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Title: FAO computer nerds Post by: Peter Venkman on Tuesday, April 1, 2008, 15:15:21 I have just made myself a cheap gaming machine after reading in Computer Shopper that they can make one for £682....I thought that seems a lot!
I set myself a budget of £350 max. So I bought this little lot.... AM2 Brisbane X2 4200+ (overclocked to 3.02Ghz from 2.31Ghz on stock cooling & voltage) 2Gb PC5300 Kingston Ram (overclocked from 333mhz to 380mhz voltage upped to 2.0v) MSI-7369 K9N Neo-F v3 motherboard Lite-on SATAII 20x DVD dual layer writer 500gb SATAII 7200rpm 32mb cache HD 8800GT 512mb Inno3d OC card Casecom basic Tower Case with 500W budget PSU Wireless mouse & Keyboard Installed with Windows XP Pro (already owned) £327 inc VAT This set up runs benchmarks of - 3dMark01 - 36012 3dMark03 - 39618 3dmark05 - 19210 3dMark06 - 11920 Crysis - 51fps high settings @ 1280x1024 Prey - 82fps @1280x1024 with 4xAA 16xAF not bad benchmarks for such a cheap PC. Title: FAO computer nerds Post by: jayohaitchenn on Tuesday, April 1, 2008, 15:40:29 How much would you sell it for?
Title: FAO computer nerds Post by: Simon Pieman on Tuesday, April 1, 2008, 18:19:57 The Computer Shopper does seem a tad expensive. Surprised you went for that RAM though, I thought some slightly better lower latency might be more suitable.
I really need to get a better graphics card :| Title: FAO computer nerds Post by: Peter Venkman on Tuesday, April 1, 2008, 18:34:46 I went for the 5-5-5-12 mainly because I was working to a budget and as its fairly cheap I can upgrade it later for cheap, the PC6400 was double the price for the only type that was compatible with the mobo as its fairly fussy about 800mhz+ ram so thats why I went for the overclock in the end.
I can hugely recommend the 8800GT graphics....even better f you go for SLi! :D My next project will be dual 8800GT's on SLi which I can do for about £450. This is just my play machine, I set myself a strict budget and had to stick to it. Title: FAO computer nerds Post by: magicroundabout on Tuesday, April 1, 2008, 20:01:26 i've just purchased myself these x 4gig
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-025-KS not had chance to place in pc yet but i'm sure they'll be much better than my pc5300 667mhz not bad for the price either 8) Title: Re: FAO computer nerds Post by: flammableBen on Tuesday, April 1, 2008, 20:46:12 Quote from: "jjedmunds" 3dMark01 - 36012 I just ran that on mine out of curiosity. 2763 8) Title: FAO computer nerds Post by: sonic youth on Tuesday, April 1, 2008, 20:57:36 12129 on my new machine 8)
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=5981736 Title: FAO computer nerds Post by: Simon Pieman on Tuesday, April 1, 2008, 22:19:50 Quote from: "jjedmunds" I went for the 5-5-5-12 mainly because I was working to a budget and as its fairly cheap I can upgrade it later for cheap, the PC6400 was double the price for the only type that was compatible with the mobo as its fairly fussy about 800mhz+ ram so thats why I went for the overclock in the end. I can hugely recommend the 8800GT graphics....even better f you go for SLi! :D My next project will be dual 8800GT's on SLi which I can do for about £450. This is just my play machine, I set myself a strict budget and had to stick to it. I really don't recommend sli, unless you're going for high resolutions. It's the only thing I regretted doing when building my machine. Of course - if you're using an old 8800gt and buy another on the cheap it could be worthwhile. Title: Re: FAO computer nerds Post by: magicroundabout on Thursday, April 3, 2008, 14:39:48 Quote from: "jjedmunds" I have just made myself a cheap gaming machine after reading in Computer Shopper that they can make one for £682....I thought that seems a lot! I set myself a budget of £350 max. So I bought this little lot.... AM2 Brisbane X2 4200+ (overclocked to 3.02Ghz from 2.31Ghz on stock cooling & voltage) 2Gb PC5300 Kingston Ram (overclocked from 333mhz to 380mhz voltage upped to 2.0v) MSI-7369 K9N Neo-F v3 motherboard Lite-on SATAII 20x DVD dual layer writer 500gb SATAII 7200rpm 32mb cache HD 8800GT 512mb Inno3d OC card Casecom basic Tower Case with 500W budget PSU Wireless mouse & Keyboard Installed with Windows XP Pro (already owned) £327 inc VAT This set up runs benchmarks of - 3dMark01 - 36012 3dMark03 - 39618 3dmark05 - 19210 3dMark06 - 11920 Crysis - 51fps high settings @ 1280x1024 Prey - 82fps @1280x1024 with 4xAA 16xAF not bad benchmarks for such a cheap PC. 3dMark01 - 37383 8) Title: FAO computer nerds Post by: magicroundabout on Thursday, April 3, 2008, 18:44:41 i think next month calls for the same 500gb SATAII 7200rpm 32mb cache HD as used by JJEdmunds and also an Nvidia 9600. Unless other people know better but i've heard they're faster than the 8800's
Title: FAO computer nerds Post by: Simon Pieman on Thursday, April 3, 2008, 21:31:53 Only the 256mb version of the 8800gt, otherwise the 8800gt gives better frame rates.
Hope that helps :) Title: FAO computer nerds Post by: sonic youth on Thursday, April 3, 2008, 22:46:47 the 9600 is also probably double the price for a relatively insignificant performance boost which will only be noticeable on the most modern high-end games. if you want to waste some money go for it, otherwise a 512mb 8800gt would do - the gts are nice too
oh and 42133 3DMarks on 01 on my new machine. Title: FAO computer nerds Post by: Simon Pieman on Thursday, April 3, 2008, 22:50:13 The 9600gt 512mb is comparable in price to the 8800gt 256mb version I think.
Title: FAO computer nerds Post by: Simon Pieman on Thursday, April 3, 2008, 23:36:06 3DMark01 - 36129
Pretty happy considering my machine is 12 months old and my graphics were not top spec back then. My 3DMark06 score was around 7000 last I checked though - definitely limited graphics wise. Title: FAO computer nerds Post by: magicroundabout on Friday, April 4, 2008, 06:14:20 i'm limited graphics wise too. my 7900GT is a bit dated now which is why the upgrade is needed.
Title: FAO computer nerds Post by: Peter Venkman on Friday, April 4, 2008, 07:18:30 My 8800GT 512 OC cost me £124 and is vasty superior frame rate wise to the 9600GT for about £10 more than the 9600.
I have dont a bit more tweaking and decided that I will add a 6000+ black edition AM2 next week with some faster memory and give that a go at overclocking too, I can exchange the old one I bought and the memory and only add another £35! so...woohoo! away we go! Title: FAO computer nerds Post by: Simon Pieman on Friday, April 4, 2008, 14:31:12 There you go then, JJ's budget effort is better Magic :)
I'm currently running two XFX 7600GT Fatal1ty (Wendel alert!) editions in sli, which at the moment does the job ok. I only have a 19inch widescreen monitor so resolutions don't need to be too high. Think I will wait a bit longer to upgrade. The new 9 series are coming out now so I hope they may be worth the wait. The offerings at the moment don't look too great though. I would like to see two 9800gt x2 in sli though, that's like four 8800gts cards at once (I think I have the model numbers right). Still wouldn't eb cost effective though. Title: FAO computer nerds Post by: magicroundabout on Friday, April 4, 2008, 15:46:05 anythings got to be better than my outdated 7900gt.
it does the job for now but it's 2 editions behind so is getting old. Nvidia seem to be throwing out graphics cards like there's no tomorrow Title: FAO computer nerds Post by: flammableBen on Friday, April 4, 2008, 15:59:26 Quote from: "magicroundabout" anythings got to be better than my outdated 7900gt. it does the job for now but it's 2 editions behind so is getting old. Nvidia seem to be throwing out graphics cards like there's no tomorrow I swapped my Geforce3 Ti 200 for a Geforce MX 420 the other day. Swapped the Geforce3 back in pretty swiftly. |