Building This Poor Man's Game Rig 2010

[swillfly]

I am looking to order pieces-parts and assemble a halfways decent gaming pc with a chunk of my income tax refund which I'll get in the next week. I'll probably drop $500 to $700 US on a pyooter. I'd love some recommendations/useful input.

Here's what I was thunking:
cpu Intel Core i3-530
RAM 4 GB G Skill or namebrand equivalent DDR3
mobo MSI H55M-P31
vid MSI R5770 Hawk Radeon HD 1GB

I want an Intel LGA1156 cpu. I would prefer uatx mainboard size so I can cram it all in a micro dinky box. I'm also wanting that MSI video card as it looks solid.

I figure a mainboard and videocard *may* cooperate easier if they're by the same folks as opposed to different companies (i.e. mobo & vid both MSI). I've had decent luck with MSI parts before so I'm kinda partial to them but open to alternate/better suggestions.

The rest of my grocery list:
HDD 500GB SATA - WD5000AAKS is adequate
power *dunno* Ideas? Do I really need 500watts? I like Antec.
DVDR Sony Optiarc 24x
case *dunno* cheap or uatx is fine

I have a mouse/keyboard/monitor so I don't need any of those. Just a box.

I'm not looking for a blazing game inferno. These parts all seem affordable and I can get them all via. Newegg. One-stop-shop for all my parts makes me a happier camper.

Resolution I plan on gaming with? Heh - I'm currently happy with 1024x768 on my 15" VGA LCD but can only enjoy games like Fate that require minimal hardware resources. I'd *like* to play and enjoy games like Bioshock, Oblivion, Half-Life2, FEAR, etc. games from years ago on high settings.

I went to my local Fry's Electronics store and was checking out cases and others oddments. The young guy there recommended a P55 motherboard vs. the H55 chipset one I am considering. He said it'd be better for games. Only problem is that I really want LGA1156 and uatx if possible.

I didn't see any uatx P55 MSI boards. Maybe there are no uatx P55 chipset boards?

I'm not planning on overclocking at all. I want to maintain aircooled factory default speeds.

I'm not a fanboy of Intel or AMD, nVidia or ATI. Whatever allows me to enjoy the old games I bought (which are new to me) is what I want. Just want to have a little vidiocy before all my hair turns white.

Thanks for reading my blathering and lemme know if you have any suggestions/warnings.

Cheers!

 

[Ancalagon44]

Isnt socket 1156 dying when Sandy Bridge comes out? You could consider getting something like a Phenom X2, and see if you can scrape your way to a new 20 inch LCD screen.

Brand doesnt matter at all when it comes to matching up GPU and motherboard, dont worry about that. Personally I dont like MSI, prefer Asus or Gigabyte, but it is a personal choice.

Dont know much about Intel chipsets, I can recommend the 5770 though. Very good card. Make sure to get the 1GB version though.

 

[VirtualLarry]

It doesn't sound like a bad build, but think, do you really want 1156? It's going to be phased out next year, and won't get any CPU upgrades, other than what's on the market right now. I would go with AMD and an AM3 rig, if you are building a budget gaming rig. AMD is king of value, especially with gaming rigs, these days.

Get a Gigabyte 785G board that takes DDR3, a 5770, 4GB of DDR3-1600 or 1333 (AM3 currently only supports 1333 max RAM speed officially), and a Phenom II X3 720 BE (OEM on Newegg). With some luck, you can unlock it into a quad-core. And even if you can't, it's a great gaming CPU, and cheaper than Intel.

 

[mfenn]

I normally like and recommend the 1156 platform, but only when you're looking at the i5 750 and above. For your needs, I agree with the above posters that AMD would probably be better (due to platform cost, not longevity)

 

[MisterDonut]

AMD is your best buddy here. You can go for the unlock or just get a Propus for <$100. Can't go wrong either way; GPU is likely more important anyways.

 

[Deleted member 4644]

Personally, I wouldnt worry too much about socket 1156. I guess it depends on how often you upgrade, and what your upgrade style is..(full, partial, etc).

 

[Reincus]

Resolution I plan on gaming with? Heh - I'm currently happy with 1024x768 on my 15" VGA LCD but can only enjoy games like Fate that require minimal hardware resources. I'd *like* to play and enjoy games like Bioshock, Oblivion, Half-Life2, FEAR, etc. games from years ago on high settings.

If you seriously want to play in 1024x768, you won't need anything close to HD 5770 for GPU.

Is getting a better monitor a possibility? If not, you can just use integrated graphics.

 

[swillfly]

I don't plan on gaming at 1024x768 -it's just the a resolution that my current POS can handle comfortably. I have no idea what a decent resoultion is nowadays for gaming.

Reason why I was thinking LGA 1156 is because of shiny upgrade option for the Core i7 860 that Anand wrote about here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2839

So if I stick with LGA 1156 then later I can upgrade my cpu to an i7 860 when it's come down in price. At least that was what I was thunking.

I need to research and scope out my options going with AMD cpu/mobo to determine if I want to do that. I wanted to try going the Intel way this go-around as my current dogpile is an ancient Athlon.

MisterDonut: Unlock? You mean overclock? Nah. Maybe if I had a fallback system but not now. I really don't like fiddling with running components hot because a) if it does fail due to my ineptness I'm without a pyooter b) liquid or advanced cooling is pricey c) I can't afford to try overclocking now while keeping stuff cool enough to avoid catastrophic hardware fails.

I'm planning on running Win7 Ultimate 64bit OEM so I can play around with virtual machines/etc. Now gaming *should* work according to what little I know running under XP compatibility mode in Win7 64bit. Worst-case scenario I guess I can make a dual-boot XP/Win7 setup -but that mebbe welcoming other sorts of issues.

Here's what I plan on playing mostly: Oblivion, Fallout3, Bioshock1&2 HL2, FEAR, Assassin's Creed 1&2, L4Dead 1&2.

As for getting a better LCD... sure when I can scrounge together a couple hundred for a decent 19" or 21" with DVI/HDMI then yeah. I pretty much am sold on the HD 5770 vidcard though.

Here's my current boat anchor:
1.55 GhZ Athlon XP on an MSI MS-6590 mobo with 1GB RAM and GeForce4 Ti4200 AGP vidcard. 40GB ATA HDD. Dell e 178fpv 15" LCD. Running XP SP3 and it is sloooow. Reminds me of dialup connections.

Obviously ANY kind of upgrade pyooter would be better than this piece-o-shat.

 

[Reincus]

You mentioned you were close to Fry's, they have some really good CPU/MOBO combo deals where you basically get a free MOBO. You can get a quad core AMD chip with motherboard for $100, for example. I think they had a similiar i3+mobo deal a couple weeks ago for $120.

When Donut referred to unlocking, he was talking about taking an Athlon/Phenom x2 or x3 chip, and with one setting in BIOS turning into a 4 core chip. It's a way to get more value out of your CPU, but isn't not certain. It's a different animal than overclocking.

Really though, if you have the know how of putting together a PC, you have the know how to do basic overclocking. You don't have to do anything crazy, but it's actually very easy and harmless to wring a little extra performance out of machine with VERY little additional risk.

 

[Chapbass]

I don't plan on gaming at 1024x768 -it's just the a resolution that my current POS can handle comfortably. I have no idea what a decent resoultion is nowadays for gaming.

Reason why I was thinking LGA 1156 is because of shiny upgrade option for the Core i7 860 that Anand wrote about here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2839

So if I stick with LGA 1156 then later I can upgrade my cpu to an i7 860 when it's come down in price. At least that was what I was thunking.

I need to research and scope out my options going with AMD cpu/mobo to determine if I want to do that. I wanted to try going the Intel way this go-around as my current dogpile is an ancient Athlon.

MisterDonut: Unlock? You mean overclock? Nah. Maybe if I had a fallback system but not now. I really don't like fiddling with running components hot because a) if it does fail due to my ineptness I'm without a pyooter b) liquid or advanced cooling is pricey c) I can't afford to try overclocking now while keeping stuff cool enough to avoid catastrophic hardware fails.

I'm planning on running Win7 Ultimate 64bit OEM so I can play around with virtual machines/etc. Now gaming *should* work according to what little I know running under XP compatibility mode in Win7 64bit. Worst-case scenario I guess I can make a dual-boot XP/Win7 setup -but that mebbe welcoming other sorts of issues.

Here's what I plan on playing mostly: Oblivion, Fallout3, Bioshock1&2 HL2, FEAR, Assassin's Creed 1&2, L4Dead 1&2.

As for getting a better LCD... sure when I can scrounge together a couple hundred for a decent 19" or 21" with DVI/HDMI then yeah. I pretty much am sold on the HD 5770 vidcard though.

Here's my current boat anchor:
1.55 GhZ Athlon XP on an MSI MS-6590 mobo with 1GB RAM and GeForce4 Ti4200 AGP vidcard. 40GB ATA HDD. Dell e 178fpv 15" LCD. Running XP SP3 and it is sloooow. Reminds me of dialup connections.

Obviously ANY kind of upgrade pyooter would be better than this piece-o-shat.

Donut wasn't talking about overclocking. With the right mainboard and processor (a triple core processor, which is really a quad core with 1 core turned off), you can activate the 4th core and have it run just like a quad for less cost. No running components hot, nothing like that.


As far as going intel vs. AMD...I would STRONGLY advise not choosing one brand or the other based on the fact that you had AMD before. Remember, in a game, no one knows whether you're on AMD or intel hardware. Hell, if I were to pick out a system, build it, and sit you down in front of a game running on it, you wouldn't even know (unless the price point was WAY different).

Therefore, go with the better value and spend any extra money on things you WILL notice, like mouse/keyboard/MONITOR/speakers.

 

[swillfly]

Thanks guys! This sheds more light on assembling my next rig. I'm not biased either way for/against either Intel/AMD. You're absolutely right Chapbass: I wouldn't know or care what the guts were inside my pc. Only time it comes into play is whether or not I paid too much. GPU and RAM seem to be the main components for gaming but your only as fast/good as the slowest path on whatever bus your data travels along... so it makes sense not to skimp on cpu/mobo/power too. Stability is important when gaming for hours on end. The idea of unlocking another core sounds great! Why would they include another core and not charge more for it? As long as stability and reliability are maintained it sounds like I'll be investigating possible AMD rigs. And I'll have to go back to Fry's Reincus to see how good a deal I can get. :thumbsup:

 

[Reincus]

They have 'locked' cores because it's cheaper to have 1 process for all their chips. They make 4 core chips and then bin them. Binning means that some chips will have cores that don't work. So instead of scrapping a 4 core chip with 2 or 3 working cores, they sell it as a 2 or 3 core chip and price accordingly.

Now, sometimes they don't have enough 'real' 2 or 3 core chips to meet all of the supply, so they take working 4 core chips and disable a core and sell it. If you are lucky enough to get one of those chips, you can unlock all 4 cores.

As a process gets more mature, they reduce the number of defects, so more chips are true working 4 core chips. If the supply for 2 and 3 core chips remains high, then a greater percentage of them become unlockable. It's not a for sure thing, but it's a very good rate. From people I've talked to/read about, it's between 40-60&#37; have had luck with unlocking cores. About 25% of them are able to overclock with all 4 cores. (sometimes a core is okay at base speed, but has no headroom to overclock).

Granted, my personal sample size is relatively small (about 30 people), so your milage may vary.

 

[swillfly]

I did my research and you guys are correct. :thumbsup: An AMD Phenom II X4 will be at the best consumer price point per processing power for me instead of a core i3, i5, or i7 based system. I would opt for a Phenom II X2 or X3 except that my lousy luck is so astronomically poor that I do not wish to take the gamble for $50 less for the cpu.

I have a few questions/concerns however. First, should I be concerned over what stepping or revision/black box edition of Phenom II I get? I have noticed some debates over C3 and C2.

Secondly that determines somewhat what kind of motherboard I get as well because apparently some makes/models of mainboards do not play well will certain Phenoms. Should I be concerned about this?

I'm unsure of which motherboard chipsets I should look for as well but ideally I want something which is AM3 and supports USB 3.0. Crossfire support for two discrete GPU's would be nice but not necessary. I was thinking 790 and 790X boards are probably what I should aim for although there's also a 770 board I found. There are very few uATX boards like this so ATX is fine. I don't really need any expansion slots because the only PCIe cards I'll put in will be one or two GPU's. Integrated onboard NIC and sound will work fine for me.

Gigabyte, Asus, and MSI are the motherboards I'm considering. Also, I checked Fry's. Their deals are no better than online deals I found via. Newegg, etc. which many offer free shipping. Only incentive to purchase through them would be that if I got any DOA parts I would have (hopefully) faster turnaround time than the RMA clusterfrock.

Thanks for all the helpful input guys!

 

[Reincus]

Stepping C3 vs C2 only matters if you plan on overclocking. The C3 will get higher overclocks more consistantly.

I haven't heard of any AM2+ or AM3 board having problems with Phenom II CPUs, other than normal BIOS updates and such for older boards, at least for major brands.

Your board requirements are fairly standard, as you said, just make sure supports USB 3. You might want to look at the 8XX series, they all have USB 3 and SATA 6. 790X boards are also excellent. All 3 brands of boards you are looking at are fine.

Frys will have better combo deals if you time it right. For example they had a Phenom II x 4 955 w/ MSI motherboard for $160 a couple weeks ago.