red1776
Posts: 5,124 +194
I recently put together my umpteenth build, and as with the previous, it always reinforces one of my life theories "the older I get, the more I realize the less I know".....and how much there is to know.
I recently built a budget gaming rig after a friend of a friend of a friend offered me a try on his machine, one of those so called '$700.00 Crysis machines' , and I was heartily unimpressed, and thought I could do much better in performance, price , and the ratio between them. After building a new machine for my home office I found myself way under budget from what I originally set aside for that build. Which brings me to my first computer building tip: never tell your wife that you came in under budget! you will find half your surplus ending up as something floral patterned with cushions, sitting in your living room.... but I digress. That left me with just over $700 to complete my task.
Every day there are folks who come in here to Techspot and post a new thread that has the title 'need help building a budget gaming machine' or something to that effect. it can a little frustrating when someone building their first machine, asks the same question over and over. However it is understandable because when you're working with a budget, you get one shot to get it right. When the Newegg boxes arrive, your pretty much stuck with what you have, and if you miscalculated the sum and capability of your components....your kind of screwed. I have been afforded the luxury of being able to test out many configurations and components, as I have been slammed the last year and a half with requests to build computers for friends, acquaintances, etc...etc. And many of them are glad to buy the superfluous components....at a hefty discount. anyway I thought I would post this guide and share what I have learned , researched, and observed about putting together a budget gaming rig.
So I turned this last machine I have built into a 'budget testing ground' it has been through three processors, two motherboards, two sets of three graphic cards, a single high end graphic card, two HSF's, four power supplies, and two sets of Ram. I would like to offer the people looking to put together a gaming rig on a budget, what I have discovered from playing musical components with my builds. This is largely for those who are attempting or thinking about building their first machine themselves. a lot of members here at Techspot already know this stuff, or will disagree with some of it as it is a combination of technical fact and my opinion.
Guidelines and Advice-
0) setting expectations -What are you expecting from your build?
decide what level of performance you are expecting from your new machine. many times friends or people in forums (not here of course will tell someone that they are getting 40 FPS in Crysis with a XXXX cpu and a XXXX graphic card. problem is that they neglect to say that's on low settings at 1024x768 resolution. and the person I'm building the machine for is think more along the lines of high settings at 1680x1050 . I can't tell you how many times that has happened when building a machine for a friend ,family member, or the guy down the block. I have learned to ask questions and set expectations prior to ordering components to avoid unreasonable expectations. Defining your expectations is a critical aspect to avoid being very disappointed after dropping hundreds of dollars .
1) Don't short the power supply...(No pun intended....none noticed I'm sure)
If the motherboard is considered to be the 1st priority of a solid foundation for your build, the power supply should at least be considered 1a. A big mistake many people make is to choose the rest of the components and leave what's left for the power supply. they find a 650w psu for $19.99 and call it good. the problem is that a twenty dollar 650w power supply will not only not be able to deliver 650w, but rather deliver a heap of ripple, (a deviation from consistent regulated power) which is essential to the rest of your components, and becomes especially evident while doing something as resource intense as gaming. and will eventually most likely take them out when it fails prematurely. Power supplies are the epitome of 'you get what you pay for' , and there are many qualified folks here at Techspot who will be happy to recommend a quality and watt/Amp appropriate PSU for your new build. I favor power supplies from OCZ, FSP Group, Corsair, and Antec.
2) The Motherboard:
there are volumes that can be written about what to look for in a motherboard, so I will leave the bulk of it to those who do the 20 page reviews of them (see #6). Remember however that the motherboard is responsible for how all of your components communicate with each other, and the speed and efficiency they do it at. Look for a chipset (north bridge) that is a good gaming performer like the AMD 790FX/GX or Intel P43/45 among others. Make sure to check the manufactures support list's for compatibility with the components you have selected. This is maybe the most common mistake 'almost made'. I say almost made because usually a Techspot member will see the mismatch in the list and advise them that a component is not compatible with the selected motherboard. Also stick with motherboard manufacturers of known high quality. I favor Asus,Gigabyte, and DFI.
3) Leave your Fanboyism (and others) at the door.
many of you have been exposed to this very thoughtful and introspective advice...."Intel rocks! AMD sucks!..... when you ask one of these people what it is specifically they do not like about AMD, you are likely not to get anything intelligent about cpu architecture , electro-migration , or the virtues of a larger L3 cache, but rather another round of "AMD SUCKS" which renders their advice about as useful as one of those bumper stickers of Calvin pissing on a Ford emblem . they are however half right, Intel does indeed 'Rock' as for the second part .....not so much. the fact is that AMD produces equally high quality products as Intel, and has products that compete across the performance spectrum , with the exception of the ultra high end (the I7 core). and as this is about budget builds, AMD is your friend, and you would be well served to consider them as an option in your budget build.
4) Choosing a processor: (see #2)
A good thing to keep in mind when selecting a Processor for your budget gaming rig is that you don't have to start shopping quad cores. Most games make use of two or three cores. A cursory look at the benchmarks out there shows that many of the dual cores keep up with, and even outperform the quads. Also most games prefer and respond to higher clock speeds rather than an additional core(s). Your choice then really becomes more of a price point then. AMD has really sweetened the pot for budget gamers in recent months with the release of what have been referred to as 'bin chips'. They have taken cpu's of the Phenom and Phenom II series that have one or two cores that do not test up to par and disabled them . The Phenom's were introduced into the Athlon X2 series with added benefit of the K-10 architecture with the faster Hyper Transport, and the Phenom II being a X4 920 or x4 940 with a nice complement of L3 cache and one or two cores disabled . There are some really nice price /performance value in many of these processors and worthy of consideration for your budget gaming build.
4a) a few processors to consider: (IMO)
Upper end Budget:
Intel E 7500
Intel E 8400
AMD Phenom II X3 720 (this thing is really a gem folks)
Mid Budget:
AMD Phenom II X2 550 BE
AMD X3 Phenom II 710
Intel E 7400
Low end Budget:
AMD Athlon II X2 245
Intel E 5300 (great Overclocker)
Athlon II X2 250 BE
Intel E 6300
AMD Athlon X2 7750 BE
AMD Athlon X2 7850 BE
I recently built a budget gaming rig after a friend of a friend of a friend offered me a try on his machine, one of those so called '$700.00 Crysis machines' , and I was heartily unimpressed, and thought I could do much better in performance, price , and the ratio between them. After building a new machine for my home office I found myself way under budget from what I originally set aside for that build. Which brings me to my first computer building tip: never tell your wife that you came in under budget! you will find half your surplus ending up as something floral patterned with cushions, sitting in your living room.... but I digress. That left me with just over $700 to complete my task.
Every day there are folks who come in here to Techspot and post a new thread that has the title 'need help building a budget gaming machine' or something to that effect. it can a little frustrating when someone building their first machine, asks the same question over and over. However it is understandable because when you're working with a budget, you get one shot to get it right. When the Newegg boxes arrive, your pretty much stuck with what you have, and if you miscalculated the sum and capability of your components....your kind of screwed. I have been afforded the luxury of being able to test out many configurations and components, as I have been slammed the last year and a half with requests to build computers for friends, acquaintances, etc...etc. And many of them are glad to buy the superfluous components....at a hefty discount. anyway I thought I would post this guide and share what I have learned , researched, and observed about putting together a budget gaming rig.
So I turned this last machine I have built into a 'budget testing ground' it has been through three processors, two motherboards, two sets of three graphic cards, a single high end graphic card, two HSF's, four power supplies, and two sets of Ram. I would like to offer the people looking to put together a gaming rig on a budget, what I have discovered from playing musical components with my builds. This is largely for those who are attempting or thinking about building their first machine themselves. a lot of members here at Techspot already know this stuff, or will disagree with some of it as it is a combination of technical fact and my opinion.
Guidelines and Advice-
0) setting expectations -What are you expecting from your build?
decide what level of performance you are expecting from your new machine. many times friends or people in forums (not here of course will tell someone that they are getting 40 FPS in Crysis with a XXXX cpu and a XXXX graphic card. problem is that they neglect to say that's on low settings at 1024x768 resolution. and the person I'm building the machine for is think more along the lines of high settings at 1680x1050 . I can't tell you how many times that has happened when building a machine for a friend ,family member, or the guy down the block. I have learned to ask questions and set expectations prior to ordering components to avoid unreasonable expectations. Defining your expectations is a critical aspect to avoid being very disappointed after dropping hundreds of dollars .
1) Don't short the power supply...(No pun intended....none noticed I'm sure)
If the motherboard is considered to be the 1st priority of a solid foundation for your build, the power supply should at least be considered 1a. A big mistake many people make is to choose the rest of the components and leave what's left for the power supply. they find a 650w psu for $19.99 and call it good. the problem is that a twenty dollar 650w power supply will not only not be able to deliver 650w, but rather deliver a heap of ripple, (a deviation from consistent regulated power) which is essential to the rest of your components, and becomes especially evident while doing something as resource intense as gaming. and will eventually most likely take them out when it fails prematurely. Power supplies are the epitome of 'you get what you pay for' , and there are many qualified folks here at Techspot who will be happy to recommend a quality and watt/Amp appropriate PSU for your new build. I favor power supplies from OCZ, FSP Group, Corsair, and Antec.
2) The Motherboard:
there are volumes that can be written about what to look for in a motherboard, so I will leave the bulk of it to those who do the 20 page reviews of them (see #6). Remember however that the motherboard is responsible for how all of your components communicate with each other, and the speed and efficiency they do it at. Look for a chipset (north bridge) that is a good gaming performer like the AMD 790FX/GX or Intel P43/45 among others. Make sure to check the manufactures support list's for compatibility with the components you have selected. This is maybe the most common mistake 'almost made'. I say almost made because usually a Techspot member will see the mismatch in the list and advise them that a component is not compatible with the selected motherboard. Also stick with motherboard manufacturers of known high quality. I favor Asus,Gigabyte, and DFI.
3) Leave your Fanboyism (and others) at the door.
many of you have been exposed to this very thoughtful and introspective advice...."Intel rocks! AMD sucks!..... when you ask one of these people what it is specifically they do not like about AMD, you are likely not to get anything intelligent about cpu architecture , electro-migration , or the virtues of a larger L3 cache, but rather another round of "AMD SUCKS" which renders their advice about as useful as one of those bumper stickers of Calvin pissing on a Ford emblem . they are however half right, Intel does indeed 'Rock' as for the second part .....not so much. the fact is that AMD produces equally high quality products as Intel, and has products that compete across the performance spectrum , with the exception of the ultra high end (the I7 core). and as this is about budget builds, AMD is your friend, and you would be well served to consider them as an option in your budget build.
4) Choosing a processor: (see #2)
A good thing to keep in mind when selecting a Processor for your budget gaming rig is that you don't have to start shopping quad cores. Most games make use of two or three cores. A cursory look at the benchmarks out there shows that many of the dual cores keep up with, and even outperform the quads. Also most games prefer and respond to higher clock speeds rather than an additional core(s). Your choice then really becomes more of a price point then. AMD has really sweetened the pot for budget gamers in recent months with the release of what have been referred to as 'bin chips'. They have taken cpu's of the Phenom and Phenom II series that have one or two cores that do not test up to par and disabled them . The Phenom's were introduced into the Athlon X2 series with added benefit of the K-10 architecture with the faster Hyper Transport, and the Phenom II being a X4 920 or x4 940 with a nice complement of L3 cache and one or two cores disabled . There are some really nice price /performance value in many of these processors and worthy of consideration for your budget gaming build.
4a) a few processors to consider: (IMO)
Upper end Budget:
Intel E 7500
Intel E 8400
AMD Phenom II X3 720 (this thing is really a gem folks)
Mid Budget:
AMD Phenom II X2 550 BE
AMD X3 Phenom II 710
Intel E 7400
Low end Budget:
AMD Athlon II X2 245
Intel E 5300 (great Overclocker)
Athlon II X2 250 BE
Intel E 6300
AMD Athlon X2 7750 BE
AMD Athlon X2 7850 BE