Help cutting this down to a grand?

DemocAnarchis

I've been hankering after a decent gaming pc, as for the last two years I've had to make do with a 1.4Ghz lappy with an X300 :rolleyes:

This is basically what I would LIKE to be able to build, (prices from komplett), but on a budget of not more than 1K, what do I cut?


Gigabyte Triton GZ-XX1CA-SNB Black - €71
Corsair Powersupply 520W Black, ATX/EPS, -€ 122.00
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3, P965, Socket-775 -€ 107.00
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz Socket -€220.01
Corsair TWIN2X 6400 DDR2, 2048MB CL5 -€ 115.00
Point of View GeForce 8800GTS 320MB -€ 298.00
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA2 16MB 7200RPM - € 110.01
NEC DVD±RW burner AD-5170 IDE Black OEM € 31.50
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate English OEM DVD 32bit € 179.00
Logitech G5 Laser Mouse 2007 € 67.00
Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard € 75.00
Samsung 20" LCD Syncmaster 206BW TCO03 € 279.00

The mouse stays, everything else is up for review. Any suggestions? I know everything will have to take a fair hit, but it does have to be able to game well. (FPS etc, taxing enough games)

[EDIT] Totals 1650, jaysus, but can build there as a bundle for about 1500.... [/EDIT]

DonkeyStyle \o/

Pff @ the "Gaming Keyboard" tbh :rolleyes:
Just get a normal person keyboard.

Don't bother with the fancy case, just get the cheapest one you can find and kick it under the desk where it belongs... it's what's inside that counts.
(I think the case I'm using now has been through 7 PCs, it's in tatters, but it houses my E6600 )

Can't see why you're getting vista ultimate either... have you compared versions & features? Do you know why you're buying it over, say, Home Premium? (or dare I say XP)

If it were me, I'd skimp on the gfx card... you can easily drop to the ~€200 range and still slap most existing games around at 1680.
Maybe it's a future-proofing move on your part, but by the time there's anything worth playing on DX10, you can just get a new DX10 card in that price range.

You could save on the CPU if you wanted to overclock one of the lesser C2D's, but I'm not a fan of the expectaion that you can always match what random OC dude says a chip should clock to on air... it's a lottery IMO.

Khannie

You should check out the equivalent prices on hardwareversand. They seem to be cheaper than komplett at the moment (but you have to pay by bank transfer). A mate of mine saved the price of an 8800GTS by buying from them. :eek:

I'd also ditch vista ultimate and the gaming keyboard tbh. Real luxuries. I think good airflow in your case will help overclocking in the long term, so I think that's possibly a worthwhile investment.

19" screens are also substantially cheaper iirc.

dazftw

Im guessing your mad into your games? Well Vista is annoying the **** outa me lately(home premium) I honestly cant figure out why.. times everythings stops for a couple of minutes and just crashes, I dont know how or why?

I would be on XP only my product code has been used too much and it wont work anymore

XP ftw tbh

I honestly think the user interface is the most annoying thing ever everything is all over the place.. Kinda got to get used to it!

Ulitmate only has some sort of security issues over home premium

Also yea dont get the keyboard.. I could have got it but I didnt I got a backlit Saitek one.. dont really like it so im getting another(used for about a year before hand)Logitech keyboard Media Elite its a very very very nice keyboard IMO

Just ordered the G5 off komplett last night

DirkVoodoo

Yeah, "ultimate"....bah, the only extra so far that has me tickled is the texas hold 'em.

Oh, and switch to hardwareversand.de:

Same Build, bar the case and OS and some minor cosmetic changes:



I don't like their selection of cases. I would suggest downgrading PSU, maybe get some cheaper RAM unless you need the bandwidth. Ditch keyboard.

8T8

DemocAnarchis wrote:

I've been hankering after a decent gaming pc, as for the last two years I've had to make do with a 1.4Ghz lappy with an X300 :rolleyes:

This is basically what I would LIKE to be able to build, (prices from komplett), but on a budget of not more than 1K, what do I cut?


Gigabyte Triton GZ-XX1CA-SNB Black - €71
Corsair Powersupply 520W Black, ATX/EPS, -€ 122.00
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3, P965, Socket-775 -€ 107.00
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz Socket -€220.01
Corsair TWIN2X 6400 DDR2, 2048MB CL5 -€ 115.00
Point of View GeForce 8800GTS 320MB -€ 298.00
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA2 16MB 7200RPM - € 110.01
NEC DVD±RW burner AD-5170 IDE Black OEM € 31.50
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate English OEM DVD 32bit € 179.00
Logitech G5 Laser Mouse 2007 € 67.00
Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard € 75.00
Samsung 20" LCD Syncmaster 206BW TCO03 € 279.00

The mouse stays, everything else is up for review. Any suggestions? I know everything will have to take a fair hit, but it does have to be able to game well. (FPS etc, taxing enough games)

[EDIT] Totals 1650, jaysus, but can build there as a bundle for about 1500.... [/EDIT]

Gigabyte Triton GZ-XX1CA-SNB Black - €71

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz Socket -€220.01

Club3D GeForce 8800GTS 320MB €285

NEC DVD±RW burner AD-5170 IDE Black OEM € 31.50

Crucial DDR2 BallistiX PC6400 512MB €33 (€66 total) - Buy 2 for 1GB of low latency DDR-2 800, pick up two more later for 2GB.

Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB €79 - you can always add more HD's later when you have the cash, performance is the same as it's bigger brother.

Black Diamond Power Supply 500Watt €55 - Not top of the line but decent value & it will get the job done.

Logitech Cordless Desktop LX710 Laser €67 - might not be what you want exactly but will get the job done instead of more expensive elements.

MSI G965 €95 - Okay now we are really penny pinching it's a mATX board but it has all the features you need and is a full P965 chipset just with integrated graphics, has a slot for PCI-e x16 cards.

Samsung 20" LCD Syncmaster 203B €239 - 1440x900 lower resolution but with beefy GPU like 8800GTS this means v-sync,AA,AF can all be turned on where possible so smooth frame rate at all times.

Re-use your Windows XP OS, as although personally I do like Vista I would prioritize the hardware above getting that OS at this time.

€1208 total is the lowest I can get it without sacrificing the core speed of the system. If you go with the Core 2 E6320 then you will cut it down to €1137 also a more basic case/keyboard/mouse package will further drop the price to the 1k mark about €1070.

DemocAnarchis

Thanks a lot guys, much appreciated. The "gaming keyboard" was just a bit of a laugh, no intention of getting one till everything is sorted. The OEM Ultimate was the cheapest OS i could find on komplett, but will use old XP license for now. Threw your suggestions into hardwareversand (great site!), and comes out as:



€930! Ex the PSU, which I can get for about 60, so thats under a grand

Any extras I need to put this together? Cables of course, but what else?

L31mr0d

note, as dirkvoodoo was kind enough to inform me, if you buy your keyboard from hardwareversand.de you are going to get one with a german key layout.

DemocAnarchis

Thanks for the headsup, will grab that when im ordering a psu instead then.

DirkVoodoo

Good catch L31mr0d, forgot that. Also don't forget mains power cables as they will give you the german "schuko" 2-pin jobbies.