Intel + Nvidia = Powerful budget Gaming PC
By HoboGamer • Mar 25th, 2008 • Category: Hardware
Just read this article over at Digit-Life, talking about some considerations that budget gamers like you and i should think about if upgrading at the moment. What’s the most cost-effective upgrade parts for cash-conscious gamers right now?
First i’d say the graphics card, but hang on a second.. the 8800GT 256MB is listed as $260 in this article, when in actual fact you can get an MSI 8800 GT 512MB for $185! ( Normally $215, but there’s a $30 mail in rebate, and it looks like they’re giving away a free copy of The Witcher with it as well ).
I probably wouldn’t even consider the 9600GT since it’s only around a $30 price difference and for most brands it’s actually around the same price as the MSI 8800GT, even if you are running games at lower details/resolutions i would pay the extra and go for the 8800GT 512MB.
I think right now if i was going to upgrade, i would get an E8400 Core 2 Duo Wolfsdale at ~$260, a P35 motherboard like the ASUS P5K-E at ~$130 , and 4GB of DDR2-800 RAM for under $100 which will give you some room to overclock.
So that’s about $675 , add another $200 for a case, power supply, DVD-RW, and mouse/keyboard. Grand total is under $900 for one kick-ass Midrange Beastie. Not to mention you can overclock this to a CPU FSB of 400 MHZ, which will run stable with some DDR2-800 ram, effectively netting you 3.6Ghz, thats a 20% speed increase over the stock 3Ghz. This should be doable on the stock Intel cooler that comes with it. Check out this article.
…at 3.6GHz it is possible to get away with using cheap DDR2-800 memory. For gamers the best performance gains can also be seen when going from 3.0GHz to 3.6GHz, as pushing the processor further only accounted for very minimal performance gains!
If you have a P35-based motherboard and DDR2-800 memory anyway, it’s a real easy upgrade, i wouldn’t go down the DDR3 path yet, if you are want value-for-money. These parts should tide you over until you can bum some money for an aftermarket CPU cooler like the Thermalright Ultra-120 for ~$60. Most P35 motherboards will get you 450Mhz+ FSB’s so that you can fly past the magical 4Ghz mark using some decent DDR2-800, or if need be get DDR2-1066 for peace-of-mind stability.
If you’re a little more frugal, downgrade to a 8600GT 512MB (256MB won’t cut it for the latest games these days), 2GB of DDR2-800, and that’ll save you around $150, giving you a Budget Beastie for around the $750 mark.
Too bad my last upgrade was a venture into AMD-land, but the rides are starting to fall apart, the fairyfloss is mouldy, and i feel like i’ve been in here too long.. hmm.. where’s the Exit?
So i will probably do a complete replacement upgrade to the Midrange Beastie specs, i bid farewell to AMDLand and Crysis mediocrity.
HoboGamer is a devout PC Gamer, who loves his budget hardware and getting the most bang for his buck, i.e cheap-skate.
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Looks like a good budget system!
I can vouch for slapping the 8800GT 512MB in this article, as I agree absolutely. It’s a fantastic card and one that I’m going to keep for years.
It’s important to mention that if someone upgrades their computer every year, it’s not going to remain a cheap hobby. The idea is not only best price for performance, but most extensive lifespan, too. =)
Damn you DrIce926, i’m getting the upgrade-itch bad now, those 9800GX2’s look awesome but at the price of an arm and a leg, i doubt i will be seeing one anytime soon.
You are definately right about finding parts that will last you a while, when i bought my current setup almost 2 years ago, it was giving great bang-for-buck value and now i can still run Call of Duty 4 at 1440 x 900 resolution with medium details and get decent playable frames.
I’m pretty darn sure it’ll run TF2 as well (when i bum enough money to get Orange Box hehe). I’ve been too scared to try Crysis lest my crappy rig implodes.
Looking back i think i picked the right gear for that upgrade and it’s had a pretty good run for my gaming needs. I generally stick to 2 year upgrade cycles, because it means i get more money and value from my purchases, but i think 1 year upgrade cycles are feasible for the budget-minded if you can recoup some cost by selling your old gear. I can probably get back $100-$150 for selling my CPU, motherboard, ram and video card, every little bit counts.
It’s definately approaching retirement point for the ol’ A64 3000+ and 7900GS…
hey hob
I advice you to get TF2 and not the orange box. Save you alot of bucks there =]
If you’re like me who luv multiplayer TF2 is the winner, if you’re into single player, save up for that orange box mate : D
Oh yea heres some TF2 back-stabbing action video
my fav class! rwar
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/174624.html
Thanks for the tip condor, i’ll probably be buying Orange Box because my friend uses my Steam account now which has HL2, HL2 Ep1, DoD, and CoD2. So i need HL2 Ep2 anyway
Damn man, TF2 looks sweet, i used to play TFC on HL1, scouts look fun, but is it just me or either you’re really lagged & TF2 netcode really sucks (remember Quake2 days anyone? Good ol’ days when you had to lead in front of targets to compensate for 200ms+ ping), or the hitboxes in TF2 are a *little* oversized caus i saw some stabs that were registered a kill 2 seconds after the stab. o_O
The lag? - i’m guessing you’re talking about this part at 0: 15 on the video ? well it happen when I slow it down to let the viewers to have a glimpse at the scene where the rocket actually hit it target without the need to do slash damage =]
It was the part where the rocket hit the demonman body! then i do my stabbing.
Double the pain mwuahahaha
so yea it seem like its out of place, but my position are the same, so moving the knife to where the victim back were facing is very important, if they tilt it a bit with their shoulder facing me, it won’t be an instant kill but 50% of the damage.
In other word, my knife has to hit my victim back to have a 100% chance of killing them. So if they move i have to move. So only those practice alot on the spy would always rank first with the most kills =]
Also if you see slow down on my video, its not lag. It where i purposely slow some scene down to let audience focus on the action =]
Some of the slow down i intentionally add on: Rocket meet Demonman at the beginning + sapping sentry while it shot me but i win in the end + me vs 4 other players and kiting a pryo on a spy.
Heres other TF2 video where i slow things down to make it look so awesome in some scene, like dodging a rocket =]
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/124333.html
This is what make PC so great, I can show off my skill, and brag about it then back it up with a video i upload after i finish making it =]
I wanna show you guys my Crysis running everything on high with AA x6 on my 3 years old PC, but to much video to brag on one single post
maybe some other time tehe