The $275 gaming rig pulls 6277 3dmark05s

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v8envy

Platinum Member
Sep 7, 2002
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edit: ack, hit post too quickly. Anyway, the details for the interested:

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=1971393

First run on the box, nothing optimized, nothing overclocked.

The rig itself:

Compaq SR1710NX, $125 (all rebates received)
Sempron 3400+ socket 939
4 sticks of 3-3-3-10 PC2700 free-after-rebate ram, from around 2002 and 2003. Total of 1G
Delta 250 watt PS (14 amps on 12v rail)
Lite-on DVD CDRW combo drive
ATI X850XT PE retail, $150 from Microcenter

Grand total invested: $275 + tax on $600.

Consider me a happy camper. This $300 box will probably be e-bayable for around the same or more this fall, when I intend to move up to something much much more beefy.

It would have been nice to try this with the X1800GTO I ordered from newegg, but I chickened out on that card. The vendor still claims 16 pipes, box says 16 pipes, people report 12. That doesn't bode well for rebate getting.

 
RussianSensation

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
765
126
Link? 7900GT stock costs $300 and it gets like 7500 points. How did you get 1 gig, motherboard, 3000+ cpu and a graphics card fo that level for $275?

EDIT: nice.
 
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dfloyd

Senior member
Nov 7, 2000
978
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You sure there were no other purchased to be able to get some of those parts like the free after rebate memory? It would appear you could get something like that, but only if you purchased something else first to get that. Never seen free memory, after rebate or not. You would of had to of purchased a motherboard/cpu combo or something of the such first, at least from what I have seen.

If you did though you should of posted it on hot deals here.
 
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xtknight

Elite Member
Oct 15, 2004
12,974
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Originally posted by: cdmccool
I'm really surprised you're able to run that video card on a 250W power supply.
Click to expand...

Truth is, it's probably just fine even under max load.
 
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buzzsaw13

Diamond Member
Apr 30, 2004
3,814
0
76
Very nice, I was getting similar scores on my old rig with an X800GTO with 2gbs of ram and 3800+ Newcastle.
 
Powermoloch

Powermoloch

Lifer
Jul 5, 2005
10,084
4
76
dayummm....

nice man, I wish I can spend that much . Almost the same specs (3100+)..though, I added more stuff later on. Which later became 1400+...
 
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v8envy

Platinum Member
Sep 7, 2002
2,720
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Ok, just back from playing Oblivion. Lemme answer some questions.

The SR1710NX was/is an entire compaq PC, currently sold at Office Depot, Office Max, CompUSA, Best Buy. There are occasional deals on this box, $125 though $180, depending on whether it has a monitor or printer or what not. Regular price appears to be about $310:

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=335974&pfp=BROWSE

There were some really amazing free-after-rebate RAM deals back in 2002 and 2003. I bought two batches of two sticks apiece. Turns out they were 512s, and I've really got 2 gigs! Woot. Sandra benchmarks are awful compared to the reference numbers they have for this same chipset, but I'm not going to lose sleep over 10% memory bandwidth.

I don't have my rebate forms, but yes, I'm positive the RAM was absolutely $0 AR both times the deal came through. The deals were at Office Depot, and Best Buy(?)

Remember, this is PC2700. Not real popular stuff, even in 2002.

The power supply is nowhere near max capacity. Remember this is an OEM Delta power supply with 14 amps on the 12 volt rail. And the only other thing it's worrying about is a non-overclocked sempron. Anyway, the delta PS has better stats than some questionable '400 watt' power supplies. I've been running Oblivion for hours non-stop, and the PS is remaining cool to the touch. The air being blown out is definitely cooler than the output of my antec 350 watt sitting next to it. I'll trust this 250 watt Delta over a '500 watt' Ultra any day. I suppose I could have picked up the FAR 500 watt Delta at Radio Shack as insurance, but meh.

Total power draw of the components in my system should peak under 200 watts, at any rate.

We'll see how reliable it remains over the long term, but for now this is definitely a $275 gaming rig, now with 6307 3dmarks thanks to Omega drivers. =)



 
K

kmmatney

Diamond Member
Jun 19, 2000
4,363
1
81
My system was designed for budget gaming as well. I can't quite get X850XT PE speed with my video card, but it does X850XT speeds very easily.

Are there overclocking options with your motherboard? You'll see a large improvement if you can get the cpu speed up to 2.4 GHz. If you follow the speed ratings, a 256 KB cache Sempron at 2.4 GHz would be a 4000+. About the same general performace as an Athlon 64 3700+ (faster for cpu intesnsive tasks).
 
Sonikku

Sonikku

Lifer
Jun 23, 2005
15,745
4,563
136
Cool beans. It'd be even cooler if 3D Mark scores translated into actual gaming performance.
 
C

ciproxr

Senior member
Mar 26, 2005
770
0
0
this sounds awesome but warent u afraid of compatibility issues with the Compaq SR1710NX ? i mean sometimes those computers dont come with pci-e or agp slots and if they do the drivers for those cheap boards are so bad its rediculess, i mean i have a msi rs480m2 motherboard which wasent cheap and i still ran into compatibility issues with nvidia cards.....but i think its awesome u were able to pull that off.
 
H

hans007

Lifer
Feb 1, 2000
20,212
17
81
Originally posted by: ciproxr
this sounds awesome but warent u afraid of compatibility issues with the Compaq SR1710NX ? i mean sometimes those computers dont come with pci-e or agp slots and if they do the drivers for those cheap boards are so bad its rediculess, i mean i have a msi rs480m2 motherboard which wasent cheap and i still ran into compatibility issues with nvidia cards.....but i think its awesome u were able to pull that off.
Click to expand...

well this isnt really all that amazing since you used the $99 insane hot deal that almost no one who wasnt some bastard who prebought the system or bugged a manager to let them get it at the sold out price got it for.


that said, most of the compaq intergrated video pcs use a rs480/rs482 board from msi / asus and some of the really el cheapo ones us a via savage chipset (which is agp btw).

the compaq is a pretty good machine and it also upgradeable to any 939 chip since it uses those weird 939 semprons . i pretty much consider that $99 deal the deal of the year.

there are a few 7600 GT cards in the $170 after rebates range now, so you could get an even higher score for same price with that.

also the 250 watt power supply in the new machines is ATX 2.0 complaint. the ATX 2.0 spec states that 250 watt must still have dual 12v rails wth 22 amps total minimum. so that 250 watt in the compaq is probably still better than a good number of 400 watt atx 1.3 power supplies which is the reason it can easily run that card. it probably would even be able to run a 7900gt.
 
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v8envy

Platinum Member
Sep 7, 2002
2,720
0
0

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=385&card2=56

That strongly implies I wouldn't get anywhere near as good of a 3dmark score with a 7600GT. Tried a bit of overclocking as well. 600/600 was artifact-free, and remained reasonably cool. But I decided not to chance it with my PSU.

The BIOS on this asus board is compaq-locked, and thus absolutely NO overclocking is possible. I put 2 sticks of OCZ 2.0-3-2-5 ram into this bad boy, and it made absolutely zero difference. 2G of crap ram went back in. The 3400+ sempron is plenty for gaming, it benchmarks the same as a 3000+. Yeah, it's not very compatible, but if you select the right components (read: new vid cards from ati or nv are a gamble) you can get them to be stable.

Interesting re: the ATX 2.0 PSU. I know it's ATX 2.0 because of the connectors, but I think it doesn't conform to spec re: 22 amps total on the 12v rail. The label on the PSU clearly states 14 amps. Maybe I'll do a bit of research in this department.

Oh, and this box was available for $99? Ah damn, missed the low by $25. I'd have hit a $250 price target that way, which would be even MORE amazing. When I got it, there were quite a few left over in all the local stores.
 
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