Building my first rig: Budget Gamer PC

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EDIT: All parts purchased:

Case: Coolermaster Centurion 5 Purchased
Power Supply: Silverstone Element ST50EF-PLUS 500W Purchased
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 Purchased
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L Purchased
Memory: G.SKILL F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ PC2-6400 2GB 2X1GB Purchased
Video Card: XFX GeForce 8800GT 512MB Purchased
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 160GB Purchased
Optical Drive: LG GSA-H62N SATA DVD+RW Purchased

Figured I've been playing TF2 and Mythos enough that I should do those games justice and build myself a decent PC rig (wouldn't mind playing The Witcher also). So far I've only thought of and reviewed the components today, and have bought two of them already (hard and optical drives), so I'm open to suggestions you may have.

I'm trying to limit my spending to around $750 ($900-$1000 the absolute limit), and this is just for the case + inner components, not for a monitor, sound system, etc. I'm mostly doing this as an experiment to see if I can build myself a cheap PC Gaming rig that's well under the $2000 that console fanbois claim is needed to build a good rig.

I also plan on overclocking this thing mildly.

Case: Coolermaster Centurion 5 ($60 via NCIX)

Power Supply: Silverstone Element ST50EF-PLUS 500W ($86 via NCIX)

Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 160GB ($56 via NCIX) Purchased

Optical Drive: LG GSA-H62N SATA DVD+RW ($29 via NCIX) Purchased

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition ($115 via NCIX)

Motherboard: Biostar TF7050-M2 ($80 via NCIX)

Memory: Mushkin HP PC2-6400 HP2-6400 2GB 2X1GB ($56 via NCIX)

Video Card: EVGA E-GEFORCE 8800GT 600MHZ 512MB ($255 via NCIX)

I'm still not sure about the memory, however. And the CPU + Mobo combo is still a tossup, and I'd probably still consider going the Intel route if the price is right (E4500 seems cool, not sure what mobo would fit though).
 
I'm not sure if you care or not, but your power supply has 2 sata power connectors and your mobo has 4 sata slots. Anyway you can always buy adapters. It's just something to keep in mind if you're gonna buy another sata hdd or optical drive, other than that it looks good.

Edit: If you go with the e4500, for ~$40 more I think you can get the e4500 and a P35 mobo.
 
Thanks for the comments.

I don't really plan on having any more than a single HD and single DVD drive in this rig, so I opted on the Silverstone. Given that the HD I picked is dirt-cheap, I should probably take another look at a PSU with 4 satas so that I can do RAID with another HD at least.

Are there any PSU recommendations? I'm not really looking to slap on SLI on this thing (can't anyway with my current mobo selection), but I figured 500W would give me enough room to play around with. I was also looking Antec's Earthwatts and the OCZ StealthXStream.
 
I purchased that Centurion 5 case a few months ago for about $30 (or $35, can't remember) after rebate. It must be available elsewhere for less than $60. Great case, although the design inside makes wire management a little difficult.

If you don't mind modular PSU, I recommend the Corsair 520HX which is what I use right now. Very quiet. It's rated for SLI so you can easily move this to your future build and save money. 40A on the 12V (according to the literature, I never measured it myself) I believe a rebate is available for that right now which makes it about $69, cheapest it's ever been (looks like Frys.com only).
 
Lil better PSU
Thermaltake 600w, $69.99 with a $40 mail in rebate
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2284638&cp
^^ Sick deal.

I just got in OCZ PC2 6400 memory, 2x1gig clips for like $23 after mail in rebates (new egg, ends today though.) I needed this specifically for a good value ram @ 2.1v (my intel board is for a lack of a better word, locked up.) Take into consideration what voltage you will/need to be running at before you step up and get memory.
 
[quote name='Lupuri']Lil better PSU
Thermaltake 600w, $69.99 with a $40 mail in rebate
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2284638&cp
^^ Sick deal.

I just got in OCZ PC2 6400 memory, 2x1gig clips for like $23 after mail in rebates (new egg, ends today though.) I needed this specifically for a good value ram @ 2.1v (my intel board is for a lack of a better word, locked up.) Take into consideration what voltage you will/need to be running at before you step up and get memory.[/quote]

ditto on the psu
 
Radeon HD3850- $189 (159 ar)

X2 6000+- $160

Corsair 520 PSU- $124

Memory is fine.

I don't know much about AMD compatible Mobos.

X2 6000+ is one of the best performance/cost cpus. Compared to its $160 the next Intel processor that compares with it is the e6600 which is $274.
 
Since this is budget box why not a 8600 card instead of the 8800. You can get a good one for around $100. Then you can put the extra money intro a better MB and cpu or just go with what you got. I haven't done any serious research but I don't think your board has that much room for upgrade options.
 
[quote name='Baron O Hell']Since this is budget box why not a 8600 card instead of the 8800. You can get a good one for around $100. Then you can put the extra money intro a better MB and cpu or just go with what you got. I haven't done any serious research but I don't think your board has that much room for upgrade options.[/quote]

because the 8600 is ASS.

trust me I have one, if he's going to get ANYTHING other than a 8800GT or above, then the 7900GT is the best bet.
 
Went ahead and picked out what MOBO I would be looking at if I decided to pick up a C2D E4500: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L

Going the Intel route would only cost me $30 more + custom CPU cooling costs (would pick up an OEM C2D from TigerDirect for $120/$5 more than the A64x2), so it's very enticing.

And yeah, I'm still going to stick with the 8800GT.
 
[quote name='mrelusive']Went ahead and picked out what MOBO I would be looking at if I decided to pick up a C2D E4500: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L

Going the Intel route would only cost me $30 more + custom CPU cooling costs (would pick up an OEM C2D from TigerDirect for $120/$5 more than the A64x2), so it's very enticing.

And yeah, I'm still going to stick with the 8800GT.[/quote]

e4400 is the better buy FYI.

Im running mine at 2.2 GHz, on stock settings the e4400 can go to 2.5~ OC.

With a little more voltage in can easily go past 3.0Ghz.

why do you think the e4400 is a little bit more expensive? :lol:

and if you're lucky you'll get the old model chip sla98F I think, that went past 3.6Ghz.:hot:



I have that exact same board, Really Awesome board.
 
[quote name='UnderwaterMadman']My e4400 comfortably goes to 3.0 with stock voltages and stock air cooler, temps do not get too high.[/quote]

another believer!

you must have gotten one of the good models, mine was the newer m0 stepping, good OCing but not as good as yours.

gratz on the great chip, mine only reaches 2.4 - 2.5 stable with default voltage.
 
[quote name='UnderwaterMadman']My e4400 comfortably goes to 3.0 with stock voltages and stock air cooler, temps do not get too high.[/quote]

What's "too high" for an e4400?

My friend has an e4400 that he wants to OC with stock cooling and I'm not sure what temps he should worried about.

I've got extra cooling so I'm at 3.07Ghz and my temps never exceed 44c. Might try bumping up the voltage and seeing how far this chip can go. Although at this point, I don't need any more power. I'd just be doing it for fun.
 
[quote name='SpreadTheWord']What's "too high" for an e4400?

My friend has an e4400 that he wants to OC with stock cooling and I'm not sure what temps he should worried about.

I've got extra cooling so I'm at 3.07Ghz and my temps never exceed 44c. Might try bumping up the voltage and seeing how far this chip can go. Although at this point, I don't need any more power. I'd just be doing it for fun.[/quote]
Depending on what model you have, voltages over 1.4 or 1.5 are way to much.

So if you cant get a stable rig by 1.4 v just quit because that much voltage can damage the cpu.

For you friend, Id suggest he doesnt go past 2.3. Tell him to download core temp, on my rig with stock cooling at 2.3 my temps went to 45 - 50 I stopped there but I was just seeing what It could do, I have an after market cpu cooler right now, but only have a slight oc at 2.2 because my gpu the 8600 GT is fairly weak and there really isnt any point in my overclocking my already bottlenecked rig.
 
I'll keep an eye on the E4400 then. Seems I can get it for $5 cheaper than a E4500 anyway. Then again I haven't even made up my mind about AMD or Intel yet.

If I can shave off a few bucks off the case and PSU, I'll probably switch my build.

Oh, and do you think a 500W PSU would be good enough for what I'm currently building, + a second HD if I needed it? (if it was a Thermaltake, Corsair or Antec make)
 
[quote name='mrelusive']I'll keep an eye on the E4400 then. Seems I can get it for $5 cheaper than a E4500 anyway. Then again I haven't even made up my mind about AMD or Intel yet.

If I can shave off a few bucks off the case and PSU, I'll probably switch my build.

Oh, and do you think a 500W PSU would be good enough for what I'm currently building, + a second HD if I needed it? (if it was a Thermaltake, Corsair or Antec make)[/quote]

500W is ample power unless you plan to go sli, which in case would require maybe a 750 w psu, and an SLi ready mobo.
 
Think I have my final build sorted out:

Case: Coolermaster Centurion 5
Power Supply: Thermaltake Purepower 500W
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E4500
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
Memory: G.SKILL F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ PC2-6400 2GB 2X1GB Purchased
Video Card: EVGA E-GEFORCE 8800GT 512MB Waiting for restock :(
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 160GB Purchased
Optical Drive: LG GSA-H62N SATA DVD+RW Purchased

Still juggling at which online dealer to get them from, but they should still cost me less than $750 including shipping (big deal since Canadian prices are still meh).
 
[quote name='p00ndawg']looks nice but hate your cpu.

:D

but seriously, I do.[/quote]
Hehe. If I end up buying the CPU locally then it would be cheaper to go with the 4400. I'll just have to see what shipping adds up to if I get all of this stuff online.
 
Should note to taggers that you can probably get away with a beefier CPU and PSU if you use my $750 budget and buy from New Egg. Sadly I don't have that kind of luxury up here. :(
 
[quote name='mrelusive']Should note to taggers that you can probably get away with a beefier CPU and PSU if you use my $750 budget and buy from New Egg. Sadly I don't have that kind of luxury up here. :([/QUOTE]
Your budget is my budget too :)
 
[quote name='mrelusive']It seems I can't get an eVGA 8800 GT with both a decent price and from a reputable seller. This kind of sucks.

I really wanted to go with them due to the warranty, but I heard XFX isn't too shabby with their warranties either. Think this card would be a suitable replacement for the original card I picked out?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150252[/quote]

your link doesnt work, not sure if its just me though, but I like msi I have one of the cards right now and they are quite the quality card.

When I pony up the change for an 8800gt I am gonna get their card.

Generally their interfaces, especially in their stock OC models are very intuitive and always have a lot of options for the overcloker and tinkerer in mind.

Ive never used an xfx card so I can say what they are like, but PNY, evga, BFG seem to be the best manufacturers there are.
 
OK, got all my parts purchased (final list is in the OP). Now I just need to wait for them to come, which will probably be a week or so.

Until then, are there any small parts I'm missing that I'm probably going to need to put this together? I still got some wire-ties for cable management, but that's it. I can't remember if there's thermal paste included in the retail Intel CPU, but is it worth getting me some Arctic Silver 5 for it?
 
[quote name='mrelusive']OK, got all my parts purchased (final list is in the OP). Now I just need to wait for them to come, which will probably be a week or so.

Until then, are there any small parts I'm missing that I'm probably going to need to put this together? I still got some wire-ties for cable management, but that's it. I can't remember if there's thermal paste included in the retail Intel CPU, but is it worth getting me some Arctic Silver 5 for it?[/QUOTE]
Retail *should* (Comes with AMD retail CPUs) come with it, but I would use AS5 over the stuff that comes with retail. Other than that, you should be alright. Putting together a PC is fairly straight foward, and if you get stuck, read the instructions since most of them have "How-To" guides that come with it.

Sometimes I mixed up the power-pin connectors to the motherboard (power on, restart, etc.) but most of it should be color coded and super easy by now.
 
:drool:

I think it's time I started building a new rig. My current one took a crap and my PC tech buddy looked at it saying it's either the power supply or motherboard :bomb:

I miss playing GTR/GTR2/BF2/etc
 
Finished building it around the time the forum went kaput:

img0119ym9.jpg


I'm loving it so far. Increased the FSB to 250 (CPU now running at 2.75GHz) and RAM timings to 4-4-4-12 and it seems to be rock solid so far with the stock cooling. It laughs at Crysis on high (not at OMFG 1080P 8xAA mind you).

Thanks for the help ya'll. Very glad I went the Intel route instead.
 
Congrats! I hope it'll be easy when I put mine together (1st time) next week. I'm torn on the case right now..either one of the Antec's that have rebates and are on sale with free shipping at newegg (Antec Solo, $49.99 AR or Antec P182, $89.99 AR). OR the Antec P180, $69.99 AR on sale at Fry's this weekend...

THe P's are too big for the part of my computer desk where the tower goes, thats about the only thing bugging me now...ah well, cant wait to have this new PC running!
 
[quote name='mrelusive']Finished building it around the time the forum went kaput:

img0119ym9.jpg


I'm loving it so far. Increased the FSB to 250 (CPU now running at 2.75GHz) and RAM timings to 4-4-4-12 and it seems to be rock solid so far with the stock cooling. It laughs at Crysis on high (not at OMFG 1080P 8xAA mind you).

Thanks for the help ya'll. Very glad I went the Intel route instead.[/quote]

(Tiny Elvis voice): "Mayun, that case is heeeewge!" Is it just an optical illusion, or is that case like a skyscraper?
 
[quote name='Richard Longfellow'](Tiny Elvis voice): "Mayun, that case is heeeewge!" Is it just an optical illusion, or is that case like a skyscraper?[/quote]

its two feet tall, but very big I have the exact same case.

Airflow in this case is ridiculous, cooler masters trademark.

love em.
 
Overall nice build even though I'm the cheapass that wanted to go sub 700 for new everything (including LCD monitor) with a 8600GT. How much did you spend?
 
[quote name='Monsta Mack']Overall nice build even though I'm the cheapass that wanted to go sub 700 for new everything (including LCD monitor) with a 8600GT. How much did you spend?[/quote]Roughly $860 total, including shipping. That's about $110 over what I've wanted to spend, but whatever. The component prices I paid for are comparable to Newegg, but shipping certainly isn't (what pushed me over $800).

Side: Testing out the E4500 with a 266 FSB now (2.93 GHz). Windows bitched about 275 FSB, but I don't want to push the voltage anymore with the stock cooling.

And yeah, the case is a lot bigger than I had imagined. I'm not complaining though. :D
 
[quote name='Monsta Mack']Overall nice build even though I'm the cheapass that wanted to go sub 700 for new everything (including LCD monitor) with a 8600GT. How much did you spend?[/quote]

How is it possible to go sub $700 for everything? I mean if you're investing in an awesome gfx card, RAM, and processer, you should at least have a 22-inch or 24-inch monitor. The cheapest I've seen a quality 24'' is $400...
 
At first I didn't think much about it, but I should ask here.

I've noticed that whenever I boot up my machine from a cold state, the DVD drive starts sounding like a jet engine for a few seconds before I even see POST. This is without having a disc in the drive or having it in the boot priority. I've never really heard of this happening before, so I'm wondering if this is normal or not.

EDIT: Also, what's a game or program I can use to test the stability of my video card? Going to OC it soon, and so far I can only think of running the Crysis GPU benchmark for an hour in terms of testing.
 
[quote name='mrelusive']At first I didn't think much about it, but I should ask here.

I've noticed that whenever I boot up my machine from a cold state, the DVD drive starts sounding like a jet engine for a few seconds before I even see POST. This is without having a disc in the drive or having it in the boot priority. I've never really heard of this happening before, so I'm wondering if this is normal or not.

EDIT: Also, what's a game or program I can use to test the stability of my video card? Going to OC it soon, and so far I can only think of running the Crysis GPU benchmark for an hour in terms of testing.[/quote]

Your motherboard is probably set to boot from cd first, so it checks it to make sure theres nothing in there and it working properlyl.

my dvd drive is very loud as well.
 
Yeah, assuming everything is square with your PC, I would set the HDD to boot #1 in BIOS, and turn off the other devices. I prefer a faster boot with less noise. Just remember you'll have to go back in and change the sequence to run a startup disk.
 
Sorry, didn't word it correctly in my original post. But yeah, the DVD drive is not listed in the BIOS for booting up. Just the hard drive. Wondering if this is just normal for today's drives as part of the boot-up sequence. At first I thought it was all of my fans hitting 100%, but this sound is definitely coming from the top of the drive bay.
 
[quote name='Serik']How is it possible to go sub $700 for everything? I mean if you're investing in an awesome gfx card, RAM, and processer, you should at least have a 22-inch or 24-inch monitor. The cheapest I've seen a quality 24'' is $400...[/QUOTE]

AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core 2.4ghz
3 gigs of DDR2 Ram (already came with 1 gig)
8600 GT 512mb OC
23' Inch LCD HP Monitor
FREE Power Supply off a older computer
Vista Premium with purchase
300HD with purchase
DVD+-RW Lightscribe

Easily below $700. I would say in the $600 range, maybe even less if I built it.

I managed to get a cheap HP at Wal-Mart and a discount. Now that I have most of the main components in four years or so I can just upgrade my processor and graphics card for a few hundred or less. Only problem is since It's a "pre-built" PC even on a ASUS motherboard I've seen nothing on overclocking but every game I've throw at it (Unreal Tourney 3, COD4, etc.) I've seen run at pretty high specs at 40-60 FPS. Obviously the only thing I can't handle is Crysis beyond medium settings but if I had a 8800GT that would be another story.
 
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