Post by Nostra1 on Feb 28, 2007 21:12:10 GMT 1
It's been awhile since I looked at components for a PC build but with recent drop in dual core PC's I wanted to see what sort of dual core game PC could be built on a budget without sacrificing quality.
The example is just one possible build scenario and low cost will be the prime focus so no real expensive parts on the build. I will however, try to see what sort of quality level computer can be built from low end casual gamer budget rig to a more moderate mid range rig. What is funny is the mid range rig example would have been a high end gamer rig just 6 months ago. Both AMD and Intel systems will be considered. Both rigs will have to be able to run Oblivion in a decent manner (mid to high settings on a standard 17" LCD screen).Prices may change as time goes on so this is just a scenario for the present date (Feb 2007). To keep things simple I will use Egghead as the source for most of the parts (cept possibly aftermarket coolers)
Case:
Rosewill R6AU6 BK ATX mid tower. $50
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811147043
Nice cheap case with good design layout. 120mm fan mounts in front and back, good HDD drive mount layout so airflow is not restricted. Side vent for good air cooling and can mount a side fan if you want later. And for the moment its free shipping (which for a case can be very expensive) in the US. This is a basic vanilla case but it is well designed for the price IMO. You can buy cheaper cases but may sacrifice quality in the end.
Alternative possibility is Coolermaster's Centurion 524 (I like CM just because I built my wife's PC using one of their Centurion series cases). Similar price and is more popular than the Rosewill (just a more popular brand name) but no free shipping at this time.
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811119106
Finally if you rather just go buy your case than have it shipped, then right now, Best Buy is having a sale on the Antec P180 ATX cases. This is one of the most popular cases around. Excellent interior layout. It is an aluminum case rather than steel. BB is selling it for $80 at this time (it used to sell for near $200 a few months back). At least you don't have to pay shipping costs. It is a much larger case than the above two but the aluminum should make it lightweight.
www.bestbuy.com/site//olspage.jsp?id=pcmcat107700050046&type=category
CPU/Mobo combo
Budget:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600 Brisbane 1.9Ghz socket AM2 (65nm) OEM:
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103036
One of the new 65nm Brisbane cores from AMD. A bit low speed and only 512kb on L2 cache (though most X2 chips are the same L2 cache) but dual core. Really cheap. Overclocks well and because its the new 65nm design, should run cooler than the older 90nm counterparts. A nice chip IMO. Overclock it to 2.4 Ghz (250Mhz core freq) or so and get fast X2 4600+ performance without any problem.
Biostar TForce 550 socket AM2 ATX motherboard:
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813138026
One of Biostar's TForce series that has good reputation. Not SLI but this is again a budget build. Good layout. Has all the features of the Nforce550 chipset (SATA 3G, single IDE/PATA, 1000Mhz HTT, gigabyte LAN, 4Gig of DDR2 800). BIOS is good and can overclock well. A no frills decent board.
Combo price: $150
Note: If this is not for gaming but for casual computing (ie web surfing etc), you may want to get one of the other combo deals offered that gives a micro-ATX motherboard having on-board graphics and the same CPU. That way you can save money by not getting a video card. The 6100 on board video is about the same performance as a GeForce 5500 dedicated vid card)
Mid Range:
Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 Allendale 1.8Ghz socket LGA 775: $170
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819115013
This is one of Intel's new C2D processors but it is an Allendale core and not a Conroe which means it only has 2Mb L2 cache instead of 4 and 800Mhz fsb instead of 1066Mhz. However, it has a higher multiplier so it is easier to overclock than the low end Conroe cores. People have overclocked this thing to outrageous speeds (3Ghz+ making it faster than a $1000 Core2Duo Extreme Edition's stock speed). It is dirt cheap for such a capable processor. Stock speed is about the same as a AMD X2 4400 or high end Pentium D chip so if you don't want to overclock, you can still get decent speeds.
Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 LGA 775 ATX motherboard: $108
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813128017
One of the more popular budget mobos for a Core2Duo build. Decent Intel 965P chipset. Not SLI but again this is to keep budgets down. Can support Quad core if you want to upgrade. Can take up to 8Gb of DDR2 800 RAM. Has 1066/800 Mhz FSB, gigabyte LAN, 6 SATA 3G ports, 1 IDE/PATA port. Overall a nice board.
Edit: Another motherboard that recently seems to be well received and is quite inexpensive is MSI's P6N SLI-FI NForce650 motherboard. As it uses NVidia chipset, it can run SLI. It is one of the latter 650 chipset motherboards to come out (ASUS came out much earlier) but it seems MSI took their time and got rid of a lot of bugs before releasing the motherboard. It's a more recent motherboard than the S3. Its about the same price as the S3 so you may want to take a look. The one thing I did hear is that the chipset does run quite hot on this board so you may want to invest in an aftermarket chipset cooler. Two really good ones (though very big) are the Thermalright HR05 and the Noctua U6.
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130082
Power Supply:
Budget Build: X Clio Goodpower 500W ATX PSU: $52
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817189005
A nice PSU for low price. X Clio is not a name that is well known but the Goodpower has received good reviews by many including DIYstreet.com who are quite picky about PSU's. It is dual rail, 500W, and SLI certified. For a budget gamer, it is more than adequate.
Mid Range: Corsair 520HX modular ATX PSU $130
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817139001
One of the most popular 500W PSU's available at this time. Excellent reviews from Jonnyguru, silentPCreview.com and other websites. Modular connections, low profile cables, very quiet, active Power Factor Control, and built by Seasonic (one of the best PSU manufacturers). For mid level gaming, this PSU is considered one of the best available. (Note: Some other places besides NewEgg sometimes sells this PSU cheaper so shop around (you can use Froogle.com to compare prices and resellerratings.com to see how well a vendor rates)).
RAM:
Budget Build: GSkill F2-6400CL5S-1GBNQ DDR2 800 1 x 1Gb RAM $90
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231099
GSkill is a good manufacturer of RAM. Decent price and reasonable latency. I hear this can overclock reasonably well.
Mid Range Build: AData ADQVE1A16K DDR2 800 2 x 1Gb (2GB total) RAM $169.00 (on sale)
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820211066
Though AData is not as well known, this RAM is supposed to work well and is one of the few ram that runs at 1.8V which many C2D motherboards require (including the Gigabyte mobo). Overclocks well from what I hear.
Alternate mid range ram is the GSkill 2Gb DDR2-800 RAM
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231098
Can work at lower voltages but may not be as compatible as the AData RAM
Alternate mid range ram #2: Geil 2Gb DDR2-800 RAM
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820144061
Good ram but more expensive than the AData or the GSkill.
Vid Card:
Budget Build: EVGA GeForce 7600GT PCIe-16 vid card $110 ($90 with MIR)
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130062
Nice vid card for the price. Compact size, low power consumption. EVGA warranty is great since you can modify the cooling without voiding the warranty. The 7600GT can run Oblivion on high settings and get pretty decent framerate so long as you don't go gonzo on the grass setting or put it on some really large monitor. 3D Mark06 benchmark is about 3000 level.
Mid Range Build: Sapphire Radeon X1950GT PCIe-16 vid card $150
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102034
Ok so this would have been a top-of-the-line class vid card a year ago and was much more expensive. Gets around 5000 range for 3DMark06. Can easily run Oblivion in very high settings for most areas except the OB gate. Not the top of the line card anymore since the DirectX cards are now out (GeForce 8800GTX) or will be out soon but for the price its really nice. It is really big, eats power and runs hot though so be forewarned.
CD/DVD burner:
LG GSA-H42N-BK DVD +/- 18X Burner OEM $29
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827136108
Nothing fancy but a very nice DVD burner. It's x18 so the burn rate is very fast. Not the fastest around but for the price it is fast enough (if it was last year, it would have been one of the fastest burners around). This burner should be fine for both builds. Connects to the IDE/PATA connector of the motherboard. Your motherboard will come with the necessary cables.
Hard Disk:
Budget Build:
Western Digital Caviar WD800JD 80Gb SATA 3.0 Hard Drive OEM $43
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822135106
Nice hard drive. Got one of these for my son's computer. 80Gb is not really big but should be adequate for most system needs and for a budget build, is a nice size. Connects to the SATA ports on the motherboard. Your motherboard will come with the necessary cables.
Mid Range Build:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250Gb SATA 3.0 Hard Drive OEM $70
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148142
Unless you are downloading a whole library of videos, 250Gb should be enough for most use. Perpendicular recording and SATA 3.0. Nice quiet drive. Connects to the SATA ports on the motherboard. Your motherboard will come with the necessary cables.
CPU Cooler:
Thermalright Ultra 90 90mm heat pipe cooling tower:
For Socket AM2 $22 + $3 + $5 for AM2 Adapter and 90 degree S clip adapter
www.jab-tech.com/Thermalright-Ultra-90-K8-pr-3348.html
www.jab-tech.com/Thermalright-S-clip-Heatsink-mounting-clip-pr-3446.html
www.jab-tech.com/Thermalright-AM2-RM-Rev.-B-pr-3483.html
For Socket LGA 775 $25
www.jab-tech.com/Thermalright-Ultra-90-775-pr-3349.html
Fan for cooler:
Tek Chain 92mm blue LED fan $5
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835216006
One of the lowest priced CPU heat sink coolers that works really well. Not as large as some of the other coolers available. The Tek Chain is a nice quiet fan and comes with its own fan speed controller (which I just default set to mid level 1600 rpm for very quiet operation). Although NewEgg says Generic, it is in fact a Tek Chain brand and is similar to the Enermax fans (both from Cooler Giant).
Alternative:
Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 (AM2) $17.00
www.ewiz.com/detail.php?p=FAN-AC6PRO&c=fr&pid=61c17c9acf072d37dfad2bc91f2578e289ca3475b0feca2db52d0919a14cbaee
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro (LGA 775) $25.00
www.xoxide.com/arctic-cooling-freezer-7-pro.html
A great silent cooler that cools very well. A bit bigger than the Ultra 90 but a good cooler. For some reason NewEgg is selling this for a whopping $60 which is way too expensive. They used to sell it for as low as $14.
Total:
Budget Build:
$542.00
Add $90 for XP OEM version and $60 for shipping and the final price is about $700.00. The shipping is similar to the tax price if one was to buy a computer from a store. Most computers do not come with a vid card so one can decrease the above to $600 if one wants to do a comparison.
Mid Range Build:
$907
Add $90 for XP OEM version and $60 for shipping and the final price is $1057. As with above, most computers from stores do not come with a vid card so you can decrease the price to $907 with XP and shipping if doing a comparison.
So for around $700 you can make a nice budget dual core AMD PC capable of running OB. For $1000 you can make a very nice mid level dual core Core2Duo Intel PC that can run OB well.
Note you can build for cheaper by waiting for sales and choosing lower quality parts. However, I wanted to look at budget builds without skimping on quality. You can always save money by re-using parts from older systems as well (especially the hard drive and cd drives and the vid card). With the exception of the mobo/cpu/ram combo, you can also mix and match parts between the budget and mid range list to fit your performance and price needs. The above is set up not only for good performance, but ease in upgrading, cool operation, and easy overclocking.
Hmmm, I may try building one of these eventually.
The example is just one possible build scenario and low cost will be the prime focus so no real expensive parts on the build. I will however, try to see what sort of quality level computer can be built from low end casual gamer budget rig to a more moderate mid range rig. What is funny is the mid range rig example would have been a high end gamer rig just 6 months ago. Both AMD and Intel systems will be considered. Both rigs will have to be able to run Oblivion in a decent manner (mid to high settings on a standard 17" LCD screen).Prices may change as time goes on so this is just a scenario for the present date (Feb 2007). To keep things simple I will use Egghead as the source for most of the parts (cept possibly aftermarket coolers)
Case:
Rosewill R6AU6 BK ATX mid tower. $50
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811147043
Nice cheap case with good design layout. 120mm fan mounts in front and back, good HDD drive mount layout so airflow is not restricted. Side vent for good air cooling and can mount a side fan if you want later. And for the moment its free shipping (which for a case can be very expensive) in the US. This is a basic vanilla case but it is well designed for the price IMO. You can buy cheaper cases but may sacrifice quality in the end.
Alternative possibility is Coolermaster's Centurion 524 (I like CM just because I built my wife's PC using one of their Centurion series cases). Similar price and is more popular than the Rosewill (just a more popular brand name) but no free shipping at this time.
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811119106
Finally if you rather just go buy your case than have it shipped, then right now, Best Buy is having a sale on the Antec P180 ATX cases. This is one of the most popular cases around. Excellent interior layout. It is an aluminum case rather than steel. BB is selling it for $80 at this time (it used to sell for near $200 a few months back). At least you don't have to pay shipping costs. It is a much larger case than the above two but the aluminum should make it lightweight.
www.bestbuy.com/site//olspage.jsp?id=pcmcat107700050046&type=category
CPU/Mobo combo
Budget:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600 Brisbane 1.9Ghz socket AM2 (65nm) OEM:
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103036
One of the new 65nm Brisbane cores from AMD. A bit low speed and only 512kb on L2 cache (though most X2 chips are the same L2 cache) but dual core. Really cheap. Overclocks well and because its the new 65nm design, should run cooler than the older 90nm counterparts. A nice chip IMO. Overclock it to 2.4 Ghz (250Mhz core freq) or so and get fast X2 4600+ performance without any problem.
Biostar TForce 550 socket AM2 ATX motherboard:
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813138026
One of Biostar's TForce series that has good reputation. Not SLI but this is again a budget build. Good layout. Has all the features of the Nforce550 chipset (SATA 3G, single IDE/PATA, 1000Mhz HTT, gigabyte LAN, 4Gig of DDR2 800). BIOS is good and can overclock well. A no frills decent board.
Combo price: $150
Note: If this is not for gaming but for casual computing (ie web surfing etc), you may want to get one of the other combo deals offered that gives a micro-ATX motherboard having on-board graphics and the same CPU. That way you can save money by not getting a video card. The 6100 on board video is about the same performance as a GeForce 5500 dedicated vid card)
Mid Range:
Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 Allendale 1.8Ghz socket LGA 775: $170
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819115013
This is one of Intel's new C2D processors but it is an Allendale core and not a Conroe which means it only has 2Mb L2 cache instead of 4 and 800Mhz fsb instead of 1066Mhz. However, it has a higher multiplier so it is easier to overclock than the low end Conroe cores. People have overclocked this thing to outrageous speeds (3Ghz+ making it faster than a $1000 Core2Duo Extreme Edition's stock speed). It is dirt cheap for such a capable processor. Stock speed is about the same as a AMD X2 4400 or high end Pentium D chip so if you don't want to overclock, you can still get decent speeds.
Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 LGA 775 ATX motherboard: $108
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813128017
One of the more popular budget mobos for a Core2Duo build. Decent Intel 965P chipset. Not SLI but again this is to keep budgets down. Can support Quad core if you want to upgrade. Can take up to 8Gb of DDR2 800 RAM. Has 1066/800 Mhz FSB, gigabyte LAN, 6 SATA 3G ports, 1 IDE/PATA port. Overall a nice board.
Edit: Another motherboard that recently seems to be well received and is quite inexpensive is MSI's P6N SLI-FI NForce650 motherboard. As it uses NVidia chipset, it can run SLI. It is one of the latter 650 chipset motherboards to come out (ASUS came out much earlier) but it seems MSI took their time and got rid of a lot of bugs before releasing the motherboard. It's a more recent motherboard than the S3. Its about the same price as the S3 so you may want to take a look. The one thing I did hear is that the chipset does run quite hot on this board so you may want to invest in an aftermarket chipset cooler. Two really good ones (though very big) are the Thermalright HR05 and the Noctua U6.
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130082
Power Supply:
Budget Build: X Clio Goodpower 500W ATX PSU: $52
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817189005
A nice PSU for low price. X Clio is not a name that is well known but the Goodpower has received good reviews by many including DIYstreet.com who are quite picky about PSU's. It is dual rail, 500W, and SLI certified. For a budget gamer, it is more than adequate.
Mid Range: Corsair 520HX modular ATX PSU $130
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817139001
One of the most popular 500W PSU's available at this time. Excellent reviews from Jonnyguru, silentPCreview.com and other websites. Modular connections, low profile cables, very quiet, active Power Factor Control, and built by Seasonic (one of the best PSU manufacturers). For mid level gaming, this PSU is considered one of the best available. (Note: Some other places besides NewEgg sometimes sells this PSU cheaper so shop around (you can use Froogle.com to compare prices and resellerratings.com to see how well a vendor rates)).
RAM:
Budget Build: GSkill F2-6400CL5S-1GBNQ DDR2 800 1 x 1Gb RAM $90
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231099
GSkill is a good manufacturer of RAM. Decent price and reasonable latency. I hear this can overclock reasonably well.
Mid Range Build: AData ADQVE1A16K DDR2 800 2 x 1Gb (2GB total) RAM $169.00 (on sale)
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820211066
Though AData is not as well known, this RAM is supposed to work well and is one of the few ram that runs at 1.8V which many C2D motherboards require (including the Gigabyte mobo). Overclocks well from what I hear.
Alternate mid range ram is the GSkill 2Gb DDR2-800 RAM
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231098
Can work at lower voltages but may not be as compatible as the AData RAM
Alternate mid range ram #2: Geil 2Gb DDR2-800 RAM
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820144061
Good ram but more expensive than the AData or the GSkill.
Vid Card:
Budget Build: EVGA GeForce 7600GT PCIe-16 vid card $110 ($90 with MIR)
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130062
Nice vid card for the price. Compact size, low power consumption. EVGA warranty is great since you can modify the cooling without voiding the warranty. The 7600GT can run Oblivion on high settings and get pretty decent framerate so long as you don't go gonzo on the grass setting or put it on some really large monitor. 3D Mark06 benchmark is about 3000 level.
Mid Range Build: Sapphire Radeon X1950GT PCIe-16 vid card $150
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102034
Ok so this would have been a top-of-the-line class vid card a year ago and was much more expensive. Gets around 5000 range for 3DMark06. Can easily run Oblivion in very high settings for most areas except the OB gate. Not the top of the line card anymore since the DirectX cards are now out (GeForce 8800GTX) or will be out soon but for the price its really nice. It is really big, eats power and runs hot though so be forewarned.
CD/DVD burner:
LG GSA-H42N-BK DVD +/- 18X Burner OEM $29
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827136108
Nothing fancy but a very nice DVD burner. It's x18 so the burn rate is very fast. Not the fastest around but for the price it is fast enough (if it was last year, it would have been one of the fastest burners around). This burner should be fine for both builds. Connects to the IDE/PATA connector of the motherboard. Your motherboard will come with the necessary cables.
Hard Disk:
Budget Build:
Western Digital Caviar WD800JD 80Gb SATA 3.0 Hard Drive OEM $43
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822135106
Nice hard drive. Got one of these for my son's computer. 80Gb is not really big but should be adequate for most system needs and for a budget build, is a nice size. Connects to the SATA ports on the motherboard. Your motherboard will come with the necessary cables.
Mid Range Build:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250Gb SATA 3.0 Hard Drive OEM $70
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148142
Unless you are downloading a whole library of videos, 250Gb should be enough for most use. Perpendicular recording and SATA 3.0. Nice quiet drive. Connects to the SATA ports on the motherboard. Your motherboard will come with the necessary cables.
CPU Cooler:
Thermalright Ultra 90 90mm heat pipe cooling tower:
For Socket AM2 $22 + $3 + $5 for AM2 Adapter and 90 degree S clip adapter
www.jab-tech.com/Thermalright-Ultra-90-K8-pr-3348.html
www.jab-tech.com/Thermalright-S-clip-Heatsink-mounting-clip-pr-3446.html
www.jab-tech.com/Thermalright-AM2-RM-Rev.-B-pr-3483.html
For Socket LGA 775 $25
www.jab-tech.com/Thermalright-Ultra-90-775-pr-3349.html
Fan for cooler:
Tek Chain 92mm blue LED fan $5
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835216006
One of the lowest priced CPU heat sink coolers that works really well. Not as large as some of the other coolers available. The Tek Chain is a nice quiet fan and comes with its own fan speed controller (which I just default set to mid level 1600 rpm for very quiet operation). Although NewEgg says Generic, it is in fact a Tek Chain brand and is similar to the Enermax fans (both from Cooler Giant).
Alternative:
Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 (AM2) $17.00
www.ewiz.com/detail.php?p=FAN-AC6PRO&c=fr&pid=61c17c9acf072d37dfad2bc91f2578e289ca3475b0feca2db52d0919a14cbaee
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro (LGA 775) $25.00
www.xoxide.com/arctic-cooling-freezer-7-pro.html
A great silent cooler that cools very well. A bit bigger than the Ultra 90 but a good cooler. For some reason NewEgg is selling this for a whopping $60 which is way too expensive. They used to sell it for as low as $14.
Total:
Budget Build:
$542.00
Add $90 for XP OEM version and $60 for shipping and the final price is about $700.00. The shipping is similar to the tax price if one was to buy a computer from a store. Most computers do not come with a vid card so one can decrease the above to $600 if one wants to do a comparison.
Mid Range Build:
$907
Add $90 for XP OEM version and $60 for shipping and the final price is $1057. As with above, most computers from stores do not come with a vid card so you can decrease the price to $907 with XP and shipping if doing a comparison.
So for around $700 you can make a nice budget dual core AMD PC capable of running OB. For $1000 you can make a very nice mid level dual core Core2Duo Intel PC that can run OB well.
Note you can build for cheaper by waiting for sales and choosing lower quality parts. However, I wanted to look at budget builds without skimping on quality. You can always save money by re-using parts from older systems as well (especially the hard drive and cd drives and the vid card). With the exception of the mobo/cpu/ram combo, you can also mix and match parts between the budget and mid range list to fit your performance and price needs. The above is set up not only for good performance, but ease in upgrading, cool operation, and easy overclocking.
Hmmm, I may try building one of these eventually.