Does this qualify as a "gaming rig"?

[poofyhairguy]

Edit: Unless you were suggesting to get a refurb pre-built with an i5-2400/2500/3470 CPU, add 4GB of RAM, and add a GTX1050ti low-profile card. Which might have been a better value for him.

I have done this for a couple of friends. It is the way to go. Refurb Lenovos work in regular atx cases. 2400s/2500s refurbs are cheap.

With a deal price AMD 470 they can be good gaming machines.

 

[Denithor]

VL, I prefer Dell machines because I have W7/8/8.1 install disks so no licensing issues (Windows installs, automatically activated).

Then look on eBay for "Dell i5" and just start reviewing. As of this morning, I found these items in a quick search. All of these in mini tower cases so should hold full height GPU fine.

Ivy Quad, only 2GB RAM, $130
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optipl...496135?hash=item1ebdfd0b07:g:JP0AAOSwEzxYVBV7

Sandy Quad, 4GB, Windows install disk included, $139
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optipl...270551?hash=item33bbcf8157:g:JpMAAOSwIgNXkRZk

Sandy Quad, 4GB, Win7 installed, ~$140
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optipl...096624?hash=item3f7291c9b0:g:F4YAAOSw44BYN0d4

If you paid $250 for a quad/4GB/250GB, you got robbed.

EDIT: And I specifically said 1050/Ti, meaning either a 1050 or a 1050 Ti for $100-130. 1050 right now floating around $110 and Ti for about $135, not $160. So with a Ti and SSD and extra RAM you'd be looking around $340 for a machine that would handle 1080p gaming just fine.

 

[Face2Face]

There are plenty of popular games that will play great on that PC.

Garry's Mod, Path of Exile, Paladins, Overwatch, Terraria, Minecraft, CS: GO, RUST, GTA IV, and the list goes on...

I do think TW3 and GTA V are pushing it, but both should be playable at 720p on the lowest settings.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I had a gaming rig with similar performance... in 2008.

But yeah, anything can be a "gaming rig" if you play games on it.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Oh, I should probably ask - how much did you charge him for that rig?

 

[RaistlinZ]

I'm not certain that qualified as a gaming rig back when those parts were new.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Oh, I should probably ask - how much did you charge him for that rig?

Me? I charged my friend nothing. My friend? He charged his buddy $160, and added a monitor, and his buddy gave him $200. Seeing as how Windows 10 legit is at least $80-90, and a GT740 card still goes for $90+ new on ebay, I don't think he got the worst deal in the world, even though to AT members it may seem like the worst gaming rig in the world.

Edit: I will say, I'm excited about the performance in games of the new KBL Pentium G4560, coupled with a cheap GTX1050ti. Should make a nice extremely-budget gamer combo. (Even more curious how it stacks up to a refurb i5-2500 rig with an added GTX1050ti.)

http://ark.intel.com/products/97143/Intel-Pentium-Processor-G4560-3M-Cache-3_50-GHz

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

LOL. Now you know "how the other half lives".

The other half doesn't live this way, Larry. The other half saves their money and buys appropriate stuff at an appropriate time, instead of investing thousands of dollars in dozens of garbage systems that are EOL at the purchase date. That system isn't a gaming rig. It will technically launch the executable for a few, semi-recent games, and it will run stuff that came out around that time (probably poorly), but it's not a gaming rig.

That $200 probably could have bought a superior tablet, or something, and the original cost that was dropped on that system 2-3 years ago could have been pooled with 2-3 other purchases and had a system that would actually be relevant now. My GF's computer is a x5650 (ironically, a purchase done recently for $35) dropped in a good mobo from the gen1 i7 days, with 12GB of ram (6 of which was also purchased recently on the cheap), with a 970gtx handmedown from my system in it. It's got a base of a system from about 6 years ago that was bought for probably $1200 (originally i7, with a 275gtx?), and it's seen 24/7 use since. It's a BTC miner, a very capable gaming rig, albeit slower than mine, and it double-duties as a general purpose server for our home, and probably will for another 4-5 years, depending on if Intel can drop something worth me migrating my 6700k for.

Double your investment on computers will give you 4x the lifespan, until you hit around $2k for total system cost.