Help building a gamer

[buckmasterson]

The guy next door has a pentium 2.4 gig with 1 gig of duel channel ram, and a 512 meg video card (I think it's PCI AGP). Anyway, he's running FSX and is having a tough time as it's slow. Can anyone suggest an upgrade (Motherboard, processor, video card, power supply, ram) that will run this game smoothly? He doesn't want to go over $1,500.00.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

P35 chipset mobo $150
E6850 or Q6600 cpu $300
8800GTS 640mb gpu $350
2gb Crucial DDR2-800 ram $100
Corsair 520hx power supply $110

A little over $1000 and it will play any game you want

 

[LightningRider]

For a $1500 build, something like this... I only estimated the prices though:

-Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 ~$300
-4GB DDR2 RAM PC6400 800Mhz (1GB x4) ~$190 (look for deals, always)
-Gigabyte P35-DS3R Motherboard ~$150
-EVGA 8800GTS 320MB (Get the 640MB if he runs games on a huge monitor or wants extra "future proofing") ~$270 or ~$370 is lowest I have seen each on special(look for deals, they are out there) He could also get the 8800GTX 768MB but unless he plays games a lot would probably be an overkill. Runs for about ~$500 I believe
-Corsair CMPSU-620HX 620W PSU w/ 120mm Fan ~$125
-Western Digital 500GB SATA II 16MB cache 7200RPM ~$100 (again look for deals and you can get this at this price)
-Windows Vista Home Premium x64 (get the 32 bit version if he needs any other apps that do not run on Vista 64 or just stick with XP if there are any programs that he needs that do not run on Vista period. But otherwise I think Vista is great.) ~$115
-LG or Samsung SATA DVD-RW ~$30 (Maybe get 2 of these if you want, make sure you get a SATA drive if you buy new optical drives)

Comes to about ~$1280 (with the 8800GTS 320MB) before taxes and shipping and that includes everything for a new system except a case. He can also get an X1950 Pro (~$160) if he wants to spend less on the video card though that will effect the performance of FSX the most obviously. He could also go with the more expensive video card models if he wants to fill up the $1500 budget more.

If he sticks with XP 32bit after all, then you might as well just get 2GB or 3GB of RAM max since you won't be able to really use more than 3GB with a 32bit OS. You can add more RAM later as well when you need it or when/if you decide to upgrade to Vista 64 later on.

You might want to invest in an aftermarket cooler for the Q6600 as they can run a little hot though it isn't a necessity if you aren't OC'ing and it doesn't sound like he will be.

This system will run FSX and any other game to come for a good while. It should be extremely fast for any other tasks he throws at it as well. It might be a little overkill for just FSX but it seems like he doesn't upgrade often and this will ensure him a speedy system for a good while. It should come to about $1500 after taxes and shipping, also depending on which case you get and which video card and if you get Vista 64 or stick with your current OS.

 

[buckmasterson]

Thanks for the info! I just opened his case and it's an ECS board with a Pentium 4 - 2.4 gig processor and 1 gig of DDR ram. That ain't gonna give him what he wants. I think I check to see what Newegg will do on the stuff you listed.

 

[JustaGeek]

Check this out - it should help you evaluate the Video Card choices (however slim in that chart)

http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_fsx_techtips.html