Gaming Just for fun, a build suggestion

[Scorpei]

Well here goes. I have to build a system for my system in law, which has to be able to run random old games and slightly newer ones on not all that high settings (and obviously function as a proper household PC to do your homework on). Software will be provided by moi and can be said to cost 0 euro.

I will personally provide a PSU (400W cooler master, with enough on 12V), a screen (15 inch lcd yeay !) and wireless USB dongle. I can also throw in a DVD reader on IDE I guess, not sure if I have that lying around here. Aside from that I know my way around the PC and I will build the system. Thing is, I have a budget as they have a budget . And it's pretty tight. The total spendings cannot exceed 150 euro's (by much). From this money I have already purchased 4 gigabytes of DDR3 memory for the great sum of 12 euro 70 cents.

With the current hard disk prices, the budget doesn't really stretch.

Personally I was thinking along the lines of a cheap 37 euro Biostar (oh gawd, first time for everything I guess) AM3 board (alternative is a 43 euro gigabyte board)
35 euro's for the Athlon II 250 from a friend of mine

Which would leave 78 euro's to purchase a disk (possibly second hand) and grafics card. Again that quickly leads to not all that great a prospects. The disk is easily 25 euro's thus 50 euro's for the card. The case will have to be scavenged from somewhere as do the keyboard and mouse...... From what I gather a 5770 can be bought for roughly 50 euro's (nearly new and slightly lower secondhand). I currently game on that, so that works .

Alternatively, I could go for an Intel G530 (41 euro's, new) together with a 45-48 (Asrock - Gigabyte) euro motherboard. That would leave 50 euro's, but should be a more powerfull CPU.

As you can see, in order to create a medium range PC, I seem to be short around 30 euro's or so... Any thoughts on what would be the best course of action ? Games wise I suppose I could leave out the grafics card, seeing as the mentioned games pretty much ran on specs from the stone age (Empire Earth). Not sure if the onboard 3450 / 4350 would be powerfull enough to run things reasonably on slightly more expensive AMD boards... However I seem to be able to get a 4850 for 35 euro's 2nd hand in the neighbourhood.

Ah yes, and as for keyboard and mouse, a simple 20 euro logitech set will suffice. That can be added to the budget (making it 170) or if at all possible could be payed from the 150.

 

[marcus134]

4850 + 400w psu can be risky

 

[Berthenk]

Athlon Dual Core user here, along with a Radeon 6950 and 4GB DDR3. Gaming is easy with it since most games are limited by the GPU anyway, and I don't really notice any lags in most major games.
Ask some people you know for some mice and keyboards, a lot of people will have old mice laying around. If I had not thrown them away a while ago I could send one your way myself.
Seriously though, is he/she going to notice the difference in CPU power? I think not.
System in law?

 

[Originality]

The title says sister in law, but you're right. If she's playing games, GPU is the only important part (along with a PSU that can feed it). Although, to be honest, even the 4350 would be enough to play most games on a 15" monitor.

There will be a noticeable speed difference between an Athlon II and the Intel CPU - Intel handle more instructions per clock than AMD, and in this case is also more energy efficient (I think at least - I only half remember reading about this half a year ago). Aside from that, you should also get a decent HDD to prevent slowdowns along the line (and this means Samsung or Western Digital Blue or Black). What remains is the graphics. A 5770 is overkill. Hell, even a 4650 is overkill for your purpose. I would say just grab the cheapest graphics card you can find (at least one that's from the Radeon HD series or GeForce GT xx0 series) and she will be able to play any game she wants (assuming she has normal tastes in games). Remember, a 15" monitor can only display 800x600 which takes very little processing power/VRAM.

 

[Scorpei]

Well, so far I've stretched the budget a little but I have found several of the components second hand. For one she will be getting a 4870 (I know) for 30euro's. Remember, this system is supposed to last at least 3 years.. I am currently within 150 euro's without the keyboard and mouse if I go with the AMD option, but I do think adding the 10 euro's more and going for a new intel would be better.

So just to make the thread finished:
CPU: Intel G530 (41 euro's shipped) - new
Mem: 4gb kingston ddr 1066 (12,70 , shipped) - new
Graphics: 4870 second hand, 30 euro's
PSU, case, wireless, screen by my donation
Motherboard: gigabyte GA-H61-S2V-B3, new 42,50 shipped
Which is 126.20 euro's total --> leaving 23,80 for keyboard and mouse + harddisk. The last bit will be harder. I could however also donate my WD raptor to her too fixing that problem.

That would however give her only 36gigabytes of space.... and a disk running at 10k rpm , next to the fact that it has a soldered on sata cable... A well, we'll see .

 

[Scorpei]

And to reply, to your helpfull comments (I'm serious, the sarcastic tone I am reading this out to myself is probably just a quirk of mine ). I agree that the GPU is the most important part of this build (together with hdd). However replacing the GPU with a mid line in 1.5 years is easy and inexpensive. Replacing the CPU is relativly more expensive and the CPU is more important in office work (which is also the requirement of this system, her parents are also paying ^^). The 4870 is of course overkill, an alternative was 15 euros for a half defective 3850 so this was a nice deal . The screen resolution is of course important and with the current expected 1024x7** is limiting. I really do see her replacing it with something in the 22 inch direction.

Oh right and the PSU: the 420W should have enough (16A) on the 12V lines, if it is too little I have a second one which can provide 348W on 12V (total of 29A). I'd rather keep that to myself though, but hey if it is needed .