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Budget Gaming PC Thread v2 - Post your builds to help other players!


Wreckcenter

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I was wondering whatever happened to Barbara Mandrell... ;)

 

What I would like to find is a good budget i7 build. I figure if I am going to go up it should be to the i7 so it will last me a few years. My 6700 has done a good job the last 4 years, so good results.

 

I found and Intel MOBO, i7 CPU and 8GB memory at Newegg for $370, so it is getting close to my price point where I upgrade. I have a good Liang case with plenty of fans, a good 750W PSU and a blu-ray DVD, so I figure I would just replace the heart of it. Optional would be an SSD drive and of course the customary video card upgrade. I change HDs and video cards as needed, so to me the system upgrade is the MOBO-CPU-MEM set.

 

At the price of memory I might just go 16MB and get it over with.

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I bought my computer November last year during a "black friday" sale on http://cyberpowerpc.com.

 

i-5 2500k 3.30Ghz 6M Intel processor

Nvidia GeForce GTX550Ti 1GB video card

16GB DDR3/1600Mhz RAM

500GB SATA-II 16MB cache 72000RPM hard drive

24x DVD+/-RW

Liquid cooling

Windows 7 home os

$870 after taxes

Edited by Quiet
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Two things I would insist as the bare minimum on a build would be:

Intel i5-2500K

Nvidia Geforce GTX560Ti

Both these items are available, (in the UK,) anywhere between £130 upwards and both are very easily overclocked. A good motherboard is the Gigabyte Z68 AP-D3 which can be picked up around the £75 mark.

As others have said, RAM is dirt cheap so fill your boots. What's not cheap are hard-drives so it might be better seeing if you can live with an older one you possess or buying a smaller size drive until prices drop. DVD drives are are well under £20 for the basic model and you can get change from £20 for a case too, however, I'm a true believer that if you are building a new computer then it's nice to show it off via the case.

 

Just going back to the graphics card, I've always gone with Nvidia so my knowledge of Radeon is limited.

Scan.co.uk is where I shop and they have one day deals but my only gripe with them is if you live in the Highlands of Scotland, they charge you £40 delivery charge for a complete computer as they don't consider it's classed as mainland UK :mad:

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UK POSTER!!!!

 

I use Acer 5750G:

 

Intel I5 2430m 2.4 - 3 GHz turbo

6GB RAM

1TB HDD

Nvidia 520m 1GB VRAM

Windows 7 64bit

External Mouse

 

i use this but i plug a HDMI cable in and plug it straight into my SMART 3D LED TV.

 

i run graphics on medium to high and it runs well, without bloom and conversation thing off.

 

The card is not very gd but it is okay for a laptop, and besides all this it cost me £499 from comet, which is great.

 

I love the laptop, with the game running it only use 30% RAM, when the normal usage when it isnt running is 20%, also CPU when the is running is only at 40% at the most. The only problem i have personally found with it is it gets really hot, so to quell this problem i purchased a belkin Lappad which has a fan built in so it cools the laptop down and is brilliant.

 

If your looking an ergonomically cheap option with serious performance and speed for minimum pricetag, this is the one. Especially if you dont know or have the time like me to build a pc as i have a 8am to 6 pm job.

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Two things I would insist as the bare minimum on a build would be:

Intel i5-2500K

Nvidia Geforce GTX560Ti

Both these items are available, (in the UK,) anywhere between £130 upwards and both are very easily overclocked. A good motherboard is the Gigabyte Z68 AP-D3 which can be picked up around the £75 mark.

As others have said, RAM is dirt cheap so fill your boots. What's not cheap are hard-drives so it might be better seeing if you can live with an older one you possess or buying a smaller size drive until prices drop. DVD drives are are well under £20 for the basic model and you can get change from £20 for a case too, however, I'm a true believer that if you are building a new computer then it's nice to show it off via the case.

 

Just going back to the graphics card, I've always gone with Nvidia so my knowledge of Radeon is limited.

Scan.co.uk is where I shop and they have one day deals but my only gripe with them is if you live in the Highlands of Scotland, they charge you £40 delivery charge for a complete computer as they don't consider it's classed as mainland UK :mad:

 

A i3 2120 with a 6850 video card is pleanty and together $200 US cheaper will play anything out.

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Got this from Falcon Northwestern

 

 

 

 

 

Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601)

Processor: Intel® Core i7-3930K CPU @ 3.20GHz (12 CPUs), ~3.2GHz

Memory: 16384MB RAM

Available OS Memory: 16362MB RAM

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I think the reason I'd go for the Intel i5-2500K and Nvidia gtx 560 Ti is that in a years time they are still going to be good enough to run practically anything new especially with the potential to overclock the processor from 3.3 Ghz to 4.5Ghz without putting any real stress on the system
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  • 3 weeks later...

***Disclaimer*** Purely for entertainment purposes. ***Disclaimer***

 

So...I loaded SWTOR on my old emachines T5086.

 

MoBo - Gateway / eMachines Coryville 2 Motherboard 4006173R

 

Support for Intel® LGA775 processors

Supports Intel® Core™2 Duo, Pentium® D, Celeron® D and P4 processors

Supports system bus speeds of 1066, 800, or 533 MHz

Two DIMM slots support for DDR2 667, DDR2 533, or DDR2 400 MHz modules

 

Processor - Intel Pentium 4 631 3.0 ghz socket 775

Ram - 4GB OCZ PC2 6400 (3 GB usable cause of the Processor and 32 bit OS)

Video - Nvidia Geforce 9600 GT 512MB

OS - Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit

 

Internet - Paying for a 25 meg connection and getting around 20.75 megs

 

The game runs and i can get around and fight and so on...would be very unpleasant to play like this for any length of time. Game performance is still better than I expected for this system. Just entertainment here folks.

 

I think if I took out the video card the PC would then be able to use all 4GB of ram. 32 bit OS is what stops me from using all 4GB of ram plus a video card. Cannot install the 64 bit version cause of the single core processor.

 

Here is the question.

 

Would it be worth getting something like a Pentium Dual Core around the same clock speed to double my processor power and get that last gig of ram to play nice?

 

I am also interested to know if any of you play the game on a dual core processor and what your rig's specs are as well as your impressions of how it runs on your system.

 

Thanks for any and all input on this topic. Please keep it professional here, I am just entertaining the notion of upgrading that system. I actually play on an asus g-74 with a core i-7, 12GB ram, gtx 560m 3GB card with everything turned up

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these are the specs of my kids computer:

 

Intel Core Quad CPU Q6600@2.4Ghz

Motherboard: Dell Inc OTP406

RAM: 4Gig 1333Mhz

Card: Nvidia Geforce GTS 450

HDD: Samsung 500Gb

OS: Win 7 32bit SP1

 

It runs SW on medium settings with shadows off and an average 40 FPS on Imp Fleet. If running FP's with them They'll have a couple of second delay behind me going into cutscenes but nothing game breaking.

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  • 1 year later...

I got almost all my gear from Newegg.com and prices are as of this date, May 7th, 2013

 

Intel Core i5-3470 Ivy Bridge 3.2GHz (3.6GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor $199 (paid more when I bought it)

GIGABYTE GA-H77-DS3H LGA 1155 Intel H77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard $99 (paid more at the time)

CORSAIR XMS3 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 Desktop Memory Model CMX16GX3M4A1333C9 $124 (bought on sale for $105)

EVGA SSC 02G-P4-3653-KR GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP $179 (paid $159 on sale)

SAMSUNG T22B350ND Rose Black 21.5" 5ms HDMI Widescreen LED Backlight LCD Monitor $189 Costco

Logitech Wireless Combo MK260 920-002950 Black 8 Hot Keys USB RF Wireless Standard Keyboard and Mouse $29

Logitech ClearChat Comfort USB Supra-aural Headset $39

SeSeagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3500418AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - no longer made, don't remember how much I paid. Holdover from my old rig.

Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive - OEM $99 (paid $89 on sale)

 

$957 if you don't get anything on sale. Power core was a hold over from my last rig too, but it is more than powerful enough for the gear I have. Funny to put it in perspective, parting it out and replacing old stuff over time I really didn't give my system much credit for what it can do. Anything more powerful wouldn't be perceived by these old eyes.

Edited by Thylbanus
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A Good investment is to use for Solid state drives for your operating system and swap drive space and just have normal hardrives for storage, you will be surprised how much this can speed things up as the standard SATA hard drive is usually the slowest part internally Of the PC. I have a 60GB SSD for my C drive for the OS space another 30Gb used just as the swap (Page file) drive. And JM micron mirrored disk which gives 1TB space between 2 physical drives, basically just for storage.

 

Also for network games such as SWTOR don't forgot to have a good GB enabled router which is at least N600 (Duel band pref use 5GHZ only to reduce interference if big range not required) if you want to go wireless. Use Quality of service settings if you have them on your router to give your gaming PC a higher priority if there are quite a few devices on your network at the same time all accessing the internet.

 

My system is not up to date by any means but it handles the game fine.

 

Base level Intel I7 3.2gHZ

ASUS PT6 motherboard with JM Mircon and RAID

6GB DDR2 RAM (3 x 2GB Sticks)

GB enabled NIC card

2 corsair solid state drives for the OS and virtual memory space

WD cavier green 500GB hard drives mirrored using the JM micron controller super speed function

Windows 7 64 bit

 

The graphics card is the actually the oldest' 'out of date' part of my system at the moment as does need a upgrade for DX11 but for now it still plays the SWTOR game fine

 

ATI radeon HD3750 512MB (PCIe 2) (This is quite a few years old now)

 

Like someone else is mentioned don't forget to get a decent PSU corsair again are pretty reliable and do good modular PSU's which can save cable space aswell. This part often gets overlooked by people building their own PC' but especially if you want to overclock its is an essential to get a good one, efficiency needs to be 80 plus rated. The PSU's you tend to get with pre build PC's are poor imports from China that have poor level of efficiency and hence burn more electric and more prone to fail.

 

:)

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My crappy specs:

AMD athlon II x2 250 (3.0ghz)

8gb DDR2 (800mhz)

Geforce gt220 1gb GDDR 3

Motherboard Asus m4a785-m pro

 

Building a new one as we speak though. Parts have been ordered

With my crappy specs, the game runs fine on medium though.

Edited by tgokovenant
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