Cheap Gaming PC

[Crazyduckling]

My girlfriend wants a gaming pc, but she wants something as cheap as possible.

1. What is your budget and does that include shipping/taxes?
cheap as possible

2. Where do you live (Please list if possible town, state, and country)?
Iowa

3. What do you need this computer to do (like gaming, Photoshop, and so on)?
Gaming. Her current laptop cant run Portal 2 without lagging.

4. What parts will you need for the computer? Please list what parts specifically.
Everything except monitor, keyboard, mouse.

5. Are you reusing any parts for this computer? If so please say what parts.
I may be able to loan her my old psu. 550 Watt Antec from 2006.

6. What kind of monitor/resolution do you have or want to get to use for the computer? At first she'll be using my old monitor. 1280x1024. She may upgrade.

7. Do you have a legit OS? If so what OS and is it 32-bit or 64-bit?
I've got this covered.

8. What are you looking for the motherboard to have feature wise? Like SLI, Crossfire, Firewire, USB 3.0, Sata 6.0 Gb/s, and so on.
Nothing specific.

9. Any plans to overclock the CPU or GPU?
No

10. What time kind of time frame are you planning on ordering these parts?
No time frame. Not a lot of money right now. She was just curious.

----------

Basically, she cant play Portal 2 or even The Sims 3 without lag on her laptop. She is also into TF2, Sanctum, and wants to try PS2. She wants to play some current games, even on low settings without lag.

[Bags]

CD Drive - $15 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151244)
Case - Rosewill CHALLENGER Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - $50 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147153)
Hard Drive - Seagate Barracuda ST250DM000 250GB 7200 RPM - $70 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148765)
Video Card - EVGA 01G-P3-1361-KR GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 192-bit - $115 after $25 MIR (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130749)
RAM - G.SKILL Value 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 - $20 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231423)
Motherboard - ASRock H61M/U3S3 LGA 1155 Intel H61 - $67 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157236)
CPU - Intel Core i3-2120 Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz LGA 1155 - $125 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115077)

Total - $496 including shipping.

So around ~$500 if you can reuse the powersupply and the OS. Given a 1280x1024 resolution, should do most games out now on medium with good fps. What is the powersupply's model?

Anyway, come back again when you have the money, you'll probably be able to get more for your money then.

[Mutant]

If you can wait several months and lowest cost gaming is really what you want to achieve I think AMD Trinity A10-5800K or A10-5700 might do the job.

It will be fine for Portal and sims 3, and can just about manage BF3.

Here are benches for the mobile part which the desktop part will easily best.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5831/amd-trinity-review-a10-4600m-a-new-hope/6

AMD Llano A8-3870K (top APU from current gen) is ~$120 it would not be unreasonable to presume the A10-5800K coming out around the same price.
That would save you $120 compared to the i3 + GTX460 combo.

It looks like it is now delayed until Sep/Nov so if you needed it sooner you are out of luck.

[Rbstr]

It would also be crap compared to the i3 and 460 combo.
Look at that review and what cards are pitted against each other. The 630m and 640m in the comparo easily beat the Trinity part. A desktop 460 more powerful than either.

Otherwise, I feel like you should be able to do better than 250gb for $70
Like doubling it for $5.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148728

Depending on her usage, though...think about getting an SSD instead. Does she have a lot of games/videos? If so this isn't a good idea...but if she only plays like two things and has a music collection it might be fine.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148441

[Mutant]

It would also be crap compared to the i3 and 460 combo.

Come on now, look at that review and what cards are pitted against each other. The 630m and 640m in the comparo easily beat the Trinity part. A desktop 460 more powerful than either.


And a i3 + 460 would be crap vs an i7 3920 and 2x GTX 680.

Crazyduckling said "as cheap as possible" removing the desecrate card is just how to do that, if by some miracle Crazyduckling's girlfriend becomes a PS2 addict he could then add a discrete GPU to the system so it can handle the new preferred game better.

The 100/65 W trinity chips will be fine for what Crazyduckling wants the PC to do.
Just taking the results from the 35W mobile part Portal 2 gets > 80 FPS in med settings. BF3 gets 26 FPS in med settings, Skyrim gets 36 FPS in med settings.

The problem with trinity is there is no desktop chips available and no pricing.




There are plenty of Cases at $20-25 that will to help shave a bit more off the price.

[Goku]

Review of desktop trinity http://m.tomshardware.com/reviews/a10-5800k-a8-5600k-a6-5400k,3224.html

AMD came out saying there is no delay on this also last I saw.

[zomg]

Depending on her usage, though...think about getting an SSD instead. Does she have a lot of games/videos? If so this isn't a good idea...but if she only plays like two things and has a music collection it might be fine.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148441

You can't even fit Windows 7 on that disk. I have an 80 GB SSD and I have only Windows 7 on it, nothing else installed there, and the OS is still consuming a whopping 70 GBs.

Obviously a clean install isn't going to take that much, but as cruft accumulates it slowly begins to bloat.

Not to mention that a tiny SSD isn't doing any good in a low end rig to begin with.

Personally I would recommend going with more muscle than an i3. Get an i5 or a lower end i7 and it will go a long way. Obviously you'll need to spend some more money on it, but you don't want to be re-upgrading it right away do you

[Vancha]

Looks good. Could save $15 bucks on the CD cause that is near obsolete.

Im tempted (code word for will) build a computer for PS2 around the GTX 670, likely the nerdiest thing I've done this year. But fuck it. N00b question, how do you know what power supply to get?
I use this (http://www.bequiet.com/en/psucalculator/expert). If it shows 80% of one of their 400w 80+ Bronze PSUs (just as an example), then you can basically apply it to all decent 400w 80+ bronze PSUs.

[Rbstr]

For a 670 setup with a decent CPU you're probably looking at a 650w powersupply. The best way is to go and look up the TDP for your components.

And a i3 + 460 would be crap vs an i7 3920 and 2x GTX 680.
Right, a $120 difference is the same thing as a $1000 difference.

AMD is still far behind in CPU performance. Read the benchmarks. Trinity still doesn't stack up on the CPU end. It's better than Bulldozer but only barely.
The i3 is a better chip.

$120 is buying a lot in this case. If she wants to try PS2 I'd say the A10 is simply not an option, especially using the integrated graphics.

You can't even fit Windows 7 on that disk. I have an 80 GB SSD and I have only Windows 7 on it, nothing else installed there, and the OS is still consuming a whopping 70 GBs.
You have obviously done something wrong. Win 7 should only take about 20gb. My fully configured laptop takes 40gb with the whole Office suite, Diablo 3 and a half dozen other substantial bits of productivity software.
Even with lots of updates it shouldn't bloat like that unless you let it.

[Bags]

My entire setup (see specs in sig) + 1 hard drive + 2 monitors only uses ~350W under full load. Though I'm not saying he should cheap out and get a 400w PSU or something :P

[Ailos]

I do have an A6-3650 APU (Llano), and it DOES run TF2 at 1600x900 with all settings maxed out at 30 FPS minimum. But my soon-to-be-upgraded HD 5770 (which is a whole 2 years older than the Llano) mated to a Phenom II X4 980 BE has to be locked at 60 with VSync.

AMD's integrated graphics run circles around Intel HD graphics... but only just. Even a $70 discrete card is better than the top-of-the-line AMD integrated stuff. The only time AMD's APU really make any significant sense is in a laptop. On a desktop, you can't really use them for too much more that just running the desktop, comparatively speaking.

That and the fact that the Trinity simply improves Bulldozer/Llano to be the 10% above Phenom that it should've always been doesn't bode well for AMD here. Intel's modern stuff is more than one step ahead here.

[zomg]

You have obviously done something wrong. Win 7 should only take about 20gb. My fully configured laptop takes 40gb with the whole Office suite, Diablo 3 and a half dozen other substantial bits of productivity software.
Even with lots of updates it shouldn't bloat like that unless you let it.

I do a lot of things on this PC and a lot of the software I have installed puts their shit on C: despite the actual application being installed elsewhere. Yea, it's pretty annoying when programs do that :/

Tbh I probably have some junk hiding there which I could remove, but I think it's still a pretty good idea to have a bit more space there.