where can I find a decent gaming pc for about 600.00

[aznsurfer]

Hi guys,

I am buying a PC for my little brother. I told him I can give him a budget of 600.00 bucks for a system not including a monitor or video card.

Can you get a good beginner gamer system for about 600.00? Like a barebones P4 or AMD with 512 RAM and no vid card?

He already has a monitor but could save for a vid card to add on later.

any help appreciated.

 

[StraightPipe]

how can you build a decent gaming rig w/ no vid card?

it really depends on what he wants to play, youmight be able to do it (adding vid card later), but there are plenty of games these days that will run on 512, but w/ 1gig you'll get much quicker load times. .

I gues you could dell it, get their cheapest P4 rig w/ 2x256RAM DDR(dual channel) w/ no monitor and no extras, go check them out and customize it.

wait you said budget, you better stick with AMD.

 

[dexvx]

Wait for a Dell deal. last one was a 400SC 3.2Ghz system:

i875P board
3.2Ghz /800FSB proc
128MB DDR333 <--- add DC DDR400
ATI Rage PCI <---- add in an AGP
40GB / 7200 rpm
48X CD

barebones for $548 shipped.

 

[imported_Phil]

Get a half-decent motherboard like an ABit NF7 with a 2200/2400 AMD Athlon CPU. Add 1 stick of 512Mb PC2700 DDR (dual channel really won't noticeably help all that much), you can always add another later.

HSF comes with the CPU, and the motherboard will really help if he wants to upgrade sometime. Anyway. Maxtor/Western Digital 60-80Gb HD, on-board sound should be okay. Add a floppy drive an an average CDRW drive. Case + PSU = not much, and there's an average gaming rig, after you've chosen a good video card. Realistically, a Radeon 9600 Pro is a pretty good bet, a 9700 or 9800 really is overkill unless you run insane resolutions or run games with AA/AF turned right up. Plus, they're good value.

The rig won't set the world on fire, but unless he's an uber-1337 xtreme-to-the-max gaming whore, he'll probably be satisfied for a fair while.

Hope this helps!

Dopefiend