So you want to play the latest games, but your budget is limited. Still, you want a system your friends won't laugh at. You want to be able to play the current crop of games on reasonably high settings and hope to run this system for the next year or two without having to back off the graphics settings to "minimum." This section's for you.
As mentioned in the introduction, all prices are from Newegg unless explicitly specified otherwise. No special prices (e.g., after mail-in-rebate prices or combo prices) are used if that can be avoided. You should be able to load these items in your cart and get them at or near the prices quoted. I didn't do a set of component lists for September because I a) ran out of time, b) hoped the new Core i5s would push the CPU prices down, and c) when b) failed to materialize as strong as I'd hoped, I realized that there really weren't many changes. Guess what? There still aren't. The good news: CPU and motherboard prices have come down slightly. The bad news: memory prices increased to suck up the savings of the other two. So I switched memory for this build. I had the same issue with the case and picked a different one there, too. I really want to try to stay under my self-established goal of $900 if possible. That said, if you do have a few more dollars to spend (like $50-$80), check out the bonus build.
CPU - There are two really good choices in the budget world at the moment in my opinion, the AMD Phenom II X4 810 at $143 and the Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 at $150. Both are good at their stock values and both overclock reasonably. There are some reviews at Extreme Overclocking, Guru of 3D and Neoseeker. In general, the edge seems to go to the AMD Phenom II X4 810. Additionally, motherboards of good quality that can be paired with the AMD go for a bit less than those of the Intel counterpart. With this build, I've stayed with the stock cooler for the CPU. This processor is a 95W TDP model, so this is an area we may want to revisit later.
Motherboard - I've chosen a Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P as the motherboard for this build. At $80 (a $5 drop from August), it's still a reasonable overclocker. It has only a single PCI-Express X16 slot, so no Crossfire here. Also, it's reported that the AMD770 doesn't support multi-GPU configurations at all, so the 4870X2 and 4850X2 are not candidates either. After years of squatting solidly in the Asus camp, I've recently converted to the Gigabyte religion. The reason: their 2 oz copper PCBs (the Ultra-Durable line with "UD" in the model number) have run solid in my last three builds and overclock like nobody's business. They're just problem-free boards. In general, I'll always stick with the big four: Asus, Gigabyte, MSI and ECS, but right now, Gigabyte and I are dating. There are some reviews at Guru of 3D and Neoseeker. This motherboard has a nice layout - avoiding having anything directly under/behind the PCI-E X16 slot though the IDE socket is close. We won't be using any IDE devices for this build, but those upgrading and bringing along an older CD/DVD-RW/ROM drive might have an issue. The board does support several types of RAID and DDR3 1600 memory - both of which we're going to use. It's still a budget rig, but not slow. More information on this motherboard can be found at Gigabyte's web site.
Memory - As last time with this component, I'm splurging a little by going with DDR3 memory over DDR2. The writing's on the wall for DDR2 memory; DDR3 is the new standard. Going with DDR3 gives a little performance boost here and creates the possibility of taking this memory forward in the future. The OCZ Reaper HPC 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) price increased $5 since the August 2009 list (which is almost unheard of), so I'm looking for something a bit cheaper. This round, I've gone with OCZ Special Ops Urban Elite 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) which is CAS-level 8 rather than 7, but saves $26 off the build price. I've still like OCZ memory. It overclocks well and the heatpipe risers look cool and keep the memory cool. This starts the system off with 4GB in two of the four memory slots.
Graphics Card - I find a good match of graphics card to CPU is to get a graphics card that costs roughly from the same cost as the CPU to about 10-15% more than the CPU. This is likely to change at some point, but it's been holding for months now. For this rig, that would mean a graphics card in the $143-$165 range. This basically means either the ATI Radeon HD 4870 series or the Nvidia GTX 260 series. Interestingly, that would have been the ATI 4850 and Nvidia GTS 250 a few weeks ago, but graphics card prices have been falling rapidly.
A few more dollars off the SPARKLE SXX260896D3S-VP GeForce GTX 260 896MB GDDR3 makes it win this time over the 4870 I picked for the previous build. At $165, this card is right at the maximum I would consider, but it beats the 4870 in too many benchmarks to be ignored.
Sound - For this build, we're going with the integrated sound provided by the motherboard. While I still prefer discrete sound cards, the difference isn't worth the cost in a budget gaming rig. Save that money and put it into decent surround sound speakers.
Case - This is a component that often gets the short straw because this is a place where some money can be saved. However, one can go too cheap and make the new PC build a miserable experience. There's nothing worse than having to tear everything apart just to be able to move one disk drive or add a new one. For this build, I've selected the Antec Three Hundred Illusion Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case in place of the Cooler Master RC-690-KKN1-GP (a.k.a. CM 690) black mid-tower computer case from the previous build list. The RC-690-KKN1-GP is again $70 at Newegg, but it has a bad habit of going off sale and back to $85 (which it did right after I published the last build list). The Antec Three Hundred Illusion is a bit more at $70 than the regular Antec Three Hundred since the Illusion includes the two front Antec TriCool fans. Now, that I've done a build with the Antec Three Hundred, I find a lot of things to like about it (many of which were the same or similar to the Cooler Master case).
You can find out more about it here and the (English) manual is here. I expect this case to be in my budget build for a long, long time.
Power Supply - Since this is ostensibly a single graphics card build, we don't need to put a 1000W power supply unit (PSU) in this build. On the other hand, it is not a good area to scrimp on the PSU either. A poorly designed, overloaded/underpowered power supply can manifest itself in a new build as all sorts of problems. If it drops power on one of the 12V rails, the graphics card can malfunction or a disk drive could get corrupted. A bad PSU can appear to be faulty memory or a faulty motherboard as well. We don't need to go top end, but we do need a name we can trust. My short list of PSU suppliers in my personal order of preference includes PC Power & Cooling, FSP Group (Fortron), OCZ Technology (who now own PC Power & Cooling), Enermax, Corsair, BFG and Antec. I also hear good things about Cooler Master, Mushkin, Thermaltake, XClio, Zalman and some of the new Rosewill PSUs, but I've never used them personally.
Let's do a back-of-the-envelop estimate of power consumption for this build. The two main power using components are the graphics card and CPU (in that order). What we're interested in is the worst case power requirements. The AMD Phenom II X4 810 uses up to 170W according to this Guru of 3D article. The Nvidia GTX 260 (1GB) uses up to 191W according to this Tom's Hardware article. Those two components alone total up to 361W. Finding the exact power requirements of the rest of the components - the motherboard, disk drives, DVD-RW drive, memory and fans is somewhat trickier as the values aren't always published. Based on several articles such as [1], [2] and [3], I'm going to use 50W for the motherboard, 15W per disk drive, 20W per DVD-RW drive and 15W per RAM DIMM. This comes to 50+(2x15)+20+(2x15) or 130W. Combined with what we had before that's a total of 491W. Assuming we want no more than a 70% load on the PSU (50% is a good target, too), we need at least a 701W power supply.
Given that all of the calculations are worst case, a 700W PSU should be plenty. There are several good candidates in this range, but I'm sticking with the same OCZ StealthXStream OCZ700SXS 700W PSU. This is the same PSU as in the last build list, but with another $5 price reduction making it $80. I have the OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI 700W power supply in my gaming machine, and I like it very much. As of this writing, there is a $20 mail in rebate card that makes it effectively $60.
Hard Drive - This has been a bad couple of months for my picks on hard disk drives. I suggested last time that if you wanted (or could only afford) a single drive, go with the Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM drive is a great drive with 1TB of space for under $100. It's been out of stock a lot and the price is now $110. In its place I suggest the Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EADS 1TB 32MB Cache SATA. The motherboard supports RAID 0 (as well as 1 and 0+1) and RAID 0 striped drives truly make a system run faster, so my suggestion for the last build was to go with a pair of Western Digital RE2 WD7500AYYS 750GB 7200 RPM hard drives. Those were RAID-rated hard drives with a 5 year warranty. Unfortunately, they have been discontinued by Western Digital. The replacement drives, the Western Digital RE3 WD7502ABYS drives, cost $130 each as opposed to $70 each. A suggested replacement drive at the same cost is the Western Digital Caviar Black WD7501AALS 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 7200 RPM Hard Drive drives. Again, we need a pair for RAID 0.
DVD-RW - DVD/RW drives are truly commodity items. Still need one for loading Windows though. I went with a retail version in order to get the software. For this, I chose the new HP 24X DVD Writer with LightScribe Model 1270i. There's others out there that are just as good. If you happen to have a copy of Nero or Roxio CD Creater, feel free to go with an OEM drive.
Operating System - Before October 22nd, the release date of Windows 7, we go with the venerable Vista Home Premium 64-bit version (with upgrade to Windows 7 as soon as it is available). This particular version is for system builders, which means you get to do your own product support. I'm not sure how that's any different than the retail version when it comes right down to it. I always end up tracking down my software issues myself. There's just so much info available on the web I've never found the need to use the Microsoft telephone support system. This particular version is $10 more than usual because it includes an upgrade coupon to Windows 7. On or after October 22, 2009, just get Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM version for the same $110.
| Component | Description | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | AMD Phenom II X4 810 | $143 |
| CPU Cooler | Stock | $0 |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P AM3 | $80 |
| Memory | OCZ Special Ops Urban Elite 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Model OCZ3SOU16004GK | $85 |
| Graphics Card | SPARKLE SXX260896D3S-VP GeForce GTX 260 896MB GDDR3 | $165 |
| Sound | Integrated sound on motherboard | $0 |
| Case | Antec Three Hundred Illusion black mid-tower | $70 |
| Power Supply | OCZ StealthXStream OCZ700SXS 700W Power Supply | $80 |
| Hard Drive | Western Digital Caviar Black WD7501AALS 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 7200 RPM Hard Drive (Times 2 for RAID 0) |
$140 |
| DVD/RW Drive | HP 24X DVD Writer with LightScribe Model 1270i | $34 |
| Operating System | Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit with Windows 7 Upgrade after October 22nd: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit | $110 |
| Total | The final damage less shipping | $907 |
I again exceeded my self-imposed limit of $900 that's usually my bar for a "budget" system, but I'm inching closer. Still, this time we've bumped up the graphics card, which should give this system just that much more longevity. Keep in mind, this build is not intended to be the rock bottom build that can play average games. With DDR3 memory, RAID 0 hard drives, a fast CPU and a very competent graphics card, this system should run any game out there fairly well. If you build this system (or one based off of it), I love to hear from you with any problems, praises or jeers you have by emailing me.
Bonus Build! - What I was really hoping for when the new Core i5s came out was to be able to use that and a P55-chipset (LGA 1156) motherboard in the bonus build. Intel hasn't been competing in the under $1000 build nearly as well as they could. I hoped this would be the one. It wasn't quite. However, if you happen to live near a Micro Center and have another $100 to spend, here is an alternative build based on the Intel Core i5 750. Why do you have to live close? Because the low CPU price is available in store only.
CPU - The substitution here is the new Intel Core i5 750. I found a special low price at Micro Center or it's available at Newegg for $50 more. Theres a very good review at Guru of 3D that shows just what kinds of gains a Intel Core i5 750 has over the AMD Phenom II X4 810. It ranges from decent to "holy cow!" depending on the benchmark.
| Component | Description | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i5 750 | $150/200 |
| CPU Cooler | Stock | $0 |
| Motherboard | GA-P55M-UD2 LGA 1156 Intel P55 | $109 |
| Memory | OCZ Special Ops Urban Elite 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Model OCZ3SOU16004GK | $85 |
| Graphics Card | SPARKLE SXX260896D3S-VP GeForce GTX 260 896MB GDDR3 | $165 |
| Sound | Integrated sound on motherboard | $0 |
| Case | Antec Three Hundred Illusion black mid-tower | $70 |
| Power Supply | OCZ StealthXStream OCZ700SXS 700W Power Supply | $80 |
| Hard Drive | Western Digital Caviar Black WD7501AALS 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 7200 RPM Hard Drive (Times 2 for RAID 0) |
$140 |
| DVD/RW Drive | LITE-ON 24X SATA Black 24X DVD Writer LightScribe Model iHAS424-98 | $34 |
| Operating System | Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit with Windows 7 Upgrade after October 22nd: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit | $110 |
| Total | The final damage less shipping | $943/993 |
This build defintely exceeds my self-imposed limit of $900 at $943. It's worth every penny, believe me, but it's way over my $900 limit. If Micro Center isn't an option, the total through Newegg is $993 before shipping. On the other hand, it'll handily beat out the above budget build. If you build this system (or one based off of it), I love to hear from you with any problems, praises or jeers you have by emailing me.