Building a budget rig for gaming, with room to upgrade soon

[LtPage1]

Sorry about how long this is. Help!

So. I'm looking to get back into gaming (I'm running a ~6 year old Athlon XP rig with a Geforce 5200), and I'd like to start out spending slowly. I don't need to run anything more taxing right now than WoW and Source games, like Left 4 Dead. I'll be reusing my 1280x1024 17" CRT for the time being, but my first upgrade will likely be to a 22" monitor, so I'd like this build to be able to run those games well at a 1680 resolution, with all the eye candy.
My thought was to go with an e5200 for the time being, overclock it eventually, and then move up to a ~3ghz quad-core when newer games come out that start to choke on the slower dual core. I anticipate this happening in a year or so. At this time (or maybe when I decide to overclock), I'll also upgrade my PSU.
Same strategy for the video card: GTS 250 now, and then step-up to something more powerful in 3 months.

Summary:
1. This PC will be used for gaming. Right now, all I need it to run is WoW, Left 4 Dead, and other aging games.

2. My budget is <$700 right now, but I'd really like to keep it under $600.

3. I live in California. I'll be cross-shopping internet prices with my local Fry's.

4. I heavily prefer Intel. For the video card, I think I'd rather go with EVGA, for the step-up; I anticipate looking to upgrade the GPU after 3 months.

5. I intend to reuse my mouse/keyboard/monitor(1280x1024 CRT)/Windows XP 32bit/IDE optical drive. I'd also like to keep using my 400W Antec Smartpower PSU. Almost all of these parts will be upgraded within the next 3-6 months.

6. I've been reading similar threads for a while, but haven't found any within my budget/intended use.

7. I am definitely interested in overclocking, but not right away. The rig needs to be able to run WoW, etc. perfectly without an overclock. I suspect that I'll want a better PSU when I do.

8. I plan to build this ASAP. Within the week, if possible.

Here's what I'm thinking now:
GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P LGA 775 Intel P45
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813128358
Intel Pentium E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16819116072
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820231122
Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16822136319
EVGA GeForce GTS 250 512MB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814130468

Questions:
1. Can a non-overclocked e5200 + a GTS 250 handle WoW/L4D with all the eye candy on at a 1680 resolution? How about at 1920?
2. Do I need to upgrade my PSU right away?
3. I know 775 is a dead platform, but I don't want to wait until the end of the year for the new socket. Will processors like the q9650 still be around in a year or so? And will they be cheap? If the answer to either of these is no, then maybe I should be going for an e8400. Or would it be better to get a crazy cheap motherboard as well, and then upgrade everything in 6 months?
4. Is that RAM good enough for a solid overclock?
5. Would it be worth the extra $50 to go for the e7400? Or at that point, should I just go for the e8400?

 

[Slugbait]

1) It will come close enough.
2) Yes. The video card requires 2x6 pin. Your PSU doesn't even have 1x6 pin, much less enough power to drive the system.
3) Unknown. Maybe. Absolutely not.
4) Performance RAM: OCZ Platinum, $31 AR (plus s/h). However, it requires higher voltage than the G.Skill.
5) No. Yes. But I think your gut choice on the e5200 is right on for your cost today and plan for tomorrow.

 

[heyheybooboo]

New components + 3 year old PSU = Not best of ideas

If you stick with a single nVidia card - no reason for CrossFire motherboard - single PCIe x16 (p43) saves bucks.

For $10 more you may purchase a PhII 720BE/790gx combo.

 

[Insomniator]

Yes for L4D, I did this on a x2 5000+ and it was fine... overclocking that 5200 will help a lot with WoW though... I have my new 5200 at 3.5 no problems. No idea how it runs at stock but I don't plan on ever trying.

Your PSU will be fine... 3 years old or not. People flip out about them around here like they are little nuclear bombs.

S775 is dead and while the Q9xxx's are and will be a great chips for a while, I really don't see them getting cheaper in the next year or so... if anything prices will go up as demand increases for them.

Probably but that RAM seems expensive. I paid that much for the DDR2 1000 version of that ram a while ago (probably the same stuff but still)

No and no...

 

[theAnimal]

The Smartpower PSUs were built using bad capacitors, you would be better off replacing it. Corsair CX400 would be a good choice.

 

[brianlee2007]

unless you have a x58 mobo, if you want future upgrade try to get video cards that are from the same manufacturer as the chipset on the board (e.g. Nvidia chipset / Nvidia cards; AMD chipset / ATi cards). wouldn't want you to find out yourself later that AMD boards dont do SLi or other way around w/ Nvidia's now

here is the thing, this P45 board is great, and the fact that we can already see the end of its line (LGA775) the highest it'll go for the norm would be a Q9650 so if you want a future proof build on P45 chipset w/ the least necessary upgrade, i would strongly suggest getting something close to the Q9650 (possibly a Q9550) and also a higher W PSU just so later if you ever want to add another video card for Crossfire you wouldn't have to worry about not having enough power, (anything above 600W from Corsair or PC P&C should work). I have an O.C. Q9550 (@3.8ghz) w/ 1x 4850 running in a RAID 0 it runs close/little over 300W during L4D i can only imagine that it would get close to 475W or more in a Crossfire so give it another 100W or so for buffer (sounds reasonable?) for the 600W. personally Corsair 620HX should be awesome, but costly. Corsair 650W should be ideal at its price.

GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P LGA 775: good choice, great mobo, im using the same, works perfectly ($115 after MIR = MIR DOES work on this one, but it took over 5 months to get to me lulz)
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2: obvious pick for the price/performance ($48)
Corsair 650TX 650W: this should handle any future upgrades you would have ($70 after MIR = MIR works on this one as well - I have the 520HX and 1000HX both had MIR)
Q9550: cost more than C2D for the obvious reason of having more cores and cache, but the fact that C2Q is as far as it goes for P45 boards why go through a additional C2D upgrade? ($270 this one you should look around, I really dont think 'egg has the best price on it, got mine for $221 half year ago on 'bay )

so far that went just over $500 ($503 TBE) considering your preferable budget (<$600) I would suggest you to use the last $100 on a new card (4850 with MIR or 4770 latest ati card, first 40nm of its kind) and just BYOD&C bring your own drive and case for now

Video cards and hard drives are things you could replace much easier than your Mobo/CPU/PSU so for now if budget gets real tight make sacrifices on these because there will always be a better cheaper GPU and HDD

just be sure to think from bottom up: make sure the base components you select will be staying up for GOOD


gl

b

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

Originally posted by: Slugbait
1) It will come close enough.
2) Yes. The video card requires 2x6 pin. Your PSU doesn't even have 1x6 pin, much less enough power to drive the system.
3) Unknown. Maybe. Absolutely not.
4) Performance RAM: OCZ Platinum, $31 AR (plus s/h). However, it requires higher voltage than the G.Skill.
5) No. Yes. But I think your gut choice on the e5200 is right on for your cost today and plan for tomorrow.

GTS250 only requires 1 6 pin pcie connector.

you will be able to handle those games with eye candy decently.

your psu is good enough. power requirements are overrated.

cpu's will be around for a few years, and always in the used market. i wouldn't worry about that.


ram is plenty fine for o/c. e5200 only runs on 200 mhz bus, so you have plenty of headroom, unless you want to drop the multiplier and bump it over 400 mhz.

e7400 gives you 1MB more cache and 266 mhz bus.
e8400 gives you 4MB more cache and 333 mhz bus.
if you're going to eventually update to a c2q, save the money now and upgrade later.