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Pre-built gaming rig on a $600 budget (need recommendations)

S

SkyBum

Senior member
I've spent the last year trying to convince a friend to scratch build his next gaming rig (not going to happen). It's upgrade time however and he has $600 to spend on a pre-built.

I'd at least like to offer some solid recommendations but have not looked at pre-built offerings in 15 years and I have no idea where to even start as far as mfg's or models go.

If any of you have recommendations (tower not laptop) I'd love to pass them along to my buddy, and hopefully help him to at least get something near to value for his money.

He's currently running a 4 year old e-machine with an Athlon X2 220, along with an old HD 4860 that I gave him a few years back, (on a 17 inch monitor). The worst value out there would likely be a serious upgrade on that pc but with a little help from the AT tech forum I'm hoping that we could help him to get the most pre-built possible for his money.

thanks in advance

EDIT: this is his top choice. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...3H4&pldnSite=1 Where do we go from here?
 
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Geforce 610 is not a gaming card, unless he wants to play a lot of solitaire 🙂

At that budget range, building it yourself makes more sense since every penny counts.

A prebuilt with the CPU you want (intel i5), 8 GB RAM, and a good graphics card (GTX 750 or AMD equivalent) is going to cost $700-800.
 
At AVADirect you can get an AMD system (6300 or 750K) and vanilla 750 with 8GB 1600MHz 1TB Win 7/8 for just over $600 before tax/shipping.

There's several configurators to choose from, but this one allowed the lowest total price:
http://www.avadirect.com/desktop-pc-configurator.asp?PRID=25850

$610.56

COMPUCASE HEC 6C28B Black Mid-Tower Case
ANTEC Basiq VP 450 450W Power Supply
GIGABYTE GA-F2A55M-DS2, FM2
AMD Athlon™ X4 750K Quad-Core Retail
CRUCIAL 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600MHz CL11 1.5V
ZOTAC ZT-70701-10M, GeForce GTX 750 1GB GDDR5 PCIe x16, Retail
TOSHIBA 1TB HDKPC05, SATA 6 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 64MB cache, OEM HDD
LITE-ON iHAS124-14 Black 24x DVD±RW Dual-Layer Burner, SATA, OEM
MICROSOFT Windows 8.1 64-bit Edition, OEM w/ Media
WARRANTY Silver Warranty Package (3 Year Limited Parts, 3 Year Labor Warranty)

Edit: At the same time I wouldn't really recommend this setup...the case is terrible, the PSU isn't great, and the stock cooling on an AMD CPU...*sigh*
It would get the job done, but things are probably gonna be cooking inside.
 
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Most gaming prebuilts come with slow graphics cards. The implication is that opening up the case is unavoidable. A GTX750 Ti level card is a good bare minimum for decent gaming performace. Your linked prebuilt, SkyBum, only has a crappy GT 610, which is lolawful.
You buy a $400-$500 rig and add your own GPU or else you will surely not get your money's worth.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883229362
This is the best new computer I can find. There are a couple refurbs with i5s on Newegg though.

Get a GTX 750 Ti and you are good to go.
 
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Torn Mind said:
Most gaming prebuilts come with slow graphics cards. The implication is that opening up the case is unavoidable. A GTX750 Ti level card is a good bare minimum for decent gaming performace. Your linked prebuilt, SkyBum, only has a crappy GT 610, which is lolawful.
You buy a $400-$500 rig and add your own GPU or else you will surely not get your money's worth.
Click to expand...

The dell outlet sometimes have 30% off coupons. Might want to try that along with adding your own gpu.
 
If he doesnt mind refurbs, check out the dell off lease site. Here is what I found.
Coupons: 15% off any monitor JUNE15MON. 15% off any Optiplex Desktop JUNE15DESK
Add this to all the desktops since you will not need a new power supply for this video card: MSI 750ti $140-$30MIR=$110 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...D=3938566&SID=

The cheap option: http://www.dfsdirectsales.com/Store...x_960smt_4gb_ram_80gb_hdd?offset=0&isLaptop=N

Dell Optiplex 960 ($244.03) + $110 750ti = $354.03
- Core 2 Quad Q9400
-4gb RAM
-80gb HDD
-32-bit Vista

Option 2:http://www.dfsdirectsales.com/Store..._980smt_4gb_ram_500gb_hdd?offset=0&isLaptop=N

Dell Optiplex 980$411.10 + $110 750ti = $521.10
-i7 870
-4gb ram
-500gb HDD
-ATI Radeo 3450 (junk video card)
-32-bit Windows 7 Pro


Option 3: http://www.dfsdirectsales.com/Store...3010smt_8gb_ram_250gb_hdd?offset=0&isLaptop=N

Dell Optiplex 3010 $432.78 + $110 750ti = $542.78
-i3 3220
-8gb ram
-250gb hdd
-AMD 7470 (Not great at all but can run some games on low/medium @720p)
-64 bit Windows 7 home premium

Also if he wanted a monitor he could get these

- 20 inch 1600x900 monitor for $68
http://www.dfsdirectsales.com/Store...screen_flat_panel_monitor?offset=0&isLaptop=N

-20 inch 1650x1050 monitor for $76.50
http://www.dfsdirectsales.com/Store...screen_flat_panel_monitor?offset=0&isLaptop=N

-21.5 inch 1920x1080 monitor for $$85
http://www.dfsdirectsales.com/Store...screen_flat_panel_monitor?offset=0&isLaptop=N
 
Flapdrol1337 said:
A gaming rig for $600 is hard enough. Prebuilts for that kind of money will all be shit.
Click to expand...

Agreed. You won't find a decent pre-built "gaming rig" that's actually decent for that kind of money.

And if you're going to spend more, you're probably better off building. Pre-builts are *bleep* for gaming, unless you pay far too much at a boutique builder.
 
Well, not necessarily. For instance this week Best Buy has a dell i3 with 8gb of ram for 450.00, and Office Max has a Dell i5 for 530.00. Add that 110.00 750Ti linked above, and you have a nice low/mid range gaming rig, especially the i5, which admittedly is slightly over budget. But the i3 would be under budget and still decent.
 
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