$400 SLI Gaming Rig

[razor2025]

Well, I've ordered some parts over this week with bunch of Hot Deals going around.

Athlon X2 BE-2400 - $25
AC Freezer 64 - $25
Abit KN9-SLI - ~$55
Crucial DDR-800 2GB - $25
2x EVGA 9600GSO - $100
PC&P 610 watt - $70
SATA Burner - $25
Antec P182 - $80

Using friend's old HDD's

Total : $405

What do you guys think? I'll be OCing the Athlon to 3ghz. I think it's a pretty good setup for a super-budget gaming rig. OCed and SLIed 9600GSO are rumored to be around GTX260 performance.

 

[Roguestar]

Sounds like a pipe-dream. Good luck with the CPU bottleneck on your mid-range SLI setup (assuming of course that it scales well in your games).

 

[razor2025]

Originally posted by: Roguestar
Sounds like a pipe-dream. Good luck with the CPU bottleneck on your mid-range SLI setup (assuming of course that it scales well in your games).

I'm expecting the CPU bottleneck, but that's the trade off for a cheap SLI setup.

 

[angry hampster]

What resolution will you be gaming at? Those GSOs will fall on their face above 1440x900 due to lack of vRAM, especially if you turn on AA. I would've spent less on the case and bought a 4850 instead of a pair of weaker cards.

 

[MarcVenice]

3.0ghz X2 AMD being a severe bottleneck? Don't think so ... Let us know how it performs. And like angry said, those 9600gso's will probably tank above a certain resolution, but I think it will be 1680*1050 or higher. The 8800gts 320mb seems to do pretty good at that resolution, so don't really see why the 9600gso wouldn't.

 

[razor2025]

Originally posted by: angry hampster
What resolution will you be gaming at? Those GSOs will fall on their face above 1440x900 due to lack of vRAM, especially if you turn on AA. I would've spent less on the case and bought a 4850 instead of a pair of weaker cards.

cheapest 4850 is $150. A pair of 9600GSO is $100. I'm sure 9600GSO SLI and OCed won't perform below 75% of 4850. Plus, 4850 have heat issues. According to this review:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/...review-point-of-view/8

9600GSO performs equally or ~5% of 9600GT (what I currently have) @ 1920x1200 on games that I care about, namely CoD4 and Crysis.

SLI for GSO and GT scales around 60% on average. 4850 is about 20% faster than 9600GT. So, I think performance wise, it's not bad at all. Of course, I have no #'s on Oblivion, and I'm thinking of playing Fallout 3 on this rig.

A good computer case holds residual value. Plenty of 3-4 year old case (P180 is 3 year old) design are hold up well. You can't say the same with CPU or GPUs.

I'll post an update once I get the goods in and get the machine built. Pretty sure this feat will be difficult to pull anytime soon. It just seems like a perfect storm brewed up for this insanity (and cheapness).