Sub $950 gaming system

[desertfox04]

Well first off this is my planned system... my max amount of money I can spend is $930

For a detailed view go here.

Summary:

Processor AMD 64 2800+ $190.00
Motherboard MSI K8N Platinum $150.00
R.A.M. OCZ 512 PC3200 $110.00
Video Card ATI-MSI R 9800PRO $211.00
Floppy Drive Sony 1.44mb $10.00
DvD-Rom Samsung 16x $30.00
Case Aspire X-Infinity $60.00
Power Supply Antec 350 watt $45.00
OS Microsoft XP Home $90.00
Game Far Cry $0* Games are included because they part of the budget
Game UT2004 $30 Got to have something to play on my new machine!

Total $926.00

*Farcry is free with purchase of AMD athlon 64 and mobo.
** Hard drive is already purchased WD 120gb 8mb cache 7200 rpm PATA



Here are the parts I'm unsure of...

1. Ram -
OCZ Per. PC3200 or Gigaram PC3500

I plan on doing a moderate amount of overclocking. With the OCZ I could probably get to 222 fsb but the Gigaram is suspicously cheap.

I'm open to any other suggestions.


2. Motherboard -Chaintech VNF3-250 or MSI K8N NEO

I was originally going to go with VNF3-250 because it was cheap and a nice overclocker. But then I began to read on the forums about troubles junk boards and Radeon 9800 pro conflicts and began to get uneasy.

The MSI is $60 more but it seems to be more reliable and has a hard ware firewall. But I doubt I'll need the Gigabit ethernet anytime in the near future.

All I need in a mobo is pci lock and 10/100 lan and decent overclocking.



If you see any other problems just let me know, remember, if I change a part to something more expensive then I have to change another one to something less. Budget is pretty much absolute.

Thank you for your time.

 

[somekid617]

not bad, but instead of 512 ram, ur gonan need 1 gig.....u might have to pay 110 more, but its worth the money! Can u wait a little while? As soon as teh x800xt and all thsoe cards come out, teh 9800's should decrease a little more,...

 

[n7]

If budget is absolute, you may want to go with a mobile athlon & OC it, rather than the A64, as the newest games really don't run well w/o 1 GB of RAM.

 

[Tostada]

It seems a little odd that you already have a monitor (seeing as it isn't included in the budget), but you're buying a floppy and DVD-ROM...

Anyway, most people don't consider a floppy, OS & games in the budget, but I suppose that's compensated for by the fact that you already got the hard drive. I'm totally amazed that so many people get 120GB drives when the 160GB ones are $5 more...

That's the cheapest Newcastle you can get. It's almost the cheapest 9800 Pro you can get. It's the cheapest nForce 3 250Gb you can get. That's the system I would make in that budget range, but I would probably pay the extra $20 to get the Newcastle 3000+.

Something's going to have to give, though. You're getting a $30 DVD-ROM for God's sake -- you don't even have a burner. You're either going to have to add a few more bucks to the budget or downgrade something to make a normal system.

What I would do if I was going to keep it as close as possible to your configuration is:

All you can spend is $930, you have $4 left, but the processor/mobo are each $3 less than you listed, so you have $10.
Downgrate $147 MSI K8N nForce3 250Gb to $92 Chaintech nForce3 250, now you have $65
Upgrade $110 OCZ Performance 512MB to $125 OCZ Enhanced Latency, now you have $50
Upgrade $187 Newcastle 2800+ Retail to $223 Newcastle 3000+ Retail, now you have $14
Upgrade $30 DVD-ROM to $44.50 Lite-On 48x24x48x16 combo drive, now you have -$0.50
Switch to the Sapphire R9800 Pro, now you have $1.50 left

So, you've got a faster CPU, better RAM and a burner. If you have some personal problem with Sapphire, you could stick with the MSI Radeon if you don't mind being $0.50 over budget.

 

[somekid617]

but its still only 512 ram, and hes gaming.... THATS A NO NO!!

 

[Corporate Thug]

Originally posted by: n7
If budget is absolute, you may want to go with a mobile athlon & OC it, rather than the A64, as the newest games really don't run well w/o 1 GB of RAM.

agreed

 

[desertfox04]

About the upgrading to 3000+ I can just overclock my fsb by 22 mhz and it will equal a 3000+ 222X9= 2000mhz(3000+)
I'm going to wait till after Christmas and then get a used 3200+ clawhammer.

After some thought, I'm switching back to the VNF3-250, a hardware fire wall just isn't worth $60.

I got to cheat on the HD I had a $100 Bestbuy gift card and bought it for on sale(Everyone elses normal price) for $80

I'll be buying a NEC ND-2500A $75.00 later this summer, after all this new dvd technology comes out, the price should drop.

Does any one see any significant price drops in the near future?

 

[mrwxyz]

Originally posted by: Tostada
Switch to the Sapphire R9800 Pro, now you have $1.50 left

So, you've got a faster CPU, better RAM and a burner. If you have some personal problem with Sapphire, you could stick with the MSI Radeon if you don't mind being $0.50 over budget.

i think the cheaper sapphire is the 128bit version of the r9800p

 

[Tostada]

Originally posted by: mrwxyz

Originally posted by: Tostada
Switch to the Sapphire R9800 Pro, now you have $1.50 left

So, you've got a faster CPU, better RAM and a burner. If you have some personal problem with Sapphire, you could stick with the MSI Radeon if you don't mind being $0.50 over budget.

i think the cheaper sapphire is the 128bit version of the r9800p

Newegg has 11 Sapphire cards listed as 9800 Pro. Only the $169 one is 128-bit.

The $209 and $210 ones are both 256-bit 128MB DDR with the Radeon XT board and R360 core.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-102-268

It's got a 5-star rating with 387 votes, which is 3X as many as any other card.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: Tostada

Originally posted by: mrwxyz

Originally posted by: Tostada
Switch to the Sapphire R9800 Pro, now you have $1.50 left

So, you've got a faster CPU, better RAM and a burner. If you have some personal problem with Sapphire, you could stick with the MSI Radeon if you don't mind being $0.50 over budget.

i think the cheaper sapphire is the 128bit version of the r9800p

Newegg has 11 Sapphire cards listed as 9800 Pro. Only the $169 one is 128-bit.

The $209 and $210 ones are both 256-bit 128MB DDR with the Radeon XT board and R360 core.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-102-268

It's got a 5-star rating with 387 votes, which is 3X as many as any other card.

And it will run faster than a 9800XT (mine will, anyway).

 

[Tostada]

Originally posted by: somekid617
but its still only 512 ram, and hes gaming.... THATS A NO NO!!

I said if I was going to keep it as close as possible to his original configuration. If I was trying to make the best gaming rig for that money, I'd do about the same thing as most people I suppose.

If we take out the games/OS/floppy, that's $800 to work with, and there's already a hard drive, so:

Mobile Athlon XP 2400+ Barton: $77
ABit NF7: $67
Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro with XT core: $209
120GB Western Digital 1200JB: included
2 x 512MB OCZ Enhanced Latency DDR400: 2 x $125
Lite-On 48x24x48x16 combo CD-RW/DVD-ROM: $44.50
Zalman 7000A-AlCu CPU heatsink: $35.99
Vantec IceBerg 4 Copper video heatsink: $12.99
Aspire X-Infinity: $60
Antec 350W: $45

$801.48

It seems a little silly to me to get a $60 case that looks like a BMW and then throw away the PSU, but whatever floats your boat. I didn't bother adding shipping since he didn't to begin with...

With an NF-7 and a good heatsink and power supply, you can run that CPU at 3200+ speeds at stock voltage. The video card also runs at 9800XT speeds easily with that heatsink (and it's the XT core so you can flash it with the XT bios).

So, you've got an Athlon XP 3200+ with a Radion 9800XT and 1 GB of CL2. The weakest part is the hard drive. You could get by with a cheaper heatsink if you didn't want to go past 3200+ speed.

 

[Illissius]

You could save $45 by getting this 9800 Pro refurb. Then some more money by either going with the PSU that comes with case, or getting the Antec and a case sans PSU.
Spend that money on:
1) Upgrade the memory to this ADATA PC4000. Save another $2 in the process . (just shows how huge of a deal it is)
2) Get either an A64 Mobile 2800+ 35W or a 3000+ standard, depending on how much patience you have for experimenting with compatibility issues. The former should be an insane overclocker.
3) Some sort of decent HSF.

At any rate, I'd skimp on the case (not the PSU) to fit those in. You should get by with 512MB RAM well enough for now, and you can get another stick of 512MB later on.

 

[ath50]

You can also get this RAM and save some money. It would be fine for you.