Budget build for DayZ (ArmaII)

[hoorah]

Hey guys,

Haven't been keeping up on the desktop side for awhile. Last gaming machine I had was an athlon II 250 with an ATI 4850. Took the 4850 out and made it our media center PC since I wasn't playing games anymore. Got by with my laptop until now.

The laptop has done a good job but its falling short in two areas. 1 - I'm considering picking up the DayZ mod for ARMA2, and 2 - I'm just starting to get into editing videos. So, thinking about a desktop.

The 'build' will be more or less CPU+Mobo+Memory+maybe video. I have plenty of cases, power supplies, and hard drives to play with.

I'm thinking of going one of two ways:

1 - new mobo + CPU + mem, throwing in my ATI 4850 and seeing how it runs.
2 - New mini PC (maybe an AMD E-450) for my HTPC and taking my athlon II system back.

Lets say I do the former.

What combo is the sweet spot pricewise right now?

1. What YOUR PC will be used for.

ARMA2 with DayZ primarily. Secondary is video editing (but very little. My laptop is fine for this now so any improvement is good enough). I have no idea what the graphical requirements of this game 'really' are to enjoy it online. Usually, I just lower the details and am happy with a game but I've never played one like this before with such big worlds.

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread

I like buying in the sweet spot of price/performance. I typically buy CPU/Mobo combo sales from newegg for around $150-200, usually waiting for a daily deal. Memory obviously extra - say $50? So 250 total max.

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.
USA, Newegg

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc.
Nope.

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.
I will probably dig up a 1TB caviar black from one of my other media centers to use as a drive (it barely uses anything).
My current monitor is 22" 1680x1050, don't see that changing soon.
Have an ATI 4850. Plan is to use that, see how well it does with a new CPU/Mobo, and go from there.
Case and power supply is a separate issue. I have a solid antec 430W unit and a good tower but may play musical cases with my HTPC builds.

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
I'm not going to tinker with it. If I can run a near-guaranteed stable overclock using stock cooling like some of those core2 builds, sure. Otherwise, probably not.

8. What resolution will you be using?
1680x1050 for now.

9. WHEN do you plan to build it?
Probably towards the end of the month (just have some other projects I need to finish first)

X. Do you need to purchase any software to go with the system, such as Windows or Blu Ray playback software?
Nope.

 

[Ken g6]

You don't happen to live near a Micro Center, do you? They have the best CPU/mobo bundles.

Otherwise, the best CPU in your price range is probably the i3-2120 in a bundle like this. The next step up would be a low-end i5, but I doubt you'll find a bundle with a mobo for less than $200. Add any DDR3-1600 (or 1333) 1.5V CL9 RAM.

 

[hoorah]

Thats odd... I check out newegg all the time at work no problems. When I clicked on the link you sent me, I got a blocked page from our company firewall in the category "spyware/exploit".

Wonder whats up with that?

Anyway, I guess I can't see your combos but I appreciate the effort and will check them out when I get home. I don't live near a microcenter, unfortunately. I do live near a CompUSA, which is tigerdirect now. At one point, they had some nice second-run hardware at great prices, but the last few times I looked at their sale ad I said "meh" and stopped looking. I pretty much just use newegg now.

I kinda figured the DDR3 was mostly the same, thanks for confirming.

Would the i5 be worth the price increase over the i3? I don't mind going outside my original budget but this is just for one game and a little video editing so its tough to justify the expense for so little use.

I've got a beast of a work computer/laptop with an I7 so I could probably do my video editing there as well.

 

[mfenn]

Thats odd... I check out newegg all the time at work no problems. When I clicked on the link you sent me, I got a blocked page from our company firewall in the category "spyware/exploit".

Wonder whats up with that?

Probably Anantech's stupid affiliate redirector that they mangle all Newegg links with.

Would the i5 be worth the price increase over the i3? I don't mind going outside my original budget but this is just for one game and a little video editing so its tough to justify the expense for so little use.

Arma II is a pretty intensive game (mostly due to terrible coding), so I would get as much CPU and GPU as you can if you want to have a good experience.

The i5 would give you a substantial performance boost, but I don't know if it would be "worth it" unless you also upgraded the GPU.

 

[hoorah]

Probably Anantech's stupid affiliate redirector that they mangle all Newegg links with.



Arma II is a pretty intensive game (mostly due to terrible coding), so I would get as much CPU and GPU as you can if you want to have a good experience.

The i5 would give you a substantial performance boost, but I don't know if it would be "worth it" unless you also upgraded the GPU.

Gotcha, thanks.

If Arma II is a high end game, I can spring for the I5. I honestly didn't know much about it. If I was interested in a mod built off of the source engine, I would say an I5 would probably be unnecessary. I just didn't know what I was getting into with A2.

Its hard to say if I'm going to upgrade the GPU down the road. 2 years ago I would have said definitely, but now.... I just don't play that many games. Until now, I've been happy with a source mod here and there and sometimes I jump on L4D with some friends, but I can even do that on my laptop (hence the reason I repurposed my desktop). If, after DayZ, nothing really interests me then I probably wont get a new GPU, but thats okay. The PC will still suit the rest of my mediocre needs just fine.

All this would be unnecessary if I just put the game on my work laptop, but alas, professionalism and whatnot.

Thanks for the help guys.

 

[hoorah]

You don't happen to live near a Micro Center, do you? They have the best CPU/mobo bundles.

Otherwise, the best CPU in your price range is probably the i3-2120 in a bundle like this. The next step up would be a low-end i5, but I doubt you'll find a bundle with a mobo for less than $200. Add any DDR3-1600 (or 1333) 1.5V CL9 RAM.

Okay, I got a chance to check out the links last night. I like the I3-2120 bundle, thats the kind of thing I'm looking for, except that the motherboard didn't have the greatest reviews. More DOAs than I'm comfortable with. But I'm sure I can find something similar.

The I5 also looks pretty good, but I think I'd rather save the $50 for no other reason than just not having a need for it.

Just out of curiosity, what would the equivalent chip to the i3 be on the AMD side? If I understand correctly, intels on top of the market right now performance wise so thats probably what I will go with unless newegg has some killer daily deal on an AMD setup.

Can you tell I like deals yet? 🙂

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Okay, I got a chance to check out the links last night. I like the I3-2120 bundle, thats the kind of thing I'm looking for, except that the motherboard didn't have the greatest reviews. More DOAs than I'm comfortable with. But I'm sure I can find something similar.

The I5 also looks pretty good, but I think I'd rather save the $50 for no other reason than just not having a need for it.

Just out of curiosity, what would the equivalent chip to the i3 be on the AMD side? If I understand correctly, intels on top of the market right now performance wise so thats probably what I will go with unless newegg has some killer daily deal on an AMD setup.

Can you tell I like deals yet? 🙂

Reviews don't mean anything unless done professionally. The people that review products are when it arrives doa.

I3 amd version doesn't exist. AMD is failing right now with their cpus. New egg never has killer deals on cpus.

 

[mfenn]

Just out of curiosity, what would the equivalent chip to the i3 be on the AMD side?

There really isn't one. AMD just doesn't make a fast enough dual-core to be in the same class as the i3. In most cases, a high-clocked Phenom II X4 will somewhat keep up, but that's at the cost of a lot more power consumption (read: heat and noise).