Need help to build cheap rig for D3

[RoboChobo]

Hello

I need a lot of help building a $500-$550 PC to play Diablo 3 with my little cousin.

To get things started, I already gave him

* Monitor 22inch 1680x1050
* Keyboard & Mouse + speakers/headset
* Windows 7 Pro
* Network adapters X2


I live in Vancouver and there are 2 Computer stores that I can visit and purchase locally.

http://www.memoryexpress.com/
&
http://www.ncix.ca/

I have no problems ordering online(Tigerdirect/newegg) as well but would prefer to be locally just in case for warranty purpose.


Recommended System Requirements for Diablo 3 isn't big

Windows® Vista/7 (latest service packs)
Intel® Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz or AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 5600+ 2.8 GHz
2 GB RAM
NVIDIA® GeForce® 260 or ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 or better

I have been mucking around with some builds but I'm always over budget & with my very little experience, I may be doing too much or too little for the hardware.

So this is where I will need your help, this is going to be a PC just to play games, he wont be using it for anything else, maybe some music and videos here and there but mostly, just to play some games.

I would like him to be able to max the graphics for Diablo3. Maybe ill just need to buy a good graphics card and cheap out on the rest?

Anywho, I need your guidance and build recommandations from top to bottom

I will need it all

*Case
*Cpu
*motherboard
*video card
*ram
*Power supply
*Cd tray
*HDD

He will not overclock the rig or have any intentions of doing so. I would prefer to have everything in stock

Please note I would prefer not to spend no more than $550, however I am very open

 

[blastingcap]

You are in the video card forum so I will focus on that...

You said, and I hope the legions of people who reply later read this:

"Monitor 22inch 1680x1050"

At that resolution you will do fine with something like a HD6850 for ~$125 after rebate. (In fact a HD 6770 or HD 5770, which are almost identical card by the way, would do well too.) D3 isn't even a twitch-muscle action game. There is no real reason to get a gtx 560 ti or something like that, especially on your budget constraint, when a HD 6850 will do just fine. A HD 6850 is about 40% faster than the HD6770/HD5770/HD4870/GTX 260 that Blizzard recommends, and even faster if you overclock. HD 6850s tend to be good overclockers so expect another 20-25% performance on top of that.

I will repeat, for the sake of the people who would otherwise give you kneejerk recommendations without reading your post in its entirety, this line in your OP:

""Monitor 22inch 1680x1050"

 

[Silenus]

Here is my take on a decent budget gaming rig. It should do great for Diablo and more.

...EDIT: Added DVD Drive...

Case: Fractal Design Core 1000
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811352009

Power: Antec Eco Green 430
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817371034

Board: AsRock H61M/U3S3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157236

CPU: Intel Core i3-2120
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115077

Ram: Gskill Ripjaws 8GB DDR3-1333
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231311

Drive: Seagate Barracuda 1TB (new with 1TB platters)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148840

Video Card: Radeon 6770 1GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150540

DVD Drive: Samsung
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827151244

Total: $557.92 NOT counting MIB for the video card, which would bring it down to $537.92.

Squeeze a little more an you can jump up to a 6850 which would be even beter...but by no means necessary. I run a 5770 myself on a 1680x1050 monitor. Haven't played much other than Starcraft II and Mass Effect 3 recently but it does fine with those.

 

[Stuka87]

You could actually most likely get away with an AMD A8 based rig. I have not played the game personally with a fusion setup, but I would be willing to bet it would play it fine with the fancier eye candy off. I was actually able to play it with an HD3000 on an i7 at 1080P with everything off. Although it got slow in battles. An A8 Fusion is easily double the speed of the HD3000.

 

[DeeJayeS]

If he doesn't have large storage needs I highly recommend a small SSD (and forgo a large HDD for now)--if you can swing it in the budget.

Crucial M4 128gb was/is $110 at buy.com for example. He'd still have 80+ GB to use after installing Windows 7.


As for the video card, I echo what others have said--6770 or 6850 will serve him just fine.

 

[Topweasel]

You could actually most likely get away with an AMD A8 based rig. I have not played the game personally with a fusion setup, but I would be willing to bet it would play it fine with the fancier eye candy off. I was actually able to play it with an HD3000 on an i7 at 1080P with everything off. Although it got slow in battles. An A8 Fusion is easily double the speed of the HD3000.

I played it the weekend Beta on both a A8-3850 and 3930k+7950. Both on a 1920x1080 setup. The lesson I learned is that I could kick up the eye candy more on the 7950, but really its not an eye candy game and the A8 didn't stumble anywhere.

 

[Fallengod]

Its funny how people are getting all serious and building riggs just for D3. Makes me laugh.

Anyways, just so you know D3 like most Blizzard games will be fairly lax in its requirements. Get yourself and i3-2100 or i5-2500k, and even a 5770/6770 would be more than adequate to run the game.

I run a MSI hawk 5770 I bought used off forums for $60 and they have that video card listed in the high performance category in the D3 video card support page. I have no doubt it would be plenty for D3. Dont over think it.

 

[Hubb1e]

The D3 graphics requirements are really relaxed. They were able to do this by rejecting realism and going for better gameplay with highly styled graphics. The other trick is that the game takes advantage of its fixed isometric view and renders the background in what they call 2.5D rather than 3D. By rendering in basically 2D with some extra geometry to account for character movement they are able to get away with very low graphics card requirements for the game. A 5770, 6770, 6850, or 6870 are all good bets for D3 on max settings. The 6870 would be my preferred card since it also performs very well in other games. On the CPU side a core i3 will be fine for just about any game you wish to play. The rest is really up to you but Silenus has a good build list for you that I agree with.

As for an SSD, it really depends on the user's storage requirements and how savvy he is about keeping files on the correct disk. For a layman, 128GB is really a bit too small and most laymen won't manage their files properly so a harddrive is a better bet until they can cram a 256GB drive into their budget.

 

[Arzachel]

*Build*

I agree with this, but I would drop the amount of RAM to 4GB, get a 6850 and a 100GB SSD instead of a HDD. Then again, I had been living with a 30GB HDD(20GB effectivly after Windows) until two years ago and the 300GB HDD still feels like vast overkill that I won't ever manage to fill

 

[Stuka87]

I played it the weekend Beta on both a A8-3850 and 3930k+7950. Both on a 1920x1080 setup. The lesson I learned is that I could kick up the eye candy more on the 7950, but really its not an eye candy game and the A8 didn't stumble anywhere.

Yeah I played it on my 7950 with everything maxed, and ran fine except for some weird frame drops which was actually a bug in the game (since been fixed).

I really think the OP should look into getting an A* setup. It will be far cheaper than getting a CPU + Video Card, and will run the game fine from the looks of it. A bigger video card can always be added later.

 

[Mopetar]

CPU: A8-3870K $120
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-A55M-DS2 $60
RAM: 2 x 4 GB G. Skill 1866 DDR3 $60
HD : OCZ Agility 3 120 GB $115 ($100 with rebate)
PS: SeaSonic 300W 80+ Bronze $40
Case: Rosewill R101-P-BK $30
CD : Sony DVD-ROM $20

Parts: $445 ($430 with rebate)
Shipping: $13
Total: ~$450


As other posters have mentioned, Llano should be sufficient to play Diablo 3, and allows you to save by not purchasing a dedicated card. It's also the unlocked version so you can OC it to eek out some extra performance. You can take some of the savings and put it towards an SSD which will make the system feel a lot faster. If you're mainly using the computer for gaming, the SSD should have plenty of space.

Also, the 300W power supply should leave you enough room to throw in a dedicated card in the future if you need more graphical power. You could also throw in another hard drive if you want some more storage.

 

[Arzachel]

*Build*

This would also work, but kill that Sandforce SSD with fire and get Crucial or something.

 

[Mopetar]

This would also work, but kill that Sandforce SSD with fire and get Crucial or something.

What's wrong with Sandforce? Weren't they the ones with the best controller last generation?

 

[Insomniator]

D3 is one of the few situations where Llano actually makes sense. No need for a better card, hell I just gave a friend an old Intel E5200 computer from work and told him to add a 40 dollar Radeon 6570 for D3.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127611

And actually if you look here the 3870k gets pretty good performance working with the 6570. So if the integrated alone isn't cutting it you could add this (though I don't think its needed for d3)

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/A8-3870K-vs-Core-i3-2105-CPU-Review/1470/13

 

[Denithor]

If it's just for D3 you can easily get away with a build like Mopetar suggested.

I would swap in a Crucial M4 SSD instead of the Agility, those Sandforce drives had too many BSODs for my taste.

As a note, I ran the D3 beta weekend with an i3-550 (3.2GHz dual core) + GT 240 512MB video card. Ran at 1080p with all eye candy maxed, multiplayer with two friends, zero slowdowns anywhere.

 

[Dark Shroud]

The Quad-core A8s are perfect for D3, you can even use the IGP for a little while to get more money for a decent video card if needed. HD 6800 cards are a good choice while they're still in channel.

I also agree about the Sandforce drives. Crucial, Samsung, or Plextor would all work well here.

 

[Yuriman]

A 6770/5770 is well-suited for D3. You'll be getting a near perfect 60fps with shadows knocked down 1 setting (I couldn't tell the difference).