ddr2 800mhz crucial ballistix for 50$ AR. Could step up the CPU to a e4400 or even a e6550, which should suffice at stock speeds.

 

[dispair]

Case - Reasoning behind the 900 was because I had heard it was quiet and pushed a lot of air. Ideally I'm looking for something that is quiet, don't really care about the window or not, just care that it is low noise, good cooling, and semi astetic(sp?).

Thanks again for the help.

 

[Arkitech]

This sounds like the kind of rig I should be building, based on the parts above can anyone comment on what kind of games could be played on this system without any hiccups. I don't care much for playing bleeding edge games like Cyrsis, but I would like to play games like Supreme Commander and C&C3 at max settings. Also I don't mind playing games from the last year or two as I missed out on quite a few (NWN2, HL2, Oblivion, etc..). Can an 8800gt run all of the above games on maxed settings without isssue? Is there another cheaper card that I should look into?

Thanks for any advice

 

[Psymon]

@Arkitech

From what I know (which I wonder how much I know sometimes) the 8800GT can run Oblivion (a good example since its hungry for graphics power) if you are generous.

Of course, it won't run with max settings at 1920x1200 and maintain a constant 60FPS (will an 8800GTX even do that?) but it can run it decently.

 

[dispair]

TTT

 

[dispair]

Any more help please?

 

[MarcVenice]

what more help do you need ? You've got all the parts you need ?

 

[dispair]

Your right, I don't need anymore help. I do have all the parts. I guess I must have written extra explanations about the things I was curious about for no reason. I'm sure a honda has all the parts a bmw has that makes it go, does it make them the same care tho? No. I really appreciate your help though marc. Have a nice one.

 

[MarcVenice]

THen state you edited your OP ... I wouldn't spend extra money on the mobo, it's fine as it is and will overclock just fine. 2gb should be just fine too depending on your usage, but for 600$ another 2gb wouldn't be worth it. This is good ram: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820146565 but any ddr2 800mhz 4-4-4-12 ram will do. You won't have any trouble it, no matter how far you overclock. That leaves the CPU. Any money you can spend extra would be worth it imo. I reckon on a 600$ I would buy a e4400 and OC it to 2.5-3ghz. That will do just fine for quite some time. And no TV tuner suggestions, not really into those, all I know are that hauppage might be good but give trouble in vista 64x, and all in wonder from ati seem to be good too.