building a low budget gaming pc for nephew

[donjonson]

budget is 500 or less including monitor
I want most bang for buck (goes without saying I guess ) he wants to play things like crysis and the new batman etc..

I see CyberpowerPC Gamer Ultra 2019 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883229129 from newegg for 399 shipped.

Will this be sufficient for his gaming needs? I am not familiar with that gfx card.
Is there a better option in a complete custom build or perhaps starting from a barebones or even a prebuilt from somewhare?

Thanks for your help!

 

[Syran]

The card in that machine won't handle those games at all. If you want to be able to play them, you are probably looking at a $100-150 video card alone. ATI 4850/4870, 9800 GTX+/GTX 250/260.

Hard part will be getting a really nice machine w/ a good gaming video card & windows OS & Monitor, and keep it under that budget.

I can build something really nice for $500 w/o OS or Monitor:

Sony DVD Burner - $25.99
WD 500GB Blue - $55.99
Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H + Athlon II X2 240 Combo - $102.99
Wintec 4GB DDR2 (2x2GB) + Sapphire HD5750 + Wintec TV/Radio Adapter + 4GB USB Drive (Free) - $200.98 (with the combo deal, same price as the memory + a GTX 250, and the tv/radio adapter & USB drive are free)
OCZ Fatality 550W PSU + Cooler Master 690 Case $114.98 - $25MIR

Total (no tax, shipping, or rebates): $500.93

This is a pretty nice machine, but does not include an OS or Monitor. You may be better off getting a cheap dell w/ a monitor, but a lot of the time, you will end up buying a new psu to cover whatever video card you install, as their psu's are normally designed to handle 2 cd/dvd drives and 2 hard drives, and that's about it, unless it came with a higher end PCIe video card.

 

[bobross419]

I can build something really nice for $500 w/o OS or Monitor:

Sony DVD Burner - $25.99
WD 500GB Blue - $55.99
Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H + Athlon II X2 240 Combo - $102.99
Wintec 4GB DDR2 (2x2GB) + Sapphire HD5750 + Wintec TV/Radio Adapter + 4GB USB Drive (Free) - $200.98 (with the combo deal, same price as the memory + a GTX 250, and the tv/radio adapter & USB drive are free)
OCZ Fatality 550W PSU + Cooler Master 690 Case $114.98 - $25MIR

Total (no tax, shipping, or rebates): $500.93

This is a pretty nice machine, but does not include an OS or Monitor.

Replace the Cooler Master 690 with this thing - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811147010 for $29.99

It isn't the greatest case on the planet, but for most people (non-techies that won't be ripping into it every month) it is just fine. I've built a machine or two with this case and it does pretty well.

Replace the RAM+GPU combo up there with items from the FS/FT section... look for 4850s ($85 lowest I remember) and 4870s ($120 lowest I've seen) and you can generally find someone selling some more generic RAM for pretty decent prices. 4850 might be a little on the low side but should still allow him to run iirc.

Between these 2 suggestions you should be able to shave off enough to get either a monitor or an OS and still be able to give him a decent gaming experience.

The mobo+cpu combo Syran posted is pretty shit hot for what you are looking for. Its just a matter of juggling the rest of the stuff around to get it in the right price range.

 

[BD231]

I just built this setup a few months back when the 4850s were eighty bucks. You can't go wrong with this combo for gaming.

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo46/Net_Worth/pc.jpg

I went with 4 gigs of ddr3 and I'm running at 3.7ghz.

 

[Syran]

Replace the Cooler Master 690 with this thing - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811147010 for $29.99

It isn't the greatest case on the planet, but for most people (non-techies that won't be ripping into it every month) it is just fine. I've built a machine or two with this case and it does pretty well.

Replace the RAM+GPU combo up there with items from the FS/FT section... look for 4850s ($85 lowest I remember) and 4870s ($120 lowest I've seen) and you can generally find someone selling some more generic RAM for pretty decent prices. 4850 might be a little on the low side but should still allow him to run iirc.

Between these 2 suggestions you should be able to shave off enough to get either a monitor or an OS and still be able to give him a decent gaming experience.

The mobo+cpu combo Syran posted is pretty shit hot for what you are looking for. Its just a matter of juggling the rest of the stuff around to get it in the right price range.

You'll definitely save money by going with stuff off the FS/T forums; but I always quote my prices based on buying new. If you can find a cheap 4850/4870/GTX 250/GTX 260 there, go for it! It'll be your best way to come in under budget.

I just built this setup a few months back when the 4850s were eighty bucks. You can't go wrong with this combo for gaming.

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo46/Net_Worth/pc.jpg

I went with 4 gigs of ddr3 and I'm running at 3.7ghz.

That's $406 and you haven't included psu, case, hdd, dvd, etc. On top of that, memory is more expensive when purchased new at the moment.

 

[dmw16]

What about a Dell Outlet Deal that has a PCIe slot in it? Get the PC then upgrade the video card.

Syran has a nice setup there too. I also agree that you can find cheaper cases and also search FS/T for good deals. I saw someone selling a 4870 for $75 on here.

Good luck.

 

[Terzo]

Is there a timeframe for this build? I've looked around at parts, and needing to buy both the os and monitor makes this near impossible. I have two possibilities I was able to come up with.

Option 1: Self built
Gigabyte 785g and athlon x2 240
$103
Wintec 2 gb ddr2 800
$44 plus shipping
Western Digital 640 AALS
$50 and out of stock at the moment, but it seems to come back into stock variably...if you refresh for maybe 15 minutes or so, it should come back in stock at some point and then order as fast as you can
Visiontek 4850 1gb memory
$117, but out of stock atm-you can look at other sites/manufacturers but they'll be around this price
NZXT midtower case
$30 AR
Corsair 400w
$40 AR plus shipping
21.5 inch monitor
$120
Windows 7 home 64 bit oem
$105
Optical drive:just find a cheap free shipping dvd burner
$30
Total=$639 plus shipping for some components
Option 2: buy prebuilt
Dell Inspiron 546 MT
$329
This is assuming the motherboard has a pci-16x slot available. If so, you can replace the stock powersupply (it probably won't be sufficient to power a dedicated gpu) and drop in a video card. You'll also have to buy a monitor. Using the prices for those components from option 1, that is...
Corsair 400w=$40 plus shipping
4850=$117
Monitor=$120
Total=$606 plus shipping

Keep your eye open for prebuilts, I'm sure a deal will come along that will be somewhat sufficient.
A few other options:
Is your nephew a student? If so, see about picking up a student copy of windows 7 for cheap. Look at this thread for more info.
Second, can you put more money into this later? If you don't worry about buying the video card now, you can shave off $100 and possibly find a better deal in the future. That would put you much closer to your original budget. I understand that this is meant to be for games, but the 785g chipset should at least let you play old games decently.
Last, as others have suggested, look into buying components used. In addition to the anandtech for sale/trade forums, you can look at your local craigslist.

Good luck with this, it's a tough goal to reach.

 

[dmw16]

Is there a timeframe for this build? I've looked around at parts, and needing to buy both the os and monitor makes this near impossible. I have two possibilities I was able to come up with.

Option 1: Self built
Gigabyte 785g and athlon x2 240
$103
Wintec 2 gb ddr2 800
$44 plus shipping
Western Digital 640 AALS
$50 and out of stock at the moment, but it seems to come back into stock variably...if you refresh for maybe 15 minutes or so, it should come back in stock at some point and then order as fast as you can
Visiontek 4850 1gb memory
$117, but out of stock atm-you can look at other sites/manufacturers but they'll be around this price
NZXT midtower case
$30 AR
Corsair 400w
$40 AR plus shipping
21.5 inch monitor
$120
Windows 7 home 64 bit oem
$105
Optical drive:just find a cheap free shipping dvd burner
$30
Total=$639 plus shipping for some components
Option 2: buy prebuilt
Dell Inspiron 546 MT
$329
This is assuming the motherboard has a pci-16x slot available. If so, you can replace the stock powersupply (it probably won't be sufficient to power a dedicated gpu) and drop in a video card. You'll also have to buy a monitor. Using the prices for those components from option 1, that is...
Corsair 400w=$40 plus shipping
4850=$117
Monitor=$120
Total=$606 plus shipping

Keep your eye open for prebuilts, I'm sure a deal will come along that will be somewhat sufficient.
A few other options:
Is your nephew a student? If so, see about picking up a student copy of windows 7 for cheap. Look at this thread for more info.
Second, can you put more money into this later? If you don't worry about buying the video card now, you can shave off $100 and possibly find a better deal in the future. That would put you much closer to your original budget. I understand that this is meant to be for games, but the 785g chipset should at least let you play old games decently.
Last, as others have suggested, look into buying components used. In addition to the anandtech for sale/trade forums, you can look at your local craigslist.

Good luck with this, it's a tough goal to reach.

I like option 1 on this one. I think if you troll the FS/T you can find the video card and RAM for less. You may also be able to find a CPU/Mobo combo on FS/T for a good deal.

If you have a little time to wait for good deals to surface then I think you can build a decent system.

The OS and the monitor are the hardest part to find a deal on. Maybe you can find a decent deal on Vista from someone who upgraded to Win7?

 

[Terzo]

Holy crap, I think I've found your answer.
From hot deals
Make sure to read the thread, as it seems that the store has shipped some out with different specs.
$99 plus shipping....but you can loot the ram* (2 gigs), harddrive (250 gig), case, DVD drive, and operating system (although I'm not sure about the legality of this, or if it actually ships with the install cd or just a restore cd).
*I'm assuming this is ddr2 ram, but I can't find anything saying one way or another. A call to the company to clarify would probably be in good order.

I'm not sure about what motherboard it has but I know the processor is single core. You can sell these (and other parts, maybe psu) that you don't want and buy the amd combo listed in the posts above.

Assuming this is around $30 shipping, then that leaves you with $370 to put together the rest of the system. $100 for the amd gigabyte + 240 combo. $120 for the monitor, $50 for a better psu, and $115 for the video card. That's $385, costing you a total of $515. But you can sell of the parts you don't need and recoup some of that.

There's a link to slick deals in the hot deals post, but a quick browse through both makes it seem like this is legit...one person got an amd processor (shouldn't matter since you'll want to upgrade to a x2) but someone also received 4 gigs ram instead of 2.

 

[piasabird]

Look at Dell outlet dell sells a lot of dings and scratches at a lower price. Or you can just buy something else. Dell often has misc items like Monitors and select systems on sale. Sometimes Items will be on sale for one week only.

 

[BD231]

That's $406 and you haven't included psu, case, hdd, dvd, etc. On top of that, memory is more expensive when purchased new at the moment.

If you're going to be cheap the guts are where you want most your cash. Those are items you can put together at around the 100 mark (less if you have parts around the house).

I don't enjoy hunting for garbage; I'll leave that to you!