Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Shh! You're not supposed to ask questions like this. Console proponents hate when you point out that an RTS or FPS completely sucks ass on these "gaming systems".
The moment you bring it up, the moment they go into a tizzy about how those game types suck anyway and you should just be happy with other types of games, 'cos, hey, they are, and they don't feel like they're missing out on anything.
What works for them has to work for you. Or else!
Toms did, and now slashdot has directed traffic to them. I dont recall seeing an update on the front page of /. last time ArsTechnica or Anandtech put up budget rigs, which anyone with some common sense could easily look at and say "oh i dont need a new case or monitor for this, ill spend even less on a budget rig!" just so they could attract traffic.
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
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.
Oh, and I know they only cost $20 sans P/S but they also forgot a case. Idiots.
Who needs a case? See?
No Sigs!
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.