BleepingComputer.com: budget gaming computer

I have a friend who wants a new gaming computer and is on an extremely tight budget. He wants to play Rift (on normal settings), Starcraft II, and Diablo III. He originally told me his budget limit was $300, but I was unable to get it under $500, let alone monitor/keyboard/mouse costs. I think I did pretty well at keeping costs low without sacrificing a great deal of power. Does anyone have any recommendations?

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=15713605

You buy this case which includes the power supply rather the buying it separately. The burner is out of stock, get this one.You do not need to buy the extra fan and the splitter. This USB keyboard should do.

the power supply with that case killer wont power the components in that build, not with that video card anyway. I wouldnt trust it to anyway.

You have an impossible task. The problem is you are building a semi obsolete system from the get go. I realize there are budget constraints present. I could make a couple of recomendations (like skipping that mobo an getting an AMD 880 series instead of an NVidia chipset board and getting a better monitor). I really cannot make any changes that would save money (and not a Rosewill PSU). The $99 for an OS is really a killer. I just did a budget upgrade for a client, (880G/Dual core Athlon II/WD Blue 500gig/4 gigs memory/430CX PSU/)~$260, plus $80 for a used 22" LCD. Essentially replaced everything in the case but optical drives.

You are at the price point where it might be better to find a budget desktop system from some OEM. I have seen AthlonII/4 gigs memory/discreet graphics/22" monitor setups in the low $400 range when you hit the sales at the right time. Keep an eye on Fatwallet, Techbargains, and Ben's Bargains. It is just about impossible to compete on the low end with OEMs and the economies of scale.

This post has been edited by dpunisher: 01 April 2011 - 06:20 PM

One thing I can suggest to maybe save some money, is perhaps finding an old case thats no longer in use that you can get to work, and re using optical drives. For a gaming rig, that is a tight budget-he may be better off saving his dimes. 5-600 is where my average every day computers I sell to my customers typically run, with the nicer home systems going 7-800, most of my actual gaming rigs start at 1000 on up.

With a budget that small, you may want to simply hold off until you have about $700. You're not going to get cutting edge at $700, but you at least won't have something that is already obsolete.

I'm considering selling him my computer (minus the video card and hard drives) after my new build this summer when the next-generation AMDs are released.
This would save some money but he would be stuck with an aging dual-core processor.

This post has been edited by RainbowSix: 01 April 2011 - 11:21 PM

I am assuming it would be the one in your signature.

Yeah, system 1. I guess another alternative would be to use a few old parts and replace other things. If I go this route, I would replace the CPU with a simple quad core (such as the Athlon II x4).

This post has been edited by RainbowSix: 02 April 2011 - 06:26 PM

The budget would be still $500, right? Also your friend is gonna need a hard drive and graphics card first.

You're also going to be waiting until probably June, which is probably when the next generation AMD Bulldozer/Zambezi CPU's are due out.

Can't wait to see if the new AMD CPUs out run the Intel's Sandy-Bridge CPUs.

I hate to resurrect old threads, but I have another question. Specifically, how much cooling should I leave in the system? If I give him the stock fan (120MM, 1200RPM) and an extra 80MM fan I have, would that be enough?

Id play with it. Put those two in, boot it up and run some stress tests, and see what happens. If they run cool enough, then that would be fine, otherwise leave him more cooling.