HOW TO BUILD A BUDGET GAMING COMPUTER

HOW TO BUILD A BUDGET GAMING COMPUTER
Posted:2006-05-25 By hardware review Number of View:79203
HOW TO BUILD A BUDGET GAMING COMPUTER By :hardware review Posted:2006-05-25 xtreview is your : Video card - cpu - memory - Hard drive - power supply unit source how to build a budget gaming computer We know how you feel. Your computer is getting a little long in the tooth, and you just can't play the latest games anymore. If you're not below the minimum system requirements, you're so close that you have to turn the options down to "looks like mud" mode just to get the game to run. It's time to seriously upgrade your entire system, and you don't like the prospect of spending four months' rent to do it. Fortunately, with some careful shopping, you don't have to. Building your own bugdet gaming computer box can be pretty affordable—more so than you may think. We've maintained an $800 budget Gaming PC in our Build It section here for some time, and it always surprises people just how good such a cheap system can be. It's been a whilesince we updated our recommended configuration for an $800 budget budget Gaming computer,so let's remedy that right here, right now. This time, we're doing more than just trying to optimize gaming performance on the cheap. Now that the transition to PCI Express is in full swing and dual-core CPUs are a reality (albeit a pricey one), we're going to pay careful attention to making a system that can be upgraded pretty easily. Nobody wants to buy a new motherboard and RAM just to upgrade a CPU, or swap out lots of major components to use the latest video card. Can we turn eight C-notes into a gaming system worth its salt and build a forward-looking platform for future expansion at the same time? Let's find out. Recommended Components how to build a budget gaming computer step 1 Rule Number 1 for our Build It systems is this: The stuff we recommend has to be readily available, in stock, at online vendors we would trust with our own money. We don't just go with the lowest price we can find anywhere in the wild land of online commerce. It's got to be in stock, and it's got to be from a company that we wouldn't be scared to give our credit card info to. Of course, prices do fluctuate and you might have better or worse luck than we did. Just remember to shop—a little extra time in a shopping engine can save you some big money in the long run. This depond from your choise now going with intel or amd. with amd 64 u will get smouther gaming with intel the multitasking ecpecially with d810 it is ship and fast enough OK lets say: Amd 64 3000+ box  for under 150$ --> Great for games, but down the line you’re going to want to move to a dual-core CPU. MSI K8N Neo4-F for under 85$-70$ --> Gets you into nForce 4 on the cheap, and is ready for dual-core CPUs later on.(u can also go with gigabyte k8n -f4). 1gig kingston 2*512 3200 memory $82-->KingstonNot very low latency and not much overclocking headroom, but these DIMMs will give you 1GB without breaking the bank.plus in case of amd 64 the memory acces is already too low .working at higher clock frequency would help in benchmark but not a lot in real life application and game 7600gt  200$ range This card is the new sucessor of the 6600gt witch showed a solid performance last week.the 7600 gt can handle 99% of today game with very resonable Graphic setting . it will let u enjoy the price/performance ratio sound card New nforce mobo come already with 8 channel sound card.the sound quality is already good enough.but if u still a sound quality fan u can alwais check on in the 50-100$ range Mouse :Microsoft IntelliMouse Optical 15$: It's not a cutting-edge 1600 DPI gaming mouse, but it's reliable and responsive, good for left or right-handed users, and includes side buttons. Hdd Hitachi Deskstar 7K80 300GB Storage is like money 150$ вЂ“ more is always better. For now, the performance and price are great.Hitachi Deskstar have the fastest seek time those day Keyboard Microsoft Natural Multimedia 20$ Microsoft makes reliable and comfortable keyboards with good software. The large media keys are more useful than you think DvdRw benq: under 50$ It’s a cheap dvd/cd burner pretty good performance, Case Antec Performance TX 640B with SmartPower 2.0 400W 95$ This isn’t Antec’s most handsome case, nor its quietest, nor the most full-featured. But it’s solid, priced well, and includes a decent 400-watt power supply Windows XP Home If you're into games, you want Windows XP. The Home Edition gives you everything you need, and costs a lot less than Pro. Okay, so the final price did creep over the $800 mark, but just barely. In a couple weeks, some of these components will drop in price even more. Also note that, as is our way with the $800 Gaming PC build, we didn't include the cost of monitor and speakers. Most users looking to replace their gaming PC on the cheap have already got those and will continue to use them with their new system. Now let's take a look at the individual components. CPU: Athlon 64 3000+ When it comes to game performance, nothing beats an Athlon 64. We wanted to keep an eye on the future, so we made it a point to go with a Socket 939 CPU rather than socket 754. The latter socket format is on its way out, while Socket 939 will be around for a long time to come. We'll use the price for a boxed processor, and use the generic CPU cooler included in it. This is by no means the top of AMD's Athlon 64 line. It runs at 1.8GHz and has 512KB of L2 cache. At under $150, it really does deliver some great bang for the buck. Down the line, you'll be able to replace it with a dual-core Athlon 64 X2 without swapping out your motherboard or RAM. Great bang for the buck; Socket 939 allows easy future expansion. Great for games, but down the line you’re going to want to move to a dual-core CPU. easly overclockable the 2600mhz is dowable with little bios adjustement u will get into over the performance of 4000+ with little tweaking.this would be fast enough for all today  hungry game Motherboard: MSI K8N Neo4-F or Gigabyte Nf4 MSI's K8N Neo4-F as the gigabyte isn't the best nForce 4 motherboard on the market, but it certainly is one of the least expensive. You get all the standard nForce 4 features in a pretty reliable package. Four SATA ports, gigabit Ethernet, and x16, x4, and x1 PCIe slots is pretty good for well under $100. There's no FireWire port, but you can't expect everything in a board this inexpensive. Perhaps most importantly, this is a totally modern board with a brand-new, well-supported chipset. You won't have to worry about driver support drying up in six months, or getting a new CPU in a year that will require an entirely new motherboard. AMD will be selling Socket 939 CPUs some a long time to come, and this board is all ready for the dual-core Athlon 64 X2 I had tested borth mobo they can do easly 280 htt u will need just to set your Htt multiplyer to 3X .290*9=26xx MHz .so those mobo will not limit the cpu overclockability.u can still enjoy the full performnce of your venice cpu Memory: Kingston PC3200 Kingston, Corsair, OCZ, Crucial… when you're buying basic DDR400 RAM without concern for extreme low latencies or overclockability, the brand is less important than the price. We found a good deal on Kingston modules , but memory prices fluctuate perhaps more than any other component. Just make sure you stick with a major name brand. Some of the off-brand stuff can be flaky, and we frequently hear reports of users running into problems with it. It was a major goal to populate our system with 1GB of RAM, up from the 512MB in our previous $800 Gaming PC. Many games these days benefit from more than 512MB of RAM, especially massively multiplayer online games that frequently load a wide variety of textures in those areas crowded with unique players. Today with windwos Vista @ the door u can think about more ram would help ecpecially for the great user interface of windows vista .it eat o a lot of ram and memory resource .so u cant go wrong with 1 gig ram. Graphics: XFX GeForce 7600GT 128MB This is really at the core of our entire system. Games rely on graphics card horsepower more than any other application, and a good GPU can make or break your gaming box. One of the best deals going is the GeForce 7600GT—we found good prices on XFX's model. It would be nice to push up to a 256MB graphics card, but that's just not in the budget. p At least we still have a current-generation card, with full support for all DirectX 9 features including shader model 3.0. This should be enough muscle to run almost any game at 1024x768 with the details cranked up. With some games, you might even get away with higher resolutions. Keyboard and Mouse: Microsoft Natural Multimedia and IntelliMouse Optical It takes a bit of digging around, but you can find really fantastic deals on keyboards and mice on the web. As long as you're not buying the very latest cordless laser mouse or some crazy does-everything multimedia keyboard, you can get a lot for very little. Microsoft's Multimedia Keyboard is quality stuff. We priced out the ergonomic "Natural" model, but the straight-key version costs about the same. Once you start using the media and shortcut keys above the function keys, you might get addicted to them. It's especially handy for flipping through your audio tracks if you play your own music in the background while gaming. Nobody wants to minimize their game just to skip a track. The IntelliMouse Optical isn't cutting-edge anymore, and it certainly doesn't sport the kind of crazy-high resolution and sensitivity that the gaming-centric mice do, but it gets the job done. Plus, it's got the side buttons necessary for mapping a few extra game functions to your mouse, and it's good for lefties, too. Hard Drive: Hitachi Deskstar 300gig More storage space is always a good thing, especially with the rising drive footprint of modern PC games. But we're on a budget here, so 300GB will have to do. Still, we wanted a high-performance drive, because nothing is worse than the hitching and stuttering that comes from extended hard drive access in the middle of your game sessions. Hitachi's  is a great little SATA-II drive. That's right; it's SATA-II, with support for Native Command Queuing and 300mbit transfer rate. Our motherboard, being standard nForce 4 and not nForce 4 Ultra, only has SATA-I ports, but the speed is impressive nonetheless. Optical Drive: dvdrw benq In order to come in around the $800 mark, we had to cut a few corners somewhere, and the optical drive is one place we targeted for trimming. The 16X Lite-On DVD drive we used is by no means a bad drive, and for around $50 it's a fantastic value. As more games start to be published in DVD-ROM format (and it's about time), it's a good idea to have a DVD drive in your PC. It's also a good idea to have a burner.  DVDs. It's not strictly necessary for gaming, but it's useful for making backups and the like. Case and Power Supply: Antec Performance TX 640B with SmartPower 2.0 400W The 640B model is one of the newer members of the Performance TX line from Antec. It's fairly roomy inside without being overly large and has a nice big 120mm exhaust fan for quiet cooling. There's a CPU sleeve that helps funnel cool air in over the top of the CPU and an additional cutout on the side for a fan over your graphics card. Even the hard drive bay has a fan mount in front. Our particular load-out doesn't need such drastic cooling, but it's good to know it's there if we upgrade the system to hotter components in the future. You can really skimp on a case if you want, but we like to spend a little more for something durable and forward-looking. Best of all, the Performance TX 640B comes with Antec's SmartPower 2.0 400W power supply built in. This is plenty of juice for our system and has enough headroom for more power-hungry components. It's also got the proper power connectors for modern motherboards, SATA hard drives, and the power plug for PCIe graphics cards. This isn’t Antec’s most handsome case, nor its quietest, nor the most full-featured. But it’s solid, priced well, and includes a decent 400-watt power supply. Operating System: Windows XP Home If you want to play games, the question is not whether or not to run Windows XP, it's which flavor of XP should you run? There's no need for XP Pro, since we're not running a dual-CPU system. Media Center Edition is an option, but with no TV tuner card and an 80GB hard drive, we wouldn't recommend it. We're trying to save as much money as we can, so it's Windows XP Home Edition for us. The OEM price never really changes much: You can find it for about $75. Performance how to build a budget gaming computer step 2 overclocked version For testing we sould show the performance of this budget gaming computer overclocked and @ stock overclocked setting: CPu @ 2610 MHz 290*9 stock vcore htt 3x memory cpu/12 -- 218 MHz 7-3-3-2.5T 2.8v video card  -- 610/800 Specs aside, what we really want to know is how well this baby performs. Let's see exactly how much "bang" you can get for $800 worth of "buck." We'll compare this system, where possible, to our previous $800 Gaming PC .   New budget gaming computer Overclocked budget gaming computer Pcmark 2004 Overall 3900 5500 Pcmark HDD 6000 6020 Pcmark memory 4200 5144 Pcmark cpu 3400 4870 Media encoding dixx 707 815 3dmark 2003 13000 15500 3dmark 2005 5600 6520 3dmark 2006 3035   3550     Looking at the PCMark numbers, you can see that our overclocked CPU performance is much higher than the stock Athlon 64 3000+ in thesystem. . Notice the vast difference in hard drive performance, too. Because most media encoding tasks are CPU compute-bound operations, our slightly faster CPU only slightly improves media encoding times. Still, it burned through our test encodes at a pretty good clip, for such an inexpensive system. The real meat is in the 3DMark and game scores. We're running 3DMark 03 52% faster than our stock $800 system. . Game performance is far better, too. Unreal Tournament 2004 is generally CPU bound, but the additional bandwidth of our Socket 939 CPU gives it a big boost there anyway.doom 3runs more than twice as fast, as does the Source engine  Video Stress Test . Half-Life 2, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and Painkiller are too new for us to have benchmarks on the stock $800 Gaming PC. They all run at perfectly smooth frame rates at 1024x768 with all the features cranked up. Splinter Cell is the slowest, but an average 45 fps isn't bad at all for the third-person stealth game. as u see overcocking help a lot our budget gaming computer u should expect 30-50% performance increase in all application. please not this is for from extreme overclock.99% off venice 3000+ cpu will get in 2400 MHz vcore adjustement.so the 2600 MHz highly dowable . the video card as piked on best perice performane ratio u can chec the 7600 gt review here for full list.overclocking also help the card and boost the overall gaming performance.even with generic kingston ran and standard memory timing u can see the budget gaming computer is performing very very well. notice the nice boost in memory brandwith in this budget gaming computer   xtreview is your : Video card - cpu - memory - Hard drive - power supply unit source we would be happy to answer for your question . if you have suggestion or comment regarding this review our support would be glad to help just join our forum and ask u will get the best answer to discuss check our forum section :-) RATE THIS REVIEW 1 2 3 4 5    / 5   View Stat

computer news computer parts review Old Forum Downloads New Forum Login Join Articles terms Hardware blog Sitemap Get Freebies