I'm thinking of building a desktop for gaming. 1) I'm not really a gamer; I like real-time strategy games like red alert 3 etc... so nothing too fancy. 2) I don't want to spend more than 500 dollars. Please keep in mind that this is only for the desktop (I don't need a monitor, OS, keyboard+mouse etc...). thanks for your help
okay I did a bit of thinking and I might get this, what do you think? Vesta Gamer Z2400 (Q3191962) $601.49 1 x Intel Pentium Dual Core E5300 Dual Core Processor LGA775 2.6GHZ 2MB 800FSB 65W Retail Box 1 x Please Use The Heatsink Included with My CPU -NOT Available with OEM Processors 1 x Gigabyte EP45-UD3L ATX LGA775 P45 DDR2 PCI-E 2PCI SATA2 HD Sound GBLAN Motherboard 1 x A-DATA ADQVE1B16K 4GB 2X2GB PC2-6400 DDR2-800 CL5 240PIN DIMM Dual Channel Memory Kit 1 x ATI Radeon HD 4670 750MHZ 1GB 900MHZ GDDR3 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Video Card 1 x Compucase 6C28B ATX Case Black 4X5.25 2X3.5 4X.3.5INT W/ Front USB & Audio No PS *IR-$5.00* 1 x Seasonic SS-400ET 400W EPS12V 20/24PIN ATX Power Supply Active PFC 80PLUS 6PIN PCI-E 120MM Fan OEM Power Cord is not included 1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 250GB 3.5IN Hard Drive SATA 7200RPM 8MB OEM 1 x LG GH22NS50 Black 22X SATA DVD Writer OEM 1 x Logitech Classic Keyboard 200 Spill Resistant USB Black Keyboard 1 x Please Use The Onboard Sound Card Integrated On My Motherboard 1 x Please Use The Onboard Network Ethernet Card Integrated On My Motherboard 1 x PC Assembly and Testing with 1 Year Limited NCIX System Warranty (PRE-CONFIG WIN. OS If Purchased) Assembly and testing requires an additional 4-5 business days to ship your order once all parts are in stock. Does not include any water cooling or server CPU installation. 1 Year Limited Warranty on system components assembled by NCIX. 1 x Standard 1 Year Limited Warranty with NCIX IN-HOUSE Tech Support
Here is what I would do with about $700...I know that is a bit more than your budget, but there is no money waisted here, and there is a ton of upgrade potential...unlike the LGA775, which would be outdated more than a year before purchase. $200 - I5 CPU $90 - gigabyte mainboard $50 - corsair power supply $110 - 4GB corsair memory $130 - 5770HD $45 - 250gb seagate hdd $20 - lg dvd burner $50 - case
yeah that makes much more sense thanks I guess most people here are from the US but do you guys know the cheapest place to buy from in Canada? NCIX.com seems like a good site
I just did a quick checkaround, and it seems Canadian website pricing does not match US pricing very well...most things are about twice as expensive, and right now the Canadian dollar is stronger than the US dollar; your prices should be lower. Given this, I might recommend using a service like this: http://www.ipsparcel.com/intcust.cfm
I would go with an AMD build if on a strict budget. And for Canadian sites check between newegg.ca, ncix.com and tigerdirect.ca If your in Ontario, Alberta or Manitoba you have a good chance to get free shipping on orders with tiger if you meet a certain criteria. Not going to get into specifics but you can pick up a good enough basic MB in the $50-$80 range. Won't be a performance king but for non-gaming non-power user you can go a little cheap, but stick to good brands like GigaByte and away from brands like foxxcon, Jetway and ECS, even MSI would make a decent enough low end board. $60 - $120 will get you a budget CPU that can fill your needs but for future proofing I'd at least go with something a little more recent. Keep in mind you can get a good enough quad core AMD CPU for about $155, the Phenom II x4 945 @ 3GHZ http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103696 $40-$60 a decent PSU. Corsair is a good buy, but even brands like OCZ make decent PSU's, just make sure they are at least 80 plus certified to ensure minimal quality is met. $80-$120 - 4GB of ram in a 2x2gb kit is easy to come by, brands like corsair and G.Skill work great but brands like mushkin, OCZ and others are good as well, for budget minded users. Try to make sure you choose low timing ram and try to stay away from high voltaged lower end ram as you could be buying a 1066 stick thats actually an OC'd 800 stick meaning its already pushed to its near limit and won't OC much further most likely. 5770 is a pretty standard budget GPU, but if needed you could go cheaper like a 4850. You'll drop a little performance and dx11 support but if they aren't important to you, you could easily lower your price this way and still play games at and above RA3 requirements. You also don't sound like a person who has a large format display so playing at a res above 1050 or 1080 seems unlikely and thus a lower performing card will easily fit your needs. Hard drives are fairly cheap, I'd stick with Western Digital as a brand and make sure you get a 7200 RPM sata drive and not a green or eco drive as these are intended for storage and not OS's and programs as the read/write performance will be low on 5200 eco/green drives. A blue drive should be ok if you absolutely needs to save every few dollars and pennies possible but I'd suggest a black rated WD drive for performance and reliability reasons. Burners are pretty standard as well. Case will be a choice of needs vs budget. I'd suggest at least a mid sized case from a reputable company like nzxt, antec, gigabyte and the likes. All and all I'd say an AMD system will offer more choices and price points and allow a better fine tune of the system's performance/price. I think for any budget non-power user AMD is a must have. Even mid range and high end users can now find a good intel alternative. For the average user not needing a few extra marks of benchmarks and who don't need to cut a few seconds off of encoding and other mutli-threaded apps, AMD is the logical choice. If your more interested in going this way just let me know and I'll help you price a system of similar spec's but I can almost guarantee a cheaper AMD build. Intel can't really compete on the lower end at all.
he could save some money by buying a dual core processor, most of the stuff he is doing wont requre or be able to fully use the extra cores but fuel to the fire's build is a good one
