Mah Gaming Rig

Twisted Warthog · Post by **Twisted Warthog** » Sat Feb 16, 2008 10:46 am

I'm on a meer pathetic budget of about $600 guys so bear with me for a second. Just want your guys opinion on this Gaming Machine i hope to build (i still have to order the parts) tell me what you think, and do you think it will be able to run Oblivion and Bioshock on medium settings AT LEAST guys.

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/cgi-bin/ShoppingCart.asp

Post by **bicostp** » Sat Feb 16, 2008 11:09 am

EDIT: Why did you blank out your post? We can't see what your shopping cart has in it.

Why AMD? Intel's been outperforming them for a couple years now (according to PC World Magazine). Look into some Core 2 Duos.

If you're going to get a motherboard and processor that run on a fast FSB, get RAM that matches or you'll create a bottleneck. (So if you get 1033 mhz FSB, don't waste your time with 800 mhz RAM.)

You kind of need a motherboard...

Socket 939 probably isn't the way to go, since 1. it's been phased out and 2. <a href="http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/ ... igerDirect only has one 939 motherboard listed</a>.

Twisted Warthog · Post by **Twisted Warthog** » Sat Feb 16, 2008 11:09 am

Yeah i know i changed it.

Harshboy · Post by **Harshboy** » Sat Feb 16, 2008 11:15 am

What graphics card are you considering? You should think about a Nvidia 8600 GT or if you want even more performance a 8800 GT. Either way, make sure it has GDDR3 Memory...

Twisted Warthog · Post by **Twisted Warthog** » Sat Feb 16, 2008 11:17 am

Well i was thinking about getting an GeForce 8500. The 8600 and especially the 8800 are waaaay outta my price range.

Ecksem Diem · Post by **Ecksem Diem** » Sun Feb 17, 2008 11:33 am

At the moment, I've got one of these puppies (a 512MB PNY GeForce 8500GT) in my computer alongside a 2.2 GHz Athlon 64 3400+ and two and a half gigs of RAM, and I have to tell you, my little setup here has been really kind to me, albeit sketchy at times (for instance, it'll run Crysis smoothly, but it wouldn't run the DiRT demo past the menu screen or the UT3 demo at all). Unfortunately, this computer started out as a pre-built economy machine, so it's got a Socket 939 mobo in it, which means that it's pretty much at the end of its road as far as upgrades are concerned (and although a GeForce 8800GT isn't out of the question, that's going into my new machine:twisted:). Here are some benchmarks for you:

Battlefield 2: With all the settings as high as they'll go (note: this means with the resolution at 1280x1024, as the game doesn't accomodate widescreen monitors, it would seem) and anti-aliasing at 8x, the game runs with framerates in the mid-twenties or so.
Battlefield 2142: With all the settings as high as they'll go (1152x864 resolution, because this doesn't accomodate widescreen monitors either) and anti-aliasing at 4x, the game runs with framerates flucuating wildly between the low twenties and the low thirties.
Call of Duty 4: While playing a 38-man deathmatch (the horror) on the "Shipment" map (the map's about the size of two basketball courts right next to each other), I got framerates in the mid-teens. A 49-man team deathmatch on the "Crash" (a normal-sized map and my personal favorite) posted framerates in the mid-teens as well while in the thick of things. Here's a combined screenshot of my graphics and texture settings in CoD4:

Crysis: With all the settings as low as they'll go (still looks damn good) and the resolution at 1440x900, there's a lot of pop-in in the distance, with the frames per second in the low twenties and dipping down to the high teens when things heat up.

I hope this'll help you make up your mind on the 8500 as much as it helped catch me up on some badly missed gaming. And seriously, at sixty dollars, how can you go wrong? I would put the money saved on a video card (assuming you get the 8500GT) towards investing in a Socket AM2+ mobo with SLI or an nForce 780i mobo (an nForce 780i mobo would let you run three 8500GTs. That's like, ten 8500GTs!). I would definitely recommend running at least two 8500GTs for the price they are now (noting that my machine has only one), and if you get a 780i mobo or a Socket AM2+ mobo, you'll have plenty of room for upgrading for a few years.

Joes2Silly · Post by **Joes2Silly** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 9:33 pm

I've been running a single 6600 GT in my gaming rig for about 2 years or so. It's pretty solid, but it's started giving me problems playing bioshock

Luckily I have 3 ghz Pentium D!

theelk · Post by **theelk** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 8:42 am

I've got an 8500 in right now, but only because I got it for free (long story). Before that I had a 7600 which was actually pretty damn good. Now I was wondering, can I overclock the 8500? I'm not sure exactly ow to do that...

gamemasterAS · Post by **gamemasterAS** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 10:52 am

you can build a pretty decent rig for that.

Mine is only

Pentium d 3ghz
2gigs of ddr2 ram
8800gt 512mb

And that can max out Unreal Tournament 3, The Orange Box and I think Bioshock. I did this on about the same budget you have.

Ecksem Diem · Post by **Ecksem Diem** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 12:07 pm

Ah, yes, I forgot to mention BioShock. I get framerates comparable to those of CoD4 with all the settings maxed out, provided I turn vertical sync off (vertical sync is usually a real killer on the framerate, but BioShock was by far the most extreme case I've ever seen as far as v-sync killing your framerates goes).

Harshboy · Post by **Harshboy** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 12:37 pm

GeForce 8500 cards are crap, get a $100 8600 GT and you will be happy I told you this before you picked up an 8500 and realized it sucks. My 8600 GT scores a 5.3 in the WEI for Games, and for $100 you just can't argue with the performance...

theelk wrote:I've got an 8500 in right now, but only because I got it for free (long story). Before that I had a 7600 which was actually pretty damn good. Now I was wondering, can I overclock the 8500? I'm not sure exactly ow to do that...

Yes, you can. Use RivaTuner.

Bibin · Post by **Bibin** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 1:03 pm

Just out of curiosity, someone tell me how decent my "rig" is.

Intel Core 2 Duo "Wolfdale" @ 3GHZ, 1066mhz FSB
2GB DDR2 ram
80GB 10k RPM SATA HDD
52/16/52 CD/DVD drive
Nvidia 7300 GS/7200 SE
Custom nLite'd Windows Xp, tweaked to perfection

Harshboy · Post by **Harshboy** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 2:23 pm

Bibin wrote:Just out of curiosity, someone tell me how decent my "rig" is.

Intel Core 2 Duo "Wolfdale" @ 3GHZ, 1066mhz FSB
2GB DDR2 ram
80GB 10k RPM SATA HDD
52/16/52 CD/DVD drive
Nvidia 7300 GS/7200 SE
Custom nLite'd Windows Xp, tweaked to perfection

Depends...

Good Office PC (Web, Word, etc..)
Horrible Gaming PC (I'd love to see that thing play UT3) and here's why:

10,000 RPM Hard Drive: Might give you a tiny boost, but isnt worth the GB/$$$ ratio. If 80GB is all you need, it's great.
Ram: Great if it's 800 Mhz or higher but is only good/decent if your at or below 533 Mhz...
CPU: Great! Best thing in your PC!
Graphics Card: The bottleneck of your System.

theelk · Post by **theelk** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 3:28 pm

Harshboy wrote:
theelk wrote:I've got an 8500 in right now, but only because I got it for free (long story). Before that I had a 7600 which was actually pretty damn good. Now I was wondering, can I overclock the 8500? I'm not sure exactly ow to do that...
Yes, you can. Use RivaTuner.

Thank you, kind sir.

Bibin · Post by **Bibin** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 4:14 pm

Harshboy wrote:
Bibin wrote:Just out of curiosity, someone tell me how decent my "rig" is.

Intel Core 2 Duo "Wolfdale" @ 3GHZ, 1066mhz FSB
2GB DDR2 ram
80GB 10k RPM SATA HDD
52/16/52 CD/DVD drive
Nvidia 7300 GS/7200 SE
Custom nLite'd Windows Xp, tweaked to perfection
Depends...

Good Office PC (Web, Word, etc..)
Horrible Gaming PC (I'd love to see that thing play UT3) and here's why:

10,000 RPM Hard Drive: Might give you a tiny boost, but isnt worth the GB/$$$ ratio. If 80GB is all you need, it's great.
Ram: Great if it's 800 Mhz or higher but is only good/decent if your at or below 533 Mhz...
CPU: Great! Best thing in your PC!
Graphics Card: The bottleneck of your System.

Ram is 667 mhz. I don't like that many new fancy 3D games, so that doesn't really matter for me. The hard drive was very free. I also have a 250GB 7600RPM SATA one; forgot to mention that.