Budget Gamer?

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Godzilla Pimp

My nephew wants one (personally, I'd make the little twerp work for it).
I've built about 15 AMD PCs (overclocked nearly all of them!) but never a
real gamer. What would you recommend for under $1,000 monitor included?
Newegg is my preferred source. I think it would be good if I made him
assemble it as a learning thing. Thanks.
 
Dell XPS?Maybe. Last I saw they had one model for $999.
But,I do like the AMD64 even without 64 bit software.
AMD is close to another Socket change,so be aware of that too for later
upgrades. The Nforce4 motherboards are my pick. Good power supply is a must.
 
If you've built that many systems, you may not need these, but...

This may be a bit dated (3 months old), but see:

http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/MVGSBG/article.php/10708_3569696__1

I'm a little dubious about the Aspire case, mainly because I think that the
PSU is of the older 20 pin type. (It's also a tarted-up gaming case, which
might be a lot better for a 15 year old than for a middle aged guy like me.)

The Asus A8R-MVP looks like a pretty fair bargain, if you're willing to
consider an ATI chipset rather than the nForce 4.

Here's another system:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1825477,00.asp

but it's rather more expensive (> $1600, in October 2005). The cost can be
trimmed a bit: a 3500+ Venice CPU is now $201 at newegg, and a PCI-Express
6600GT is listed for as little as $100. A Radeon X1600Pro would be about the
same. With these cuts, the total would still come in over $1000, but not by
much.

My own system uses a dual-core 4400+, which isn't a starting point for a
$1000 system.


Address scrambled. Replace nkbob with bobkn.
 
My nephew wants one (personally, I'd make the little twerp work for it).
I've built about 15 AMD PCs (overclocked nearly all of them!) but never a
real gamer. What would you recommend for under $1,000 monitor included?
Newegg is my preferred source. I think it would be good if I made him
assemble it as a learning thing. Thanks.
Click to expand...
I had good luck with the following:

MSI k8n neoforce3 board, about $55
Athlon 64 3000+, about $120
Corsair value select RAM 2x512, about $80
ATI radeon 9600, 128mb (All in Wonder), about $100

This system seems to run newer games just fine. On your budget it
would leave plenty of money for a really nice monitor that the kid can
continue to use when he upgrades. If I were making a pure gaming
machine, I would go with a radeon 9800pro, and I suppose on your
budget go up to a 3200+ CPU @ $160. I don't know about nf4, the big
thing seems to be faster ethernet. There isn't much price difference.
I stuck with nf3 because I figure they will have all the bugs out of
it by now.

Charlie
 
I just built a pretty good basic gamer for $860 .. including LCD
monitor. Based it on the GA-k8ns .. AMD Athlon 64 3000+
with 1 gig ddr400 .. and Viewsonic LCD analog monitor. The
graphics in Far Cry looked very good. Video card was ATI
9600XT. DVD was Sony ( naturally .. NEC is noisy ), and
a floppy ... all black to match the Antec SLK 1650B case.
Price it out at Mwave.com. See for yourself. Do over, I would
opt for the 9800 Pro ... which is below $100 now. Get the
mobo bundle for warranty reasons.

johns
 
my vote is against 9600XT

its a great graphicscard but for todays games it lacks too much
performance i think.

i use a sapphire 9600XT (stock-OCed) and build a new system recently
with a 7800GT because of its performance.

i really think it would be better to get at least a x850/x800
graphicscard for ~200$ when you can afford it any way. 9600XT will be
heavily outdated soon.

for modern games graphicscards are a big factor.
 
The 9600 is really long in the tooth for modern games. Only four pixel
pipelines. Not only that, AGP is on the way out and it is silly to build a
new machine with old technology.

Here is what I would build

Foxconn MicroATX Case $40
MSI or ASUS nForce 410 motherboard $70
Athlon 64 3200+ $170
1GB (2x512) Ram $80
160 GB Seagate SATA $90
DVDRW drive $45
Radeon X1600Pro 256MB $120
XP Home $100
17" 8ms LCD $220
Speakers $50

Total $985

All prices from newegg approximate including shipping.
 
Stay away from the ATI9600 or NvidiaFX 5900. For a little more than $100 the
nvidia 6600GT or a bit more the 6800(can sometimes be turned into 6800GT) is
the least you'll need for newer games.You can't skimp on viseo even in a
"budget" gaming rig.
 
Flame me, blame me, call me names - but I don't think you need to spend
US$1000 nowadays for a decent gaming rig.

Just try this configuration:

http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20051014/index.html

but get at least 1 GB of RAM and possibly a more powerful PSU. Add a
decent TFT monitor (8 ms) for about $200-$250 and you're totalling under
$800.

The above mentioned article also explains the choices made quite well.

Andrei
 
Charlie said:
I had good luck with the following:

MSI k8n neoforce3 board, about $55
Athlon 64 3000+, about $120
Corsair value select RAM 2x512, about $80
ATI radeon 9600, 128mb (All in Wonder), about $100

This system seems to run newer games just fine. On your budget it
would leave plenty of money for a really nice monitor that the kid can
continue to use when he upgrades. If I were making a pure gaming
machine, I would go with a radeon 9800pro, and I suppose on your
budget go up to a 3200+ CPU @ $160. I don't know about nf4, the big
thing seems to be faster ethernet. There isn't much price difference.
I stuck with nf3 because I figure they will have all the bugs out of
it by now.

Charlie
Click to expand...

why would anyone take you halfbaked ****wit advise after what you poasted
above about the AIW9600?
 
why would anyone take you halfbaked ****wit advise after what you poasted
above about the AIW9600?
Click to expand...

???

What's the problem here, sbb? Did your boyfriend bring home a
venereal disease? Are you all cranky because you got amoebas swimming
around in your rectum? Share it with the group and maybe someone can
help.

Charlie
 
Charlie said:
???

What's the problem here, sbb? Did your boyfriend bring home a
venereal disease? Are you all cranky because you got amoebas swimming
around in your rectum? Share it with the group and maybe someone can
help.

Charlie
Click to expand...

oh my a gay lame! is that the best you can do??

outdated hardware is never a soulution it just leads to frustration. just
like your wife told me.
 
He got the case (real sick) w 400 watt PSU and a Samsung 19" LCD.

So how about this from newegg?

eVGA 256-P2-N516 Geforce 7800GT CO SE 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 VIVO PCI Express
x16 Video Card - Retail $265

EPoX EP-9NPA3ULTRA Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard -
Retail $85

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 1GHz HT Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3200BPBOX -
Retail $159

Western Digital Raptor WD740GD 74GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive -
OEM $130

LG Black IDE 16X DVD±R DVD Burner With 5X DVD-RAM Write Model GSA-4167B BK -
OEM $36.99

G.SKILL 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual
Channel Kit System Memory Model F1-3200PHU2-1GBNS - Retail $66.20
---------------------------

Not exactly "budget" anymore tho. It should overclock quite a bit. Of
course, he could save by dropping down to a 7200 drive, 512MBs RAM and a DVD
drive without a burner and the Athlon 64 3000+ (which should really
overclock) and maybe the XFX PVT42EUDE3 Geforce 6800 XTreme 256MB GDDR3 PCI
Express x16 Video Card - Retail for only $104, but I guess it's considered
kinda obsolete.
 
Godzilla Pimp said:
He got the case (real sick) w 400 watt PSU and a Samsung 19" LCD.

So how about this from newegg?

eVGA 256-P2-N516 Geforce 7800GT CO SE 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 VIVO PCI Express
x16 Video Card - Retail $265

EPoX EP-9NPA3ULTRA Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard -
Retail $85

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 1GHz HT Socket 939 Processor Model
ADA3200BPBOX - Retail $159

Western Digital Raptor WD740GD 74GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive -
OEM $130

LG Black IDE 16X DVD±R DVD Burner With 5X DVD-RAM Write Model GSA-4167B
BK - OEM $36.99

G.SKILL 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered
Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model F1-3200PHU2-1GBNS - Retail $66.20
---------------------------

Not exactly "budget" anymore tho. It should overclock quite a bit. Of
course, he could save by dropping down to a 7200 drive, 512MBs RAM and a
DVD drive without a burner and the Athlon 64 3000+ (which should really
overclock) and maybe the XFX PVT42EUDE3 Geforce 6800 XTreme 256MB GDDR3
PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail for only $104, but I guess it's
considered kinda obsolete.
Click to expand...

OK, nixing the 10K hard drive is a no-brainer. 74GB is puny by today's
standards, unless he has another leftover hard drive that is much larger
that he intends to ALSO install. But if he's going to recycle an older hard
drive for more storage space, then he's still wasting money by buying the
74GB drive when smaller 10K drives are less expensive.

But the glaring errors in this rig are the no-name power supply and no-name
RAM. He's asking for trouble. Plus, the selected video card is going to
overwhelm the selected CPU. I'd suggest going with the Geforce 6800, as it
is better matched to the CPU. Use the money saved to get a Seasonic or OCZ
brand power supply of about 400W or better (make sure it has a PCI-Express
cable), and ditch the generic RAM in favor of something by OCZ or Kingston
or Geil. Oh, and forget about downgrading to 512MB of RAM. Keep it at 1Gig
or higher, but get some DECENT memory, or you will wish you had. -Dave
 
OK, nixing the 10K hard drive is a no-brainer. 74GB is puny by today's
standards, unless he has another leftover hard drive that is much larger
that he intends to ALSO install. But if he's going to recycle an older hard
drive for more storage space, then he's still wasting money by buying the
74GB drive when smaller 10K drives are less expensive.

But the glaring errors in this rig are the no-name power supply and no-name
Click to expand...

Amen. A good PSU provides good voltage control.
RAM. He's asking for trouble. Plus, the selected video card is going to
overwhelm the selected CPU. I'd suggest going with the Geforce 6800, as it
is better matched to the CPU. Use the money saved to get a Seasonic or OCZ
brand power supply of about 400W or better (make sure it has a PCI-Express
cable), and ditch the generic RAM in favor of something by OCZ or Kingston
or Geil. Oh, and forget about downgrading to 512MB of RAM. Keep it at 1Gig
or higher, but get some DECENT memory, or you will wish you had. -Dave
Click to expand...
I thought Tweek got it about right except for the cheap case and the
expensive speakers. Minus those items he suggested the following:

MSI or ASUS nForce 410 motherboard $70
Athlon 64 3200+ $170
1GB (2x512) Ram $80
160 GB Seagate SATA $90
DVDRW drive $45
Radeon X1600Pro 256MB $120
XP Home $100
17" 8ms LCD $220

I went with the Athlon 64 3000+ at $120 and it does indeed overclock.
I got corsair value select RAM and it seems ok. I put heat sinks on
it and stepped up the voltage a bit, got just a shade more
performance, and haven't had any problems.

My only mistake was skimping on the video card... as has been pointed
out to me. I just ordered a better one (9800 pro). But I agree that
a PCI-E board/card is a better recommendation than my AGP setup,
especially with the miniscule price difference.

I went slumming on ebay and got a decent LCD monitor for $120, but it
is only 15"

Charlie
 
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