Need ~$700 gaming computer.

Need to build a $700 gamin computer. Need everything minus a Monitor, keyboard, mouse. Please offer your suggestions on what components you'd go with. Don't plan on OCing this either.

asus mobo $100- very stable but not too many OC capabilities
venice 3000+ $150
6600gt-$150
160gb hd- $90
value ram $90
fortron 400w $50
cheap case- $30
These values are just off the top of my head. For some things you should be able to find them cheaper. If you can save some money try getting an 800xl as they're cheaper than a 6800gt and at stock do just as well.

The video card is the most important component in terms of gaming performance. Don't scrimp there. You can get an 800XL for $250-ish, right? Something like that will ensure that you have enough video horsepower.

Budget should look something like:

$200-$250 video card (X800 XL?)
$150 processor (Venice 3000+)
$90 RAM (any 2x512MB value RAM)
$60-$80 HD
$70 motherboard
$50 PSU (Lower end Fortron)
$30 case (whatever doesn't suck too badly)

= $650 - $720. If it comes down to cutting a little to get to $700, I'd go with a smaller HD and get the better video card.

just curious to why no overclocking..

Xtreme Barton said:

just curious to why no overclocking..

Click to expand...

my guess would be the budget.

You can OC with a $700 budget...it's not hard, just change ckj's motherboard to a DFI one for $10 more and you can OC, add a heatsink and better ram and you got 2.7ghz right there.

I'd go with ckj's setup, it looks fine. But I'm not sure how much HDD space you actually need, you can fine some cheaper and smaller HDD for about $60 and spend the extra on a better video card if you want to game well.

Edit:
EPoX EP-9NPA+Ultra $103.00
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ $142.99
Hitachi Deskstar 7K80 80GB $52.64
Corsair 2x512MB Value Series $89.00
POWMAX CP0327PL-4 $23.99
eVGA GeForce 6800 GT $289.00

Total: $699

That should be able to OC if you save more money for better ram, like around $50 more on ram and another $30 on a heatsink, and you can get to 2.7ghz

I picked the 80GB HDD because you asked for a budget gaming, so you'll have to sacrifice space for performance. But just incase you want to spend a bit more and doubt the size, the 160GB Deskstar is only $30 more.

Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 160GB $81.00

vcstrike said:

my guess would be the budget.

Click to expand...

you can overclock even on the smallest budget ...

what if i bought an OEM cpu and then didn't have enough money to get a heatsink?

-1cem4n

Without a heatsink, you can't even turn it on without it either shutting down or burning up.

But, if you even have the stock heatsink, you can probably grab 100-250mhz on it, even with value or generic ram.

OK. First off I would like to say that a $700 "gaming computer" is very easy. You can just go an get an XP processor and nForce 2 motherboard with a good agp video card.

Now if you want something that can easily be upgraded later that is more difficult. If you do not plan on upgrading for a long time then I would say go with the setups listed above.

If it were me I would go with a cheaper video card that can play the games you want now and get good a good processor and ram now. Performance from upgrading the processor in the future will be minimal, and a 6600GT can play most games with a nice level of detail for a low price. This allows you to upgrade later to say a 7800GTX for only a loss of $150. Plus it is almost certain that future improvements in games and even windows will require powerful video cards, so the 6800 will probably have to upgraded shortly after the 6600 would. This would mean you would only get a few months, maybe 7 or 8 (this is all my own opinion) out of your extra $100-$150 plus you still have a lower grade processor and memory.

So in the end I recommend you save you money and spend something like a thousand.
This will allow you to get a better power supply, better memory, better processor and better video card. Also all of those prices did not include the miscelaneous stuff like DVD/CD drive, floppy, and fans for the crappy case that doesnt come with them.

darksparkz said:

You can OC with a $700 budget...it's not hard, just change ckj's motherboard to a DFI one for $10 more and you can OC, add a heatsink and better ram and you got 2.7ghz right there.

I'd go with ckj's setup, it looks fine. But I'm not sure how much HDD space you actually need, you can fine some cheaper and smaller HDD for about $60 and spend the extra on a better video card if you want to game well.

Edit:
EPoX EP-9NPA+Ultra $103.00
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ $142.99
Hitachi Deskstar 7K80 80GB $52.64
Corsair 2x512MB Value Series $89.00
POWMAX CP0327PL-4 $23.99
eVGA GeForce 6800 GT $289.00

Total: $699

That should be able to OC if you save more money for better ram, like around $50 more on ram and another $30 on a heatsink, and you can get to 2.7ghz

I picked the 80GB HDD because you asked for a budget gaming, so you'll have to sacrifice space for performance. But just incase you want to spend a bit more and doubt the size, the 160GB Deskstar is only $30 more.

Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 160GB $81.00

Click to expand...

for the price i like that case just need newegg to ship to the uk lol

does anyone know a good cheap-ish site that would ship to the uk? sorry for asking in the thread people can pm me not to disturb it

My rule of thumb like so many others said is you want to spend twice as much on your video card as you do on your CPU.

$150 AMD 3000+
Happy with 6800GT (not to much more)

One thing to consider to is, you don't want a $24 "POWMAX" PSU, PSUs casue so many problems. Honestly, you want to get qualtiy ram, motherboards, and PSUs, cause they cause so many damn problems. Right now ive got a low end board that won't support the new 6 series P4s, what a nightmare.


PS. if you have an old computer lying around consider using some of those parts; most notably the cd drive and the Hard drive. Also you might want to consider using the memory if its ddr333 or higher, i know I will get slammed for that but ddr400 isn't that much faster. Hell you might even be able to use there PSU if its got P4 support.

salty.dog said:

The video card is the most important component in terms of gaming performance. Don't scrimp there. You can get an 800XL for $250-ish, right? Something like that will ensure that you have enough video horsepower.

Budget should look something like:

$200-$250 video card (X800 XL?)
$150 processor (Venice 3000+)
$90 RAM (any 2x512MB value RAM)
$60-$80 HD
$70 motherboard
$50 PSU (Lower end Fortron)
$30 case (whatever doesn't suck too badly)

= $650 - $720. If it comes down to cutting a little to get to $700, I'd go with a smaller HD and get the better video card.

Click to expand...

sounds like a good pc. but why do you have to have a $700.00 pc.

Budget obviously, I had the same budget for my system about 6 months back and I did fine. Only mistake was not getting a good psu which i rectified later. I think what darksparkz and I outlined was fine and if he's still overbudget I think an ASUSrock motherboard is $70, but he should be okay.

I also had a budget, slightly higher, but i also have done fine.

Ohhhh, I knew I was missing something.

I guess you'll have to add in a Forton 400W for $50, that means cut down on the video card to a 6600GT and upgrade HDD back up to 160GB.

go for the xfx 6800 for $209.

-1cem4n

Sorry I haven’t come back to this post, been busy.

I will need to purchase 18-20 of these computers, which is why the budget of around $700 dollars. I didn’t know how the 6600 cards would handle the FPS games. I assume they will be fine as I have been to many centers with far inferior cards that are doing fine. I won’t be purchasing until around the first of the year so maybe prices will be slightly less or I can grab some good deals here and there.

first of the year? wait until december and then ask about prices, it's worthless to try to spec it out now.

I had a $400 budget and i did fine! Cannabilizing old computers=gud