Take a Look at this setup

[Casual Swift]

HI Guys. I’m just starting to enter the world of computer gaming thanks to SC2. I’m on a tight budget and trying to get something that will run games like sc2, wow, on decent (medium) settings. I also want to be able to upgrade indefinitely down the road when I eventually start to want more performance. Here’s what I’m looking at with an all in price of $400CAN.

AMD Athlon II 240 @ 3.36GHz
Biostar A770-E Motherboard (full atx, lots of pci slots, AMD 770/SB710)
3GB PC6400 DDR2 Ram in dual channels (2x1GB Patriot, 2x512MB Kingston)
Powercolor Hd5750 512mb GDDR5 Video Card
500GB Hard Drive (Seagate) 7200RPM SATA2
22X SATA DVD Burner
The Case is a Maxcube Vortex 36XX
Windows Vista Ultimate 64-Bit with Disk and COA.

I guess I want to know how you guys think this setup will perform, and what I may want to add/upgrade either now or in the future. Is $400 a fair price for this? Thanks!

 

[Dankk]

First off, get Windows 7 instead of Vista. 7 is the newest version of Windows that smooths out some of the kinks Vista had, and it simply runs better in general. This includes your games.

For $400, yeah, that's not bad at all. In fact, that's pretty great (especially for Canadian dollars, aren't the prices a bit inflated up where you are?) I'm not familiar with some of those components, but it looks like a sound deal.

The only thing I would probably change is the processor. You have a nice video card, but in some games that are more CPU-limited (WoW is definitely an example), you don't want a slow processor to bottleneck/limit your video card's full potential.

So, look into getting a Phenom. You can get a 3.0Ghz Phenom II 945 for under $140, and it's a quad core that will be a nice performance boost, especially for multi-threaded games. If you're really on a budget, you can get a Phenom II 555 for under $100. It's only 3.2Ghz dual-core but it still has an L3 cache where the Athlons don't.

Have you ever put together a computer before? If not, feel free to ask any questions, and good luck.

 

[Casual Swift]

Thanks for the response. No never put a comp together before but have put in video cards and extra ram and things. THis one is already built but I would have no trouble swapping a cpu at some point. Thanks for the input.

 

[CurseTheSky]

Looks pretty good, but I will second the Windows 7 / Phenom II suggestion. Those lower-end Athlons really don't cut it.

What power supply will you be using? That's one thing you really don't want to skimp out on, and the ones that come pre-installed in many cases just plain suck. There are a few exceptions (Antec cases for example), but they're not common.

 

[f4phantom2500]

i'd suggest against that RAM setup, especially if you'll be overclocking. it's generally a better idea to go with 1 pair of sticks, or 2 pairs of identical sticks (not mixing capacities). 4GB of RAM would be ideal, and i dunno about the prices in canada, but a 2x2GB set shouldn't be much more than 2x1GB set. other than that and what the other posters have said, it looks like a good rig. if you can swing it, you should try to get a Radeon 5770 or possibly a GeForce 460.

also consider the athlon ii x3 and x4 cpu's as an upgrade option.

 

[jihe]

I think this mb unlocks cores, so perhaps you should get an unlockable cpu like the athlon 5000+.

HI Guys. I’m just starting to enter the world of computer gaming thanks to SC2. I’m on a tight budget and trying to get something that will run games like sc2, wow, on decent (medium) settings. I also want to be able to upgrade indefinitely down the road when I eventually start to want more performance. Here’s what I’m looking at with an all in price of $400CAN.

AMD Athlon II 240 @ 3.36GHz
Biostar A770-E Motherboard (full atx, lots of pci slots, AMD 770/SB710)
3GB PC6400 DDR2 Ram in dual channels (2x1GB Patriot, 2x512MB Kingston)
Powercolor Hd5750 512mb GDDR5 Video Card
500GB Hard Drive (Seagate) 7200RPM SATA2
22X SATA DVD Burner
The Case is a Maxcube Vortex 36XX
Windows Vista Ultimate 64-Bit with Disk and COA.

I guess I want to know how you guys think this setup will perform, and what I may want to add/upgrade either now or in the future. Is $400 a fair price for this? Thanks!

 

[llee]

CPU - I think you have the clocks wrong. The Athlon II 240 should run at 2.8Ghz...
Mobo - Buying a smaller form factor motherboard will cut the cost while retaining 95% of the features.
RAM - Buy a 2x1GB DDR3 set instead. 4GB seems standard but 2GB will be enough for SC2 and you can always expand later.
VGA - Push for the 1GB version if you can.
HDD - Seagate is not a brand I would recommend for reliability reasons. Pick a Hitachi, Samsung, or Western Digital instead.
ODD - Skip the optical drive and just go with digital distribution instead.
Case - Never heard of it. You might want to take a look at the Antec cases. Some come bundled with power supplies and Antec PSUs aren't half bad.
OS - Go with Windows 7 instead of Vista

 

[Casual Swift]

Great responses fella's.. thanks very much. @leonlee... If I'm going to be switching out nearly everything, perhaps I would be better off just buying everything myself and putting it together? Would it be cheaper in the long run?

 

[Casual Swift]

So now I'm looking into buying a building myself. Do you guys have any recommendations of where to buy my parts from online? Keep in mind I'm in Canada. Not sure if I'm better off buying from the us or someplace local. A-comp.ca is here in Edmonton but they seem a little expensive. Once I figure out where I'm going to buy from I can layout everything I'm getting and gather your feedback on it. Thanks.

 

[BigInJapan]

http://www.ncix.com has reasonable Canadian prices.

 

[Rifter]

http://www.ncix.com has reasonable Canadian prices.

x2, i buy 90 percent of my parts from them, keep a eye on the weekly sales, there regular prices are kinda high but if you buy on sale you can get incredible deals.

 

[llee]

I would recommend building the computer yourself. But if you don't have the time or don't want the hassle, then follow most consumers with a boutique pc from OEMs

 

[Casual Swift]

Well I've got the time and like putting things together, so I think I'll do it myself. Like I said I've never done this before but I'll give it a shot, and it seems this place is a good source for information. I'll be fine...

I'm going to look around the site mentioned above, as well as tigerdirect.ca and see what kind of deals I can find. I think I know generally what I'm going to build... just a few things in questions. I think I'm settled on the Phenom II x4 955 cpu, 4GB Dual Channel DDR3, and a HD 5770 1gb VGA. Everything else is up in the air for now.

Looks like I'm gonna have to sell my Studio 17 to pay for this!