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.'"

Comments

the punchline

[randyest]

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

Re:Pirates!

[Praxx]

Students at my university (who are also more likely to appreciate a $500 gaming rig) can get a Windows XP license for $6.

Ars Technica

[Kesh]

I'd rather use the Ars Technica System Guides. They tend to be a bit more realistic and don't hype up a specific price point. Plus, they get all the components in. ;)

Their Budget Box is comparable to the one Tom's built, and actually includes all the necessary parts in the price.

3 gamer computer guides for 3 budgets

[g_adams27]

Sharky Extreme does this kind of thing on a regular basis, usually every month.

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)

Re:And then there's how to game for $500

[VGPowerlord]

Because we all know how much Goldeneye sucked on the N64... (Prove that you hate karma by giving me some good mod points)

Yes, it did. It really shows if you've ever played an FPS on a PC prior to playing Goldeneye. Goldeneye feels like you're stuck in molasses.

In addition to Goldeneye being so freaking slow, the mouse is much better at turning and aiming than a gamepad is. There's no noticable limitation on how fast you can turn with a mouse.

I know someone is going to bring Halo up, so I'll beat you to the punch:

The PC version will feature a faithful port of Halo's acclaimed story-based campaign that won't be changed in any substantive way. However, conventional mouse and keyboard controls give PC players an advantage that would make the game too easy if the difficulty settings weren't rebalanced somewhat. Pitchford mentioned that the harder settings might need the most tweaking, since the legendary difficulty should still be terrifically hard. Bungie is working closely with Gearbox and has provided some insight on how to maintain the game's balance.

Source: Gamespot Article Halo PC Update, emphasis mine.

Exactly what did they change?

However, the team found that the simple step of removing the auto-aim assistance from the game (necessary to compensate for the inaccuracy of the joypad) ramped the difficulty up sufficiently, and no other balance changes were required.

Source: Eurogamer Halo PC Preview