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How to Build a $500 Gaming Machine
bacterial_pus writes "Tom's Hardware has a very interesting article on how to build a $500 gaming rig. 'Instead of the newest killer rig from Alienware, Falcon Northwest, Voodoo, etc... how about a system for the rest of us with a realistic budget starting from scratch? We set out to build a reasonable gaming system that will get you through today's game titles without breaking the bank for around $500.'"
Did you miss the part about it being for gaming?
"Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses." - Arthur C. Clarke.
Uh huh. A gaming machine that doesn't run Windows? Or are they just yo ho ho pirates at Tom's and expecting everyone to be loading it up from the bootleg .iso of Windows XP Corporate Edition that 'everybody' has in their shoebox of warez?
Add that line item in and to stay on budget will require some drastic downsizing in everything else.
Oh, and I know they only cost $20 sans P/S but they also forgot a case. Idiots.
Democrat delenda est
Dude, you haven't experienced gaming until you've played Tux Racer at 300fps! ;)
And keyboard? And mouse? Monitor? Speakers?
Not much of a gaming system without those. And those can add an easy $200 to the price if you
go bargain basement...
-chris
"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."
Why doesn't some karma whore hurry up and post the system specs so the rest of us don't have to RTFA.
Did you forget something? Are you sure? Uh, the case?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Two words: Atari 2600
monitor not included.
The final cost of this machine is more like around $570, and then when you include the shipping on the parts you bought online... Well... I'd say it comes to more like $600. (Possibly more?)
Still... A good guide for the newbies to budget PC design. This article really makes me feel outdated with my Geforce FX 5600 and Athlon 2800+... I guess I definitely don't have a decent rig for most modern games. But that's ok because I don't play any modern games.
BTW anyone know a good way to avoid the annoying linkified ads in firefox? I just used links2. All those ads really slow down my browsing experience.
Couldn't find a printable link, so to save you from 8 clicks on "next->" and more ads than I could count (they went over budget by $16.49):
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3000+ $146
Motherboard: ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 $69
Memory: Corsair Value Select 512 MB (2x 256 MB) $52
VGA: eVGA 256-A8-N340-TX Geforce 6600 256 MB $113
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar SE WD800JD 80 GB $57.50
Optical Drive LITE-ON Black 16X DVD-ROM $19.99
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12-330 ATX12V 330W $59.00
Total: $516.49
everything in moderation
1 Pay 498$ for XP licience
2 Pay 1$ bus fare to nearest alienware retailer
3 Throw brick through retailers window (If you buy a brick it breaks the budget so steal one)
4 Grab demo model and run (you can call this pc liberation if makes you feel better)
5 Pay 1$ bus fare home
6 Happy gaming
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
What about TCO?
With Linux, the TCO on that box will be up at least %300.
You need to get the facts, my friend!
Most of us find a keyboard and a mouse useful on our gaming rigs, and a pair of speakers, and oh, I don't know, an OS, a case, and possibly even a monitor.
A $500 gaming rig? Not quite!
Neopets - the best free game on the Int
PS2
XBox
Nintendo GC
And coming soon:
PS3
XBox 360
Remember that they were building a machine only for gaming too in that article.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
As others said - no monitor and no peripherals (and I'd say that since it's a gaming machine then it would be reasonable to include a joystick and a wheel. But then I play lots of sims, others may skip it).
Also - 512MB of RAM is too low for gaming these days (especially when compared against selected CPU+Video).
Add all of the above and we are at $1000. As expected.
Oh, and software costs are not included! This means we _need_ to upgrade DVD-ROM to a burner, right?
$500 will get you CPU+MB+RAM+HD+CD/DVD+VGA+P.S.
0 _gaming_machine-08.html
Does anybody read the article anymore before posting, or FP is more important?
Link to the conclusion, if you don't have the attention span to read a 400 word article.
http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20051014/the_50
Check out Dell coupons, do a google search, dell has some good deals as long as you dont buy upgrades from them. Monarch or Newegg are my favorite low cost, and top pricewatch listings for lowest price.
I wanted a Dell 24inch LCD, Dell had a dual core 2.8ghz system with 24 LCD for 1199. So, basically I got the computer for a 2-3 hundred above a 24 inch on sale. Or free on normal prices. (160 HD, Dual DVD/DVR, ATI 300, system)
I picked up a 7800 GT/OC for 350, almost 7000 3dmark, every game can run 1900x1200 or 1600x1200 with AA/AF on. And it included Call of Duty 2.
Figured I can always build an AMD X2 system later and put the GFX card in it, and bump upto 8500-9000 3dmark, next year when the prices drop.
I missed running dual core, since my dual P3-800, so nice.
The thing is, most people wouldn't want a Linux box for gaming.
Earn a % of cash back from Newegg, Tiger Direct, Walmart.com, and more: http://www.mrrebates.com?refid=458505
If you want a "great" inexpensive gaming system just pretend it's 3 years ago but pay today's prices.
The best games of 2002 aren't all that bad.
Want cheaper? Keep dialing back the clock.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Does Tux Racer at 300fps count as gaming? ;)
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
You can always scale back graphics to bump up fps, but some of these new games are so memory intensive that 512MB just isn't cutting it anymore. I certainly regret making the decision to do 256x2 in my machine...especially since upgrading to gig and maintaining dual channel means I have to buy 2 sticks of 512. Bummer. Swapping is something I've had to deal with in a number of games, from HL2 to BF2. It's not terrible, but enough that I do have to go and shut down a lot of stuff I run at startup before playing to minimize it. I would spend the extra dough on a gig right off if I had to do it over.
This article assumes (hopefully intentionally) that you're reusing a bit of stuff from your last machine...I mean, a *case*, mouse/keyboard, monitor, speakers, etc. Money might be found for more memory then by recycling a hard drive and CDROM/DVD drive.
Yes, but then the "Linus Is God" subliminal message, coming every 35th frame, would go by too fast to register.
Start a happiness pandemic
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
Basically, to spend only $516, you have to give up on the following:
OS (unless you want to run your games under WINE)
monitor
keyboard
mouse
speakers
case (that's right, just pile the components under your desk, folks!)
yikes.
I usually check out www.sharkyextreme.com for some information on systems built to a certain price. It has a few different options like low-end, gaming, high end. (Don't exactly remember.) Helps a bit even if they aren't one of the top hardware sites. I've always found their guides to be very useful.
Oh come on. We all know what goes with a computer. Can't you just assume this is for the person that has an existing computer that doesn't play the games they want? You could maybe argue the case should be added, if the new motherboard won't fit into it or something, but that's about it.
---John Holmes...
You can buy a whole system for 500 prebuilt... Just by a Mini Mac. You can play all sorts of games! The Mac logo puzzle game... Break Out... Super Break Out... Photoshop...
MadOgre.com
Well, this story is just junk.. But here's my 2 cents. Buy enough cheap ram to upgrade to 512mb. Make sure that you have a machine that runs in the neighborhood of 2ghz (P4/Athlon XP). Purchase an ATI Radeon 9500Pro ($40ish on ebay). This should be enough to be able to play Doom 3 and the other modern titles. No, they won't look great, but they will certainly be playable. I'm on a rig like that right now, and it runs Doom 3 at 1024x768 with specular lighting at around 30fps.
As a general rule of thumb when purchasing a video card on a budget, always buy yesterday's performance model rather than today's budget model.
Each processor would proceed sequentially as if it had been better for them not to rise against Saul.
Okay add $130 for Xp pro, $25 for keyboard and mouse, $120 for CRT monitor, $40 for a case and what do you have? An $830 computer. I'm sure that you could buy the same thing already made for less. This is why our company no longer builds PCs.
As others have already pointed out, this is not a "$500 gaming machine". It is missing some essential parts that likely will put you up closer to the $800-900 range at least. Also, I find it outright absurd that they seriously considered leaving out an optical drive, which by the way was only $20. Then again, Tom's Hardware has always been a little shady. I much prefer AnandTech; they seem to be more thorough and professional AND they include EVERYTHING (mouse, keyboard, monitor, case, power supply, speakers, etc) in their guides. Not that I usually follow them; it's best to look at the options availalble and make your own decisions based on what you want to do.
Their Budget Box is comparable to the one Tom's built, and actually includes all the necessary parts in the price.
THG's assumptions on reusable parts:
keyboard
mouse
speakers
case
cables
$99
But does it plug into your regular TV and play play station or xbox games?
Still cost more than an XBOX or PS-2
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ $146
SRock 939Dual-SATA2 $69
orsair Value Select 512 MB (2x 256 MB) $52
Geforce 6600 256 MB $113
Western Digital Caviar SE WD800JD 80 GB $57.50
LITE-ON Black 16X DVD-ROM $19.99
SeaSonic S12-330 ATX12V 330W $59.00
Total $516.49
There's the article, without a bunch of bullshit.
Dunno wtf they expect you to do without a case though.
Unless they want a decent framerate on Doom 3.
Value Gaming System Buyer's Guide ($1000 budget)
High-end System Buyer's Guide ($2,500 budget)
Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide ($4,000 budget)
Many comments have mentioned the case and keyboard and mouse and monitor and speakers were not included. Of course, they were not included because PC gamers building a new system already have another computer. These peripherals are assumed to be present in computer gamers' enviornments. The article did not include prices on a chair for sitting upon, but I will assume a gamer probably already has this peripheral. They don't need help purchasing one because if they didn't have a chair or a case or a keyboard, then they surely know it and can go buy it without the help of a computer purchasing walkthrough. These peripherals have not changed in decades, and Tom's Hardware does not include it in their gaming-rig loadouts.
ASRock motherboard (AMD Socket 939, PCI Express/AGP, SATA2) - $69
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Processor (1.8GHz, boxed CPU kit with cooler) - $146
eVGA's nVidia GeForce 6600 (256MB, AGP) - $113
512MB Corsair Value Select (PC3200, dual-channel DDR400 RAM) - $52
80GB Western Digital Caviar SE hard drive (WD800JD, SATA 150, 8MB cache, 7200rpm) - $57.50
DVD-ROM from LiteOn (SOHD-16P9SBLK, 16x read) - $20
330W PSU from Seasonic (S12-330, ATX 12V) - $59
Since your building this machine yourself you will need a copy of XP to actually play the games on. Also is this thing just going to float in the air or something? I guess the "$500 budget game machine" sounds better than the "$700 budget game machine" which is what this really would cost to build. But why let facts get in the way of a good ad generator, I mean story.
btw that entire article could fit onto 2 pages if they could keep the ads down a bit. Has ad revenue really dropped that badly that even a site like Tom's needs to resort to tricks like this?
The ratio of text you actually read to ads and other misc garbage is 10% vs 90% at best. Thank god for the zap plugins bookmarklet.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
We have a call for a karma whore! Why not just use Slashdot's pinnacle of Karma Whoring, TripMaster Monkey? Not only will we get some pathetic statement that his no-IQ minions will automatically mod as "insightfull", but we'll also get that fucking anime smile that makes me want to break some bones (someone else's, of course) every time he uses it.
Its called www.newegg.com They have some great deals on some parts. I build mine for about 449 USD and it runs great. All the parts I bought from newegg
Ive looked at their stuff before & came very close to buying asrock boards. Anybody care to share their horror stories or endorsments of the brand?
Theyre pretty cheap, its not another ECS/pcchips clone is it?
They seem to have just sprung from nowhere a few years ago.
Yeah I agree. The first 50 or so "but they didn't include a case!" posts were informative, now they're just redundant.
... well, a HARDWARE guide, and thus they were concerned only with laying out the hardware you'd need to run games, not the OS or other software. I didn't expect them to actually build a $500 gaming rig and include a retail box edition of XP, did anyone else? Of course not; it's assumed that you'll acquire one yourself. The fact that it may include some variety of extralegal means is left unspoken.
As for the OS issue, I think it could be easily argued that Tom's Hardware is
I had hoped that this article would actually result in some interesting discussion of low-budget / high-performance hardware and the implied tradeoffs there, but instead it's just attracted a lot of pedants boosting their karma by pointing out that there's no Windows license included for the 100th time.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Not going to get very far without a keyboard and mouse, speakers, or a monitor, either. I'm all for putting together inexpensive rigs, but it's just not doable at $500. Not yet. I know they're "focusing simply on the box itself," but that's a cop-out. Especially when they didn't choose a "box" at all. I think it's safe to say that a "Gaming Machine" includes input and display (and a case and operating system), so the title of the article is misleading. It's more like "How much of a gaming-oriented computer can we put together for $500?" Not all of it, apparently. But we knew that already, didn't we? So what's the point of this exercise?
Okay, folks. Let's look through what we have so far in this thread - a number of people complaining about no monitor, keyboard, mouse, or case.
Did it ever occur to any of you that all of those items are what WE CURRENTLY HAVE? Look at the parts list that he's building up in the review. It's evident that he's talking about UPGRADING a current system on a shoestring budget!
Keyboards, mice, monitors, and cases can remain consistent through any upgrade. They neither improve nore degrade performance. HOWEVER...
A new processor is obvious.
Depending on how old your current system is, a new motherboard is probably required for the new CPU.
New memory is also often required in order to take advantage of faster buses. (No smart-ass comments about public transportation, please.) Although I personally would not recommend anything less than 1 GB for gaming or 2 GB if you plan on playing Battlefield 2.
A new video card is obviously needed for a lot of newer games, and the 6600 has a very good price/performance ratio right now.
A new hard drive is always a good idea for several reasons. (A) Price/GB is always dropping. (B) More storage is always good. (C) A new drive allows the ability to transfer data from the old hard drive more efficiently than making a backup to DVD. (D) New hard drives are just about guaranteed to be faster than older hard drives, especially if there is a multi-year difference between the two.
Everything that he mentioned in the article are what are needed to get yourself a "new" gaming system. A new case, keyboard, mouse, and monitor are not needed. The main internals that matter are clearly what he's talking about. So, it should have been evident that the article is about UPGRADING a current system, not buying a whole new gaming system from scratch!
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
Oh, and I know they only cost $20 sans P/S but they also forgot a case. Idiots.
2 E16811209002
Yeah, but they obviously didn't look very hard when they were making this list.
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N8
Viola, and you still have your sub $500 gaming rig.
Remember folks, slashdot doesn't have a -1 "disagree" moderation!
And never mind a KVM switch, whatever happened to manually moving plugs around?
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Yea, I spent 500 bucks for a "gaming rig" (plus 60 bucks for 1 gig of ram).
Specs: Gateway 507GR
300 watt PS
3.0 HT p4
512 meg ram
200 gig HDD
DVD/CD burner
Intel GMA 900 integrated graphics
Ex Pee home
Cost so far: 350+tax (was on clearance at Orfice Depot over the summer)
Added:
ATI Radeon x700 pro 256 PCIE @$150
Total: 500 bucks. For even more kicks, I added 1 gig of ram and a tv tuner card.
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
Yes mode me down I am an ass on that issue, and while 2 years ago I did not even want to hear of a console system, after I got a PS2 I got an xbox in 3 months and enjoying the benefits of it......
....
.......
...... For the price of a new card I just buy an xbox360, for the processor and motherboard price I buy a PS3 next spring ....
......
... right now xbox 480p is a bit blocky on the 1.79cm wide screen ....
While I sometimes install a demo on my PC and see the quality difference in GFX power and marvel the 1024, most of the time the framerate or the needed res/detail adjustments leave me with a game that I can barely enjoy unless I go and buy an other video card or latest processor for several hundreds.
I know that my xbox farcry or doom3 looks like crap compared to the PC version, but I know that my thousand dollar PC ran DOOM 3 like CRAP while my $200 xbox gives me an enjoyable experience
The other issue is the keyboard gaming : while I found the console controllers stupid some time ago, I got used to them soo much, it made me really hate playing with the keyboard and a mouse when I tried it recently with the FEAR demo (which by the way kept crashing my machine every 20 minutes - no my machine never crashes, even that that particular one runs XP with heavy DVD rendering loads)
While I decided not to get a new console a while ago, the E3 presentation made me think of a PS3 and it just got stronger after tryin 2-3 games recently on the PC, one that something like : "GO BUY a NEW MACHINE I DO NOt RUN ON THAT SHIT"
I mean 2.8 G P4 with 512M RAM and some year-old NVIDIA
Sorry but my apps run just fine on my other machine with the "other system" Linux, AMD XP2000, 768M
I know that is an other argument and I probably would not have agreed with myself even 2 years back.....
Besides: my projector is 800x600 native which will just kick butt with the outpot of the new consoles
What the hell is wrong with Slashdot today. This article is dated the 14th of October. This is not news; the prices have changed if you browse the 'net a bit now. On top of that the article was rather stupid as so many have pointed out.
Having just slogged through Quake 4 on a 9500 pro, 512MB pc800, 2.53GHz P4, I can't recommend anyone else do this. Doom3 was surprisingly decent, but Quake at 1280x1024 / medium / no shadows did 20-30 fps with more stutter than Gary the Retard. Multiplayer is out of the question.
If I can't run Oblivion, that'll be the deal-breaker.
you can have my violent video games when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
Prime UID Club
nah, thats a tech demo :P
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
AMD Semperon 3000/ECS NFORCE3 A combo: Fry's %80
Western Digital ATA133 80 GB HDD: Fry's $50
1 GB OCZ DDR400 RAM [2X512]: Fry's $100
Sony 16x DVDRW Dual Drive: Walmart $70
Samsung DVDROM 16X OEM: Micro-Center $20
Diamond/Stealth ATI Radeon 9550 256MB DDR: Micro-Center $65 [easy to overclock]
Turtle Beach Catalina 7.1 Soundcard: Fry's $35
MGE M1 Gamer Case with 450W Power Supply: Micro-Center $50
2X CoolerMaster Case Fans: Micro-Center $10
Antec Slot Fan/Blower: Micro-Center $5
Windows XP Home Upgrade: Wal-Mart $89 [All you need is an old Windows 9x/ME/NT or system restore disc to use as full]
After tax, a tiny bit under $600, not cheaping out on anything [this system has a good burner, a real sound card good for gaming and HT, twice the amount of RAM dual channel at that, and happens to have a case and proper cooling, 0h, and a legal operating system] If you bought all these parts online or ebay, I'm sure you could do even less than what I did.
And Tom didn't even count in shipping or tax..loser. Someone could counter his system "performs better", but I seriously think the difference in performance would be very marginal, with twice the system and video ram, less intergrated parts, and better though cheap cooling.
Is it just me or did they forget something...I just can't find words for it... oh yeah... A CASE? How about a monitor? I find it quite nice to actually see the games when I play them. Perhaps even have some controls to play them with (keyboard? mouse?)? And, although I am a great fan and supporter, I don't think many people want to have a Linux gaming system. Shary Extreme takes a much more realistic approach on the matter.
The box said: Requires Windows 98 or better. So I installed Linux!
We also left out input devices, such a keyboard, mouse or monitor, I never knew my monitor was an input device. Stdin 2?
Is it just me, or is it getting harder and harder to buy a decent card for less then $200? I gotta say, I miss the days of $99 Voodoo Banshees. Heck, if you ask me cards in the $100 range should at least play last years games at 800x600x60fps, and a lot don't. Nvidia's and ATI's naming schemes don't exactly help here either (I especially like how ATI 8500s are faster than many 9200s and the ever increasing alphabet soup trailing off Nvidia card names).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
For $619 shipped I built this:
Athlon 64 3400+ skt754 board(bought in combo)
Rosewill Value Case and 350 watt ps
250 gig seagate barracuda SATA
1 gig corsair value ram
NEC 320A(I believe) DVD dual layer burner
Sapphire Radeon 9600 256meg
Windows2k($64 included in 619)
http://www.uberreview.com/2005/10/biggames-home-vi deo-arcade-machine.htm
Starting in November, Target Stores will offer a BigGames full size home video arcade machines that will retail for less than $500 nationwide. Each unit plays 12 of the original arcade versions of the most popular Midway® games including: Defender®, Defender® II, Robotron®, Joust®, Bubbles®, Splat(TM), Sinistar®, Rampage®, Rootbeer Tapper(TM), Wizard of Wor(TM), Timber(TM), and Satan's Hollow(TM). The unit stands 62" tall and has an included, built-in, full color monitor. It comes with additional A/V inputs that allow (almost) any existing home video game system, DVD player, VCR or any other A/V product to be plugged in and viewed on the built-in monitor. At 62" the unit is not truly full size but at $500 no work required it may be a good deal. Especially when the hackers get their hands on the unit. The quality of this system should be interesting. I just hope it is better than their http://www.mybiggames.com/index.htmwebsite.
I actually just bought a brand new system for $527 shipped, minus the cd drive, mouse and keyboard, and of course the monitor. Still, with all that, I managed to make a system that comperable to theirs for only ten bucks more AND have a decent case to put it all in. 3000+ Sempron, ECS (as long as it's not pc chips I'm fine with it), half gig of ram (decided to go cheap on the ram as it's a cheap upgrade down the line anyway) Powercolor X800 GT (the only thing I decide not to go cheap on) and case w/ 500 watt psu. That was all from one site that put it together and burned it in, so I actually could've gone cheaper if I shopped around a bit, but I didn't feel like waiting on 5 different orders to come in and then put together. I'm happy with it though, it runs everything I've thrown at it great, except for BF2 (demo), which still runs great, just not as pretty as I'd like. Still, if you add the mouse/kb, cheap cd-rom, and went pawn shopping for a monitor, it would truly be a worthwhile rig for under $600. Hell, nowadays people would probably give you an old crt anyway. I hate going cheap on the ram and especially the mobo, but I had never paid over a 100 bucks for a video card, so I took a chance and so far it's doing great! It gets 80-90 fps in CS: Source and HL2 with settings set to high minus shadows (personal preference) at 1280x1024, which is the max my lcd will go.
It is possible to make a complete, decent system, just remember that once you hit that $500 mark, spending a few more dollers over, goes a long way.
A case to store it all in. Surely if you are this cheap than your original case if you had one at all will not hold things right.
The case, monitor, keyboard, mouse etc don't have to be upgraded. I'm assuming this $500 gaming machine is in response to console players saying PC gaming is too expensive.
If you reuse the case, monitor, keyboard, and mouse, then other residents of your household will hog the machine for their own purposes.
Adding the monitor etc to the price is like adding the TV and stereo to the price of the console.
As households are more likely to have spare TVs than spare monitors and cases, another console can be put on any spare TV in the house, and the old console can use the spare TV's internal speakers. Consoles come packaged with the counterpart to a keyboard anyway.
(all quotes via NewEgg unless cited otherwise)
/home
Foxconn NF4K8AB-RS Socket 754 NVIDIA nForce4-4X ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
Model #: NF4K8AB-RS $63.00
Albatron PC6600Q Geforce 6600 256MB DDR PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail
Model #: PC6600Q $109.00
AMD Sempron 64 2600+ Palermo 800MHz FSB Socket 754 Processor Model SDA2600BXBOX - Retail
Model #: SDA2600BXBOX $64.00
CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered System Memory Model VS1GB400C3 - Retail Model #: VS1GB400C3 $95.16
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 ST3120026A 120GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive - OEM
Model #: ST3120026A $80.00 mounted as /
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 ST3200826AS 200GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM
Model #: ST3200826AS $110.00 mounted as
TOSHIBA Black IDE DVD Burner Model SD-R5372V - OEM Model #: SD-R5372V $35.00
Antec Truepower 430W Power Supply on sale at CompUSA for $40 after rebates
Existing InWin full-tower case $Free (Complete with murals done by Greg Colton, who did layouts for the "Dilbert" animated series.)
Existing keyboard, monitor & mouse $Free
Debian Linux $Free
Full cost $557.15...yeah, it's a little over the $500 limit. Tom also went over the mark. Actually I'm going to spend $110 more on it, because I want two drives on the SATA chain for vidcap work.
Kicking ass on the econo system that Tom's Hardware put together: Priceless.
Linux is getting better and better on the gaming front. Windows? It ain't worth the hassle, the insecurity or the money. This configuration can do more than the Tom's system as well. You shouldn't build a modern machine without a DVD burner at this point...it doesn't make sense, because good ones are so inexpensive. And Sempron64 gives you better bang-to-buck ratio than Athlon64.
I might go with a different video card than the Albatron, but I'll probably stick with the NVidia 6600. Again, good bang-to-buck ratio.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
allso, didnt the PS2 sport usb ports? and support normal keyboard and mouse thru that?
Whether the PS2 hardware and operating system will recognize a device has no bearing on whether a particular game will recognize it. Most PS2 games are hardcoded to read directly from the two PS1 controller ports, not the USB ports.
'nuff said.
Frys 200 DOllar AMD box
Memory upgrade 89 dollars
Video card 89 dollars.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
PS2, XBox, Nintendo GC, PS3, XBox 360
That's like buying a DVD player that can only play MPAA movies, not Creative Commons licensed movies and other independent movies that have been saved as MPEG-2. How do I lawfully run independent video games on any of the video game consoles that you mentioned? Heck, how do I even run Half-Life mods (other than Counter-Strike) on a console?
Any entry level budget PC which can be had a Frys, Compusa, Walmart, Best Buy, Circuit City, etc etc for about $200, with an upgraded video card and MAYBE upgraded ram will run today's games.
No it won't run them at top resolution at 120fps... but who cares. Anything above 30fps is very playable. Anything above 60fps is just pure gravy.
Couple Adblock+ with Filterset.G and you'll have yourself a clean browsing experience. I personally maintain my own filters, but by "maintain" I mean "edit every once in a while".
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
My video card alone costs that.
This story has a few hundred comments now. But I'm shocked to see that no one has realised they missed the $500 price point!
They left out so many things that I find it hard to believe they just forgot it. It's just to keep the price low and article's title more impressive. The more impressive the title is, the more echo it generates around the web, the more visitors, more money.
DevBlogs
carefully
Charles Jo
Could someone please comment on why on earth it's damn near impossible to find a decent budget video on/out card? I meen ok say I skip the monitor to play on my TV (wich I'm realy thinking about), what's out their? And how come I can't find a good CRT? sure their old tech wise, but being in the 700 computer croud myself I'd kind of like to know. PS anyone know how to resurect a old dell (it's a p3), then I'd judt get a new hard drive some ram, and a mabie more recent graphics card.
1.- Get 500 bucks.
2.- Head for the computer shop
3.- Stop by a Circuit City, Walmart or whatever...
4.- Buy an Xbox, PS or Gamecube
5.- Play away
hmm okay, but not really sure about the case, you might need a new case if the motherboard format switches.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
If I'm building a system with a budget like that, I'm not going to pay sticker prices for all of this. Here's a system that's better than that for the same price--actually, a little less.
CPU: AMD Athlon64 3000+ Venice core, $139 at Newegg.
Motherboard: Foxconn NF4K8AC-RS-1.0, $65 at Newegg, and with the processor, $5 off, taking it to $199.
RAM: Buffalo Select 512MB DDR 400, $32.25 after rebate at Newegg.
Video Card: Connect3D Radeon X700, $70 after rebate at TigerDirect. Or, if you're Nvidia, try the XFX Geforce 6600 256MB, $102 at Newegg.
Hard Drive: Seagate 250GB 7200RPM 8MB, $70 after rebate at TigerDirect.
Optical drive: NEC 3540A DVD+/- DL, $39 at Newegg.
Power Supply: Antec SmartPower 2.0 400W, $55 at Newegg, and it won't catch fire when you put something else in that system, unlike their power supply.
Now, with the Nvidia card you're at $497.25 after all rebates and before shipping. With the ATI, $465.25, leaving enough for another 512 MB of RAM so FEAR will actually run.
So we have 250 GB of hard drive space, a DVD burner, more RAM, and a real power supply, all for under $500, leaving you that $15 they went over for a cheap case. Enjoy.
The article does refer to UPGRADING. Gee I already have a case in my current system and.. wait.. is that on OS? Hey! I only need to upgrade my components! What's that you say? I can do it for $500? I should have read the article.
This isn't a spam, but I bought my last computer from them, and it was inexpensive. Cyberpowerpc also has cheap computers too...usually with more popular components and a little cheaper...
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.21H DPI Color Monitor
Sometimes both sites offer free shipping, which usually costs $200...so wait for that!
Sometimes, it doesn't make sense to build...
This is ibuypowers weekly special:
http://www.ibuypower.com/ibp/store/configurator.a
-Raidmax 268 ATX Mid-Tower Case w/350W Power Supply
-[939-pin] AMD® Athlon-64 3000+ CPU w/ Hyper Transport Technology
-Free Game --- Half Life 2 Download Coupon with purchase of any AMD-64 based systems
-Foxconn WinFast NF4UK8AA-8EKRS nVidia nForce4-Ultra Chipset Motherboard
-512MB DDR-400 PC3200 Memory Module Corsair-Value or Major Brand
-Nvidia 6200 Videocard
-80 GB 7200 RPM Ultra ATA-100 Hard Drive
-16X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive
-600W PMPO 3 PCS Super Bass Subwoofer Speaker System
-PS/2 104 Key Windows 98 Keyboard
- Optical Internet Mouse
-MS Windows XP Home Edition w/Service Pack-2
-ViewSonic 17" E70F Perfect Flat CRT
This configuration isn't that great, but it is light years ahead of what tom's hardware recommends. Plus it has a free game, a monitor, and WinXP and 1 year of service support and a DVD writer!
the rig's ever going to need more than 128mb of video memory considering the low resolutions it'll be playing at... 256mb sweetspot MY ASS
i would go for a cheap (probably used) 9800pro over that POS 6600nonpro
A chair is not necessary to use the computer to play games. I would never expect Dell to deliver a chair to me when I purchase a complete computer system.
A case, ok, you could probably get by without it. You would at least need to buy some sort of switch to connect to the motherboard to turn it on.
A mouse, monitor, and keyboard are necessary for any game I would want to play. I could maybe get by without speakers.
The argument that it is assumed that some peripherals are already owned is completely lame. If that were the case, why include a DVD-ROM drive? Heck, why include a motherboard and processor? A 3 year old motherboard and processor would work fine for games. Just buy a fancy video card and some RAM.
The article was not titled "how to upgrade your system to play the latest games for $500" (but apparently it should have been).
I use a SmartJoy Frag on my Xbox. It's great for games like Call of Duty, Halo, and pretty much any FPS, really.
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I ordered from Lik Sang:
http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?category=83&prod
Also, you can get it for PS2 as well, so that the games that don't support the USB ports will work:
http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?category=23&prod
Their $500 for a gaming machine seriously fails it. If you really go dealshopping, you can get a gaming computer with a case for about $500. I'm already done with the price searching to build a new box for $500 with the following specs: AMD Athlon64 3800+ Asus Socet754 Mobo (no, I will not be upgrading this rig ever!) 512MB RAM 300GB/16MB/7200RPM HD One DVD-RW, one CD-RW nVIDIA FX5700 It really works out quite well all for under $500. Definitely beats the one at THG, will be able to handle Doom3 and HL2 like a breeze. However, I'm mostly optimizing this for compiling stuff on Linux.
...complaint about there not being a keyboard, mouse, monitor etc., I have to ask the people who complained, "Did any of you actually -read- the article?" Here, let me help you:
Plus, in a lot of cases, you can save yourself some shipping money by buying from one retailer when everything is purchased at the same time. We were also careful not to select any parts that were under any "special deals" or rebates at the time. We also left out input devices, such a keyboard, mouse or monitor, since we are focusing simply on the box itself.
The FA mentions getting an alienware machine. They come with a case/speakers/...
all in all a good article, but ...
where are the benchamrks for that system?
sure it's cheap, but without any benchmarks
a novice buyer has no clue as where
this sytems stands in ranks
anyway, i wouldn't go with a 64 bit cpu for a
budget gaming system (no 64 bit ready games, duh!)
sempron instead and most surely no corsair ram!
kingston is the only way to go. maybe the cheaper
32-bit cpu might allow for a 6600 GT!
oh, and yeah, surely no corsair ram!:P
When it's running Linux, it's a box.
When it's running games, it's a rig.
When it's running Windows, it's a machine.
I ran my Gaming Machine, exposed to the elements in my Garage for two years! I waw thinking about building it into the desk, but I got lazy! Whingers!
"There are three rules in my House. 1) Keep Mama happy. 2) See Rule 1. 3) Life is NOT Fair, Get Over It!"
Lotsa peole have been commenting on the lack of a case, keyboard, mouse, speakers, etc.
I know people are gonna laugh at this, but Keyboard+Mouse+Speakers can all be found relatively cheap at Goodwill/Value Village. I recently got my mitts on a computer that had no Keyboard/Mouse/Speakers; Going to Goodwill, Keyboard+Mouse cost about five bucks and I had a spare pair of speakers lying around. Sure, it's not glamorous, but it fits in with the whole "Budget" theme of the guide. I imagine finding a cheap case isn't hard; hell, if you're a packrat, you've probably got a case or two lying around.
For 500 of your dollars I could purchase a PS2, Xbox and a gamecube, plus several games, at the local GAME store. Second hand, granted, but fully functional.
C17H21NO4
spend the extra $100 and upgrade from 80gb to at least 200gb and make the DVD-ROM a DVD-+RW.
the author's comment on this?
"Many readers may jeer at the fact that no burnable optical drive was selected, especially as prices have dropped dramatically in the last year. This is not intended as a media system, this is a streamlined gaming system on a budget, so let's stay focused. While burning CDs and DVDs as backups is smart, it's by no means mandatory. Plus, adding a DVD burner down the road is probably the easiest of all potential upgrades. "
He built a system with the bare minimums to get the games to run. Paying $500 to only play games is stupid when you could spend another $100 and play games and have the space to download & burn movies, music, games, etc. Sure he stayed focused but he ended up building something that'd need upgrading almost immediately, and although adding a DVD burner is very easy there's no reason not to do it now, not like they're expensive, spend the extra $30 (DVD-ROM was $20) and get a burner and $40 to get a 200gb hd (80gb was already $60).
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
I don't get it...
Where's the "Profit !" line?