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The $500 Gaming PC Upgrade
sand writes "Building a powerful PC for gaming doesn't have to be expensive. In this article, FiringSquad spends $500 on a gaming upgrade, and compares its performance to that of a high-end Core 2 Extreme PC. The Core 2 Extreme rig is faster, but you may be surprised by how well the $500 PC is able to hang with it in Crysis, Call of Duty 4, and Unreal Tournament 3."
I know the big green buck is down the shitter but 500$ ain't inexpensive, morons!
Smile, don't click...
Ya but does it run Vista?
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
They dropped a PS3 really, really hard on the PC and called it an upgrade, right?
[ think ]
Newsflash: If you buy the last generation of hardware, and not the top-of-the-line video card, you'll save money!
I've been keeping my PC about one or two cycles behind the bleeding edge for this reason, and it plays games just fine
- Roach
I think they wanted to call this a cheap build, but saw that it equated to another normal build. So they removed things like an optical drive, hard drive, case, power supply, speakers, and a monitor to "reduce the price" and make this an "insanely cheap upgrade!"
Honestly, I'm sure half the nerds on this site could build an entire SYSTEM that'd put this upgrade to shame at that price.
import system.cool.Sig;
nigger nigger nigger
Money well-spent.
The summary (and even the article) is a bit confusing. They're spending $500 on 4 components:
CPU
GPU
Motherboard
RAM
It is assumed you already have the other components (PSU, case, HDD, etc)
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
I recently upgraded my machine for playing games. I spent about $450 and built something *significantly* better than what is shown in this article. How? By buying cheap/discount/used hardware off eBay. It's really just that simple. I could have easily spent several hundred more dollars on the same stuff by buying from an actual store.
From TFA:
"The GPU of choice in our upgrade article is without a doubt the recently announced GeForce 8800 GT from NVIDIA. ... ... ... Most of the online retailers sold out of their inventory of GeForce 8800 GT cards within hours of the GPU's release, but hopefully they'll be restocked shortly. EVGA is a great brand, offering goodies like a lifetime warranty and their Step Up trade-in program. We've reviewed their cards in the past quite extensively and always liked them.
Keep in mind that NVIDIA is producing all of the early GeForce 8800 GT cards for their board partners like EVGA anyway, so regardless of the brand of card you choose they're all coming off the same production line. This includes the factory overclocked cards.
Alternatives: Until AMD ships their upcoming RV670 chip, the Radeon HD 3800, there really is no viable alternative to the GeForce 8800 GT that we'd recommend. If you want to save a little money the Radeon X1950 Pro would be an excellent alternative though."
Cruisin' a powerful PC fo` clockin' doesn't have ta be expensive . Yippie yo, you can't see my flow. In this article, FiringSquad spends $500 on a doggy stylin' upgrade , n compares its performance ta tizzy of a high-end Core 2 Extreme PC . You gotta check dis shit out yo. The Core 2 Extreme rig is hustla but you may be surprised by how wizzay tha $500 PC is able ta hang wit it in Crysis, Call of Duty 4, n Unreal Tournament 3."
Nope. That's called replacing a few parts in your PC (at most) after totalling your PS3.
I had a fairly high end, new rig (4GB of RAM, Vista Home Premium, Quad Core processor) and I was not satisfied with Crysis at all using a 8800GTS (384MB). At 1600x1050 (default resolution) it was just able to run with Medium - Low settings with some stuttering. I dropped in an 8800GTX Ultra instead (probably the only time in my life I'll ever be able to get away with buying a near top of the line card), and now I can run at High possibly even sneaking some things to Very High.
Once the article actually loads I'd love to see what they came up with for Crysis for less than the price of my video card (of course I'm secretly hoping that it's running at 800x600 on low with a bad framerate to justify my ridiculous purchases!)
FTFA: "There's a silly misconception out there that you need to spend $1,500 or more to own a decent gaming rig. This is just nonsense"
Sure, I know people that always buy top of the line right when it comes out. They actually care if they're able to get 71 fps in a certain game vs 68 fps. Not because they play it, but because it means something to them to have a high number.
But that's the exception, not the norm. People building their own systems like was done in the article aren't that retarded.
I was just forced into upgrading due to a motherboard that went bad on an old Athlon XP 2400 system.
A few hours of looking and a e4600 Core 2 Duo, 2 gigs of DDR2 667, decent Asus MB, and a 512 meg Nvidia 8600GT...
$450 shipped. That included seating the processor and having them do the bios upgrade before shipping for $9. This from a reputable online service that many people have used for years. Even if I had to add a case, monitor, hardrive, dvd drive, key board and mouse, you're still looking at under $750 without a problem. And that would certainly qualify as decent.
Now, I got no doubt they spent a ton of time finding just the right stuff to eeck out all that little bit of tweaking.
But overall, no one thinks when building a system yourself you need to spend anywhere near that for a decent gaming system. For top of the line to have bragging rights over a meaningless fps score, sure. But not for something that'll play everything new just fine and be fine for years.
It's simply about buying mainstream stuff, instead of ultra-high-end stuff. Those high-end buyers PAY for the technology to be developed for all the mainstream users. But, games aren't made for a few people with high-end cards; they're made to play pretty damn well on what most people who bought any decent card/machine recently will have.
For 99.9% of people, buying very high-end stuff is a lot like buying a ferrari. Sure, it looks nice, but what practical use are you going to find for it?
It seems like console games and computer games have little if any distinction besides input method (controller vs keyboard/mouse). With USB coming standard on the next gen systems, why not "upgrade" your console with a keyboard/mouse? It wouldn't take much from game devs to allow this control scheme, especially for games that are going to see a PC port anyway. The whole PC gaming thing never made much sense to me. You can spend $500 on a console that performs as well as a computer at 3 times the cost. It is significantly more efficient both energy wise and processing wise.
Similes are like metaphors
If they just dropped that much on an X-box or PS3 they could have gotten something that keeps up with the gaming pc and is actually more fun to play. probably on a larger screen and would be guaranteed against obsolescence for a couple years.
You can get better results for the same cash.
I feel silly for spending $1500 or so for a brand new build this January. Granted I decided to go midrange (don't upgrade very often - so want a good utility-price balance).
Well the best price for that card in the UK (could only find one vendor with the EVGA one) is £172. That's about $350.
Rough figures:
Athton 64 X2 4000 = £42
Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H = £45
2x 1GB PC2-6400 = £80 (kingston, or £60 for cheaper brand)
GPU + CPU + Mobo + RAM = £339 (about $700)
--
http://bridgehosting.net/cheap-gaming-rig ?
These games seem to be heavily GPU bound.
What about a game like Supreme Commander? Which can bring a quad core processor to its knees.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
You better have 2 8800s in SLI if you plan on running Crysis with a reasonable frame-rates with graphics turned up enough to look better than Episode 2. Don't believe me? Try the demo.
...your still not getting laid though.
I thought that was outrageously expensive for a gaming machine!
The cake is a pie
ahh... never mind...
Jeez, I don't remember the original nintendo costing anywhere near that amount (in interest adjusted dollars). What 10 year old kid can afford to go out and spend $500 on a gaming box (with barely if any games in it?). Time to pull out Monopoly & Chess.
If you're spending $500 on a gaming upgrade and consider that cheap... you got bigger problems than just having less $500 in your bank account.
How about playing the game of (real) life? Too challenging perhaps? Not fun enough?
The cpu which they quote newegg at $100... I just bought from newegg for $70 a month or two ago.
;) it's still $100 for xp. (what a ripoff) I'd suggest begging friends and relatives to see if anyone has a copy they don't need or an older computer sitting in the corner collecting dust with xp on it.
I also bought a new, oem 1900xt (look it up on your favorite hardware review site) for $100 from newegg. IMHO a pretty good deal. Certainly the best card I could find for the money.
If you need good stuff for cheap and are desperate - craigslist (if you're near a big city) or ebay can help you out. I got a $120 power supply for $50 off craigslist and a motherboard and 2 gigs of ram... normal cost about $160 for $60. All of those have worked flawlessly so far.
The most expensive thing you're going to have to find to play games is windows. Even with Newegg's sneaky "feel free to claim you're oem" policy (at least last time I checked
Finally, if you can handle a crt you can get a 17 inch monitor for free on craigslist or buy a 19 inch for around $10-$30.
So who is kind of a redundant question. As for the over the top fps competitive players or people with disposable income come to mind. I used to team/clan and the players willing to drop more money on their systems got better performance at key moments (like tight combat with lots of effects/explosions). Of course I err on the frugal side myself, but I never gave much thought to anyone over-specing their system.
Quack, quack.
Most people don't seem to see why this number is so special: it's about the cost of an X-Box 360 with all the bells and whistles. Sure, they left out a case, monitor, speakers, and input. But compound to the cost of an X-Box 360 the fact that you have to buy controllers, an HD-TV, and a Live account. The point that should be taken home is that if you put your brain to work, you can build a system that's cheaper, more powerful, and plays better games than the consoles out there right now. This is the first time this has really happened: consoles from a generation or two ago were always rather cheap.
Well, my home built computer of three years still manages to play most things like a champ. I picked up all the parts for a bit over $1200 if I recall, and that included a monitor and wireless keyboard and mouse. The one upgrade I did was from an ATI X800XL to a 7950GT.
Really, all you have to do is lop down a decent chunk of change when you feel comfortable with it, and then just do smallish to medium upgrades throughout the years. Hell, the upgrade I'm looking at the most right now is actually swapping out my hard drive for several SATA II in a RAID 0 (I don't REALLY need parity as I tend to keep all of my important documents backed up).
You don't NEED to spend a lot on upgrades, but you should probably be willing to spend a good amount on the initial build of a computer.
This is using current-gen hardware - namely the 8800 GT GPU, which is so new most places haven't even got stock in yet, or have sold out of their first shipments. The processor isn't as cutting-edge, but is still current generation.
Their point is that current-gen has multiple price points, some of them more accessible than others.
(I'm in the process of upgrading a 3 year old PC (6800 GS / Athlon 3000) so paying attention to how not to spend a billion dollars on the thing)
Most motherboards for AMD Athlons are based on the latest chips from either nVidia or ATI/AMD which usually feature SLI/Crossfire, etc. and a big amount of SATA channels. In theory, motherboard makers could provide more IDE ports by soldering additional controller on the motherboard (and that used to be the case a couple of years ago, when IDE was king and chipsets only provided 2 channels), but they aren't doing it any more, partly to keep the cost down and partly because IDE is falling out of fashion.
If you want more IDE channels with an Athlon CPU, what you could do is stick to older VIA chipsets. You can find chipsets a few generation before (almost the same as when the first Athlon 64 appeared), that will still feature acouple of IDE channels. And the best part : because those are a generation or two older, they cost a lot less than the newest ATI/nVidia based.
(Also, thank to the Athlon design, where the CPU itself handles the tricky bits like memory IO, and where the motherboard "talks" to the CPU with a pretty standardized HyperTransport bus, you can mix older chipsets and have them function with latest processors).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I think about the time 386/486 Intel processors came along and people started counting Mhz is when I began encountering games that were too demanding for my PC. However, considering that I was still young and thus didn't have the money to upgrade I was stuck. The difference to today, however, is that you could do a moderate upgrade and immediately have a machine that runs all the current games well.
I think one of the bigger limiting factors back then was if your machine still ran only CGA or EGA when games supporting VGA/MCGA entered the market. Or worse, a few years later when those 3DFX cards entered the market. By and large, however, I think developers tended to ensure that games at least ran well on current machines.
This isn't the case today. Developers seem to develop games specifically to overwhelm the top machines available today. It's like they all have this insane mindset that people are still going to be playing these games 2 or 3 years from now when the majority of consumers actually have PCs capable of running these games at full detail. The problem is, that the life-cycle of a game doesn't go much beyond 6 months, and that's even for a good one. So what's the point?
So it seems like developers want to turn their games into benchmarks for PC performance. This certainly seems to be the trend. Nowadays any game comes along that most current PCs cant handle and almost immediately it shows up in performance testing. I attribute some of this to sloppy programming, but I also get the impression that these developers find the most convoluted and inefficient way to produce some visual effect. It's like they're relying on the hardware to support their code.
What I don't get is how they're able to turn a profit. I go through cycles with my PC purchases, directly related to how my PC handles contemporary games. When I upgrade my PC I'll pick up a few games. I eventually start hitting a performance wall where my PC has trouble running a current game well, so my game purchasing stops. The thing is that the PC still does everything else exceedingly well, so I have no practical reason to upgrade. It's the situation I'm in now. I have a 3Ghz P4 that does everything extremely well, except play current games.
The last time I took a risk was with Supreme Commander. That turned out to be such a massive disappointment because of the utter crap performance that I uninstalled it within days. I might as well go back to playing Total Annihilation which provides just as much fun with suitably large armies and will still run flawlessly.
A lot of these new games certainly look impressive. But they don't really look that much better than, let's say Half Life 2, and that will run well on my PC. I'd be looking at a 300% expense over my current PC to net maybe a 25% improvement in quality. And then be screwed in 6 months when whatever comes out then failed to run at a suitable framerate on my new PC. And I'm skeptical about a $500 PC running anything available today acceptably well and with decent visual quality.
Actually, even though SC is somewhat designed to take advantage of multi-core processors, it doesn't use them very well. Check the gaspowered games forums, you will see people writing apps to re-thread the dll/game cpu affinity. On my own Q6600, it runs 100% on one core, and about 20-30% on another. The other two cores are not used at all. Multi threaded programming isn't easy, and these quickie games are almost never designed to take advantage of threads and different cores. Hopefully it will change as more are more people get these processors. Simple things as putting AI,UI,and game logic on different cores would make a huge difference.
we are willing to accept.."
8800 gt 512mb $230 (prior best bang/buck: x1950xt 256mb $170)
open box g35 based motherboard $75
e2140 oc to 3-3.2ghz on stock cooling ~= e6800 in performance $60(usually found for $75, but $60 is around)
2gb generic ddr2 $50
500gb sata $75
dvd burner $35
seasonic 400watt 85%+ efficiency $60 (check out vendors at 80plus.org)
$585
skimping:
8800 gt 512mb $230
open box g35 based motherboard $75
e2140 oc to 3-3.2ghz on stock cooling ~= e6800 in performance $60
1gb generic ddr2 $25
ebay 250gb sata $20
dvd burner $30
ebay 400-500watt but regular inefficient $20
$450
skimping further:
8800 gt 512mb $230
ebay 939/am2 pcie motherboard $20
ebay athlon64 4000-xxxx $20
1gb generic ddr2 $25
ebay 250gb sata $20
dvd burner $30
ebay 400-500watt but regular inefficient $20
$345
and further:
x1950xt 256mb $170
ebay 939/am2 pcie motherboard $20
ebay athlon64 4000-xxxx $20
1gb generic ddr2 $25
ebay 250gb sata $20
dvd burner $30
ebay 400-500watt but regular inefficient $20
$305
further..:
ebay 7800gtx or equivalent $70-100
rest of system same as above
$205-235
1st setup is top of the line performance only beat by gtx/sli & higher oc'd core duo/quads
2nd same except some delay/chop/performance drop for some games because of 1gb
3rd loss in cpu dependent games
4th most things should play well
5th many play well, others dialed down, some not so hot
Plan B, keep old rig and play even older games. X-Wing Alliance runs realy good on a 1900XP Athlon with 1-and-a-quarter GB and an Geforce 7200. Plus older games I find have better gameplay.. kids todays with their anti-aliased fluid dynamic particle systems and cell processors, sorry this ol'timer does go on.
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
According to http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html I would say there are better deals than the X2 4000+ (The Q6600 is only $270 and can overclock nicely)
Not sure if anyone else pointed this out, but why would you be concerned about a mobo that has integrated graphics? I would think that if you are purchasing an 8800GT you would want something more than a PCIe x4 slot when you can easily buy a board that has x16 available. And would I really care that my mobo has a built in HDMI and DVI connector when I have a dedicated GPU with its own connectors? Sounds like he is just repeating picks for some other el cheapo system build and claiming its for gamers.
The best hardware for the price is always, always 'top-of-the-line minus ONE'.
I fully agree with this generalization, but sometimes you can go a few notches below the 'top-of-the-line' and still get huge performance. The best thing I found in the article is their recommendation of the AMD 4000 ($75.00 @ NewEgg) cpu over the higher end 5600s and 6000s. Using the 'minus-one' strategy, I planned on replacing my Athlon XP 3200 system with one based on the Athlon 64 M2 5200 ($119.00 @ NewEgg). So this article is giving me confidence going with a processor that's $50 cheaper.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
All you have to do to avoid even paying $500 is play CS all your life. Saved me a lot of money. :)
Help Me! I'm trapped in the tubes! Oh noes! Here comes a internet!
I built a machine for my family a few years ago. I bought an SLI mobo and only ONE of the SLI video cards. My plan was that ... while this card would be expensive NOW in about a year it will be cheaper and I can buy the 2nd of the 2 and get better video performance as an upgrade.
... now I'm wondering which is better.. a single 8800 card referred to in the article or these dual SLI 6600 series cards.
A few things were wrong with that.
a) the price of this particular card didn't drop that much
b) there appear to be some goofy bottlenecks in the dual mode SLI that are still keeping it down.
It's a 6600 series card (two in SLI mode) and
This could not have come at a better time as my motherboard (GA-M55plus-S3G) just died. Didn't even know there was anything other than nvidia/via (mostly nvidia ) that I could buy. SO now I get to look at boards with an AMD 690G/V chipset.
GA-MA69GM-S2H just seams ok, a bit to much flash, and I hate hate hate realtek nics. What happened to 3com or other nics?
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
I recently upgraded. Being a full time student, I focussed on getting the most bang for the buck. I did not put in a graphics card yet since I don't have time to game for a few months. I will get whatever is a good deal when I do since prices drop all the time. But for the sake of price, here are the specs.
ECS P4M900T-M + E2140 = $89
RAM 2GB (5300) - $40
7900GS - $99
Case + KB + Mouse Combo - $35
Reused extra drives from earlier machine.
Don't believe the prices? That's because I built it using items on sale and with rebates. It will not do Crysis justice but should play just about any other game on my meager 17'' monitor but still provide at least as good visuals as the newer consoles.
Total - $268
Hopefully my old one will get me $150-$200 on Craigslist to offset further. So what did I spend to stay current? Around $100. PC gaming is not expensive unless people want to play the latest games on a large display.
Spend the money to beer and your computer faster than you can handle! "In the game of chess you can never let your opponent see your pieces" - J
In the game of chess you must never allow your opponent to see your pieces.
...I have a 3Ghz P4 that does everything extremely well, except play current games.
I would say this article was meant for you?
Having morphed my single processor crappy video card unit through five iterations to a all but the last bleeding edge setup, I can tell you that even a modest upgrade to a dual core processor on sale plus a better video card will not only allow you to play todays games but will allow you to crank up the detail in your beloved older games.
I can never go back to my old system after seeing it the way the developers intended: Settings cranked all the way up.
Purchase the Orange box game then benchmark it on your current system, then find a friend who has a gaming rig or perform the above mentioned upgrades.
Then you will see what the fighting is all about!
I just bought a new computer last month. Total price, converted to US dollars, was $1482.
:)
:)
That might seem like a lot of money, but considering I don't have any kids, no car and a pretty decent salary I figured I could afford it. Not to mention, I hadn't spent a dime on computer parts since 2003, and with the Orange Box coming out, well.. You do the math
If your hobby is PC gaming then no, $500 is not a lot of money. It's actually a very good price for upgrading your PC to play the latest games. I'd actually worry more about the prices of the games themselves
Blog -
I assume that "hanging in there" means that the system isn't top notch, but is adequate to play a decent round. That's fine if you are a casual/weekend gamer. For us hardcore gamers a few thousand dollars is well worth it. I play 40+ hours a week (mostly COD:UO MP) and I can definitely tell the difference between "hanging in there" and beating the crap out of everyone.
Hell, guys, my vid card cost more thatn $500.
Just two months ago I finished my summer employment before heading back to university and after much painstaking calculating, I found I had enough cash to equip myself with a new PC for that all important "Stay home playing games instead of going to class" factor. I budgetted myself £800, this being the price of my previous gaming rig a few years ago. I am now the proud owner of a Quad Core 2.4ghz Intel CPU, 2gb of RAM, 500gb HDD, swanky Asus mobo with all the extras and a 8800GTS 640mb graphics card as well as the usual keyboard, mouse, opticals etc. The only salvage was my nearly new Hyundai monitor ( a birthday gift) and my trusty 4.1 speaker system. The result? So far, I've found nothing that can challenge it to any degree. The SupCom stress test rolls smoothly with a score that's by no means the highest but still far in excess of the average, Episode 2 and it's counterparts barely even caused it to look round and the Crysis demo is maxed out and running sweet as a nut at 1440x900. This came in to the grand total of £700, including a case and PSU. Given current exchanges, that's nearly 1400$ but I'm still deeply in the black financially using nothing but my earnings as a freezer stocking monkey at the local supermarket. Hell, I've got 500$ in a sock under my bed. Surely it cannot be that hard to budget in a relatively epic machine into the monthly bills when you've got a real job?
Graphics hardware is Way behind.
http://www.idfun.de/temp/q4rt/
Ray Tracing requires a huge amount of hardware. After that is being drawn > 30 fps, then we can move on to Sub-surface scattering so that marble and milk look right.
They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.