My current PC is a dinosaur that wasn't even good by the standards of late 2004/early 2005, when I got it. It even has Windows Me on it, because the guy who made it liked that hunk of crap for some obscene reason. This needs to change. However, neither my wife nor I knows enough about computers to figure out what's right. Basically, I'm looking for:
-Ability to play Civ4. Looking at the system requirements, it seems that won't be a problem unless I go specifically looking for an underpowered PC. My wife's cell phone might actually be able to play Civ4 these days.
-Ability to play Starcraft 2 would be nice. Somewhat more demanding, though the rec'd system specs are again surprisingly low. But I suppose it means I'll need something with a dual core 2.4 GHz processor, 3 gigs or so of RAM, a nice wad of storage, a DVD drive, and a...good video card.
-I wish I could play MOO and MOM again. Ability to play ancient DOS games a plus.
-I don't want to spend over a thousand dollars. Cheap is good.
Yeah, I don't ask for much. Our main difficulty is figuring out what is and isn't a decent graphics card. Any recommendations?
1011 1100
Need more info.
Budget?
And given your experience with tech, it's probably better just to get a Dell or something. I can point you to a good build on there, but need budget. It's easiest to just start with a budget then build the best PC at that price.
Talked it over w/wife, she says we can do up to $600 for the PC itself, plus whatever it costs for a decent monitor, which she estimates at somewhere over $100. I know nothing of this personally, but say $500-600. Is that specific enough for you? Thanks.
1011 1100
I'd see if you could find a local PC store, as they may have better deals on pre-built system. But I know nothing of your area.
The best budget-gaming PC I could find on Dell was a customized build. It's $670 though. The base price was $499 but I added $180 to upgrade the Radeon 4200 (REALLY slow, DX10) to a Radeon 5770 (really fast, DX11). Well worth the upgrade.
It's a quad-core Athlon II @ 2.8GHz. The main problem with the lower end systems is they provided no option for discrete graphics cards, only integrated. Which is useless for gamers.
Here's the link: http://configure.us.dell.com/dellsto...en&s=dhs&cs=19
you need to select "AMD Athlon™ II X4 630 + ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB" from the first screen to get the decent build.
Summary:
CPU: AMD Athlon™ II X4 630 (quad core, 2.8GHz)
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium
RAM: 3GB DDR3
HDD: 500GB
No monitor, no speakers. But KB + Mouse included.
Edit: Useful links. Compare CPUs/GPUs against eachother with a slew of benchmarks:
CPUs: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/2
GPUs: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU/88
Thanks, Asher! How's the ATI 5450? That would keep me under $600, and it's not like I play any FPS games.
1011 1100
The 5450 isn't really a gamer's card, it's more for home theatre type users.
That said, it's better than integrated by a big margin.
The spec difference is this:
5450:
80 stream processors (the compute power of the card)
8 texture units
650MHz stream processor clock
6.4GB/s or 12.8GB/s memory bandwidth (depending on what Dell uses...they don't specify)
Processing power: 140 gigaflops (gigaflop = billion floating point operations per second)
5770:
800 stream processors (the compute power of the card)
40 texture units
850MHz stream processor clock
76.8GB/s memory bandwidth
Processing power: 1,360 gigaflops (gigaflop = billion floating point operations per second)
The 5770 is about 10x as fast as the 5450. That's why I didn't even consider the 5450, the "bang for the buck" for the 5770 is head and shoulders above the 5450. And it's not just first person shooters that'd be impacted...games like SC2 and Civ5 (and I imagine most strategy games coming out from now on) are all 3D-engine based, which leans a lot on the strength of the graphics card.
Thanks for the info in this thread, Asher. My wife and I just decided to upgrade one of our older computer and I have been poking around Dell and HP (we have employee discounts with both) today. I was hoping to come in at ~$750 w/monitor (I'll probably end up getting the monitor separately). Your $670 build is, therefore, good for our budget. The info on the graphics card is great.
-Arrian
Last edited by Arrian; September 21, 2010 at 13:09.
grog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!
The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.
AMD just bumped the speed of the chips at virtually every pricepoint today also:
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=19676
I'm not sure if this affects Dell's configuration yet, though.
I think it does, as I'm having trouble re-creating your config from scratch.
My current gaming comp (to clarify: this is not the comp we're getting rid of) has a dual-core E8400 processor (with a 512k nVidia graphics card), which appears to beat the AMD Athlon™ II X4 630 at most things (using the link you provided to the benchmark site). edit: or, am I reading that wrong... oooooh. So sometimes higher is better and sometimes lower is better. Not the best chart design.
Do I need to go quad-core, if I'm basically planning on playing TBS games?
-Arrian
Last edited by Arrian; September 21, 2010 at 13:35.
grog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!
The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.
Vast majority of games today (and probably in the near future) are dual-core only, they won't use the extra cores. Games in the future are going to be increasingly multi-core aware, but who knows how long that'll take.
Dual cores are frequently "better" for gaming because they can run at higher clockspeeds since they only have two cores giving off heat. But the other thing to keep in mind is processors like the Athlon II/Phenom IIs and Core i3/i5/i7s actually clock a lot higher than the rated clockspeed when 1 or 2 cores are active. My 2.9GHz Core i7 (quad-core) actually runs at 3.6GHz with one core active, 3.4GHz with two cores active, and up to 3.2GHz with all four cores active (if it's cool enough).
The only reason I picked the X4 in particular for that config was, at the time (and it may not be the case now), it was the cheapest way to build a well-balanced PC with a good graphics card.
Civ5 actually recommends a quad-core processor (dual core is the minimum), but I'm not sure if it actually uses them.
In terms of speed per core, in general Core i7 > Core i5 > Core i3 > Phenom II or Core 2 > Athlon II > Pentium > Celeron
Whaddya think of this HP build?
$833.18Operating system Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-550 dual-core processor [3.2GHz, 512KB L2 + 4MB shared L3 cache, DMI 2.5GT/s]
Memory 4GB DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM [2 DIMMs]
Hard drive FREE UPGRADE! 640GB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive from 500GB edit
Office software Microsoft Office Starter 2010
Security software No additional security software
Graphics card 50% OFF! 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 220 [DVI, HDMI, VGA adapter]
Speakers No speakers
Primary optical drive LightScribe 16X max. DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti drive
Networking Premium Wireless-N LAN card
Front Productivity Ports 6-in-1 memory card reader, 2 USB, audio ports
TV & entertainment experience No TV Tuner
Sound Card Integrated sound
Keyboard and Mouse HP USB keyboard and optical mouse
Monitor HP 2210 21.5-inch Digaonal Full HD Widescreen Monitor
grog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!
The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.
I noticed that, and wondered the same thing.Civ5 actually recommends a quad-core processor (dual core is the minimum), but I'm not sure if it actually uses them.
-Arrian
grog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!
The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.
The CPU and RAM are great. The monitor included looks great too.
The video card is very weak though. It's about a quarter of the speed of a Radeon 5770. It could be passable, I suppose, but that would definitely be the first thing you upgrade eventually.
Overall it's a good value, IMO. If possible, spring for a better video card (either buying one aftermarket yourself, or upgrading the HP if possible).
If I were to add a graphics card to that build, it'd be one of the following (in descending order of preference):
$144 - Radeon 5770 1GB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150447
$119 - Radeon 5750 1GB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102859
$129 - GeForce GTS 250 1GB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127445
Gah, I do not want to skimp on the graphics card. That build, for whatever reason, just had crappy video card options. The one I picked was the best available.
How is the 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5570? The difference between that one and the 5770 you discussed above is $110.
So this:
Is $899.58. That jumps to $1005.18 with the 5770. Which, based on the prices of the cards at Newegg, is ****ing ridiculous.Operating system Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Processor AMD Phenom(TM) X4 830 quad-core processor [2.8GHz, 2MB L2 + 4MB L3 shared, up to 4000MHz]
Memory FREE UPGRADE! 6GB DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM [3 DIMMs] from 4GB
Hard drive FREE UPGRADE! 750GB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive from 500GB
Office software Microsoft Office Starter 2010
Security software Norton Internet Security(TM) 2010 - 15 month
Graphics card 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5570 [DVI,HDMI, DP, VGA adapter]
Speakers No speakers
Primary optical drive LightScribe 16X max. DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti drive
Secondary optical drive 16x max. DVD ROM (player)
Networking Premium Wireless-N LAN card
Front Productivity Ports 15-in-1 memory card reader, 1 USB, 1394, audio
TV & entertainment experience No TV Tuner
Sound Card Integrated sound
Keyboard and Mouse HP USB keyboard and optical mouse
Monitor HP 2210 21.5-inch Digaonal Full HD Widescreen Monitor edit
-Arrian
Last edited by Arrian; September 21, 2010 at 14:02.
grog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!
The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.
It's not much better. The 5570 is half the speed of the 5770. Still, passable. The CPU is slightly better.Originally Posted by Arrian
I think your best bet is probably choosing the worst/cheapest GPU possible on either of those builds, then just getting a 5770 for $144 yourself and adding it in.
I'll consider that, thanks!
-Arrian
grog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!
The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.
From iBUYPOWER:
$999.00Processor - Intel® Core™ i5 655K Processor (2x 3.20GHz/4MB L3 Cache)
Processor Cooling ( Liquid CPU Cooling System [SOCKET-1156] - [Free Upgrade] Standard 120mm Fan )
Memory ( 4 GB [2 GB X2] DDR3-1333 Memory Module - Corsair or Major Brand )
Video Card ( ATI Radeon HD 5770 - 1GB - Single Card )
Motherboard ( ASUS P7P55 LX )
Motherboard USB / SATA Interface ( [Free] Internal USB 3.0 PCI-E x1 Expansion Card )
Power Supply ( 600 Watt -- Standard )
Primary Hard Drive ( 500 GB HARD DRIVE -- 16M Cache, 7200 RPM, 3.0Gb/s - Single Drive )
Optical Drive ( 24X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - Black )
2nd Optical Drive ( 16X DVD-ROM Drive - Black )
Flash Media Reader/Writer ( 12-In-1 Internal Flash Media Card Reader/Writer - Black )
Sound Card ( 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard )
Network Card ( Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100) )
Operating System ( Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium + Office Starter 2010 (Includes basic versions of Word and Excel) - 64-Bit )
Monitor ( 22" (21.5" Viewable) Widescreen LCD 1920x1080 Sceptre X226W-1920 )
Wireless Network Adapter ( ASUS USB-N13 802.11b/g/n USB 2.0 300Mbps Wireless USB Adapter )
Overbudget, but not terrible.
-Arrian
grog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!
The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.
I like that build a lot.
Strange they use the "K" version of the processor. It's the premium "unlocked" version, which means it's trivially easy to overclock. You just need to go into the BIOS to change a multiplier number. It ships at 24, each step is a 133MHz clock speed boost. So you could try 25, 26, 27, etc. From what I hear, those i5s can all clock much higher than they ship...ESPECIALLY if it's actually water cooled (liquid cooling is mentioned?)
Yeah, it says it's liquid cooled. Free upgrade.
It's about $250 over budget, but with Christmas coming up and all maybe I can make it happen.
-Arrian
grog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!
The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.
If it's liquid cooled, that's pretty great.
AnandTech got the Core i5 655K up from its stock 3.2GHz to 4.6GHz, perfectly stable, using liquid cooling...
Woah. So if I understand correctly, they set the multiplier to 34 or 35? 35 x .133 = 4.655.
-Arrian
grog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!
The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.
Yeah. The K series multipliers can go up to 56, but I don't think anyone's gotten close to that.
You also need to bump up the voltage slightly to get that high.
So, it's easy to do the overclocking myself?
Hmm... what is the deal with required power supply for the video card? When I go to the custom built computer sites, they all say that w/the 5770 you need 550+watt power supplies. The card specs say 450+
I can get a 600w supply cheaply enough.
-Arrian
grog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!
The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.
$829.00 = $65 shipping = $894. Plus $149.99 (free shipping) for the monitor I want from NewEgg. Total = $1044.Gamer Paladin D805
Case ( KME CG-2C62 Standard Case - Black/Silver )
Processor ( Intel® Core™ i5 655K Processor (2x 3.20GHz/4MB L3 Cache) )
Processor Cooling ( Liquid CPU Cooling System [SOCKET-1156] - [Free Upgrade] Standard 120mm Fan )
Memory ( 4 GB [2 GB X2] DDR3-1333 Memory Module - Corsair or Major Brand )
Video Card ( ATI Radeon HD 5770 - 1GB - Single Card )
Motherboard ( ASUS P7H55 -- Intel H55 Express Chipset w/ 8-ch HD Audio, Dual-Channel DDR3, Gb LAN, S-ATA, USB 2.0, 1x PCI-E 2.0 x16 )
Motherboard USB / SATA Interface ( [Free] Internal USB 3.0 PCI-E x1 Expansion Card )
Power Supply ( 600 Watt -- Standard )
Primary Hard Drive ( 500 GB HARD DRIVE -- 16M Cache, 7200 RPM, 3.0Gb/s - Single Drive )
Optical Drive ( 24X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - Black )
Flash Media Reader/Writer ( 12-In-1 Internal Flash Media Card Reader/Writer - Black )
Sound Card ( 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard )
Network Card ( Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100) )
Operating System ( Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium + Office Starter 2010 (Includes basic versions of Word and Excel) - 64-Bit )
Monitor ( None )
Wireless Network Adapter ( ASUS USB-N13 802.11b/g/n USB 2.0 300Mbps Wireless USB Adapter )
Warranty ( Standard Warranty Service - Standard 3-Year Limited Warranty + Lifetime Technical Support )
-Arrian
Last edited by Arrian; September 22, 2010 at 11:35. Reason: nevermind, I was using the wrong base build, which bumped the cost up slightly, even for the exact same build.
grog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!
The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.
Yeah, it's all just BIOS menus. Basically all you'd adjust is the multiplier and the vcore (voltage to the processor). The general method is you increment the multiplier one by run, then run a stress test (like superpi) for a while and be sure the system stays stable. Once you get to a point that the system becomes unstable, start slowly incrementing the vcore, which gives the CPU more power to reach higher clockrates. Just be sure never to exceed 1.4V vcore (which is the maximum for that CPU).
More is better, where possible. But 450 should be adequate. Under most gaming scenarios, a 5770 draws 80-90W. Your CPU draws 73W max. You'll be more than fine.Hmm... what is the deal with required power supply for the video card? When I go to the custom built computer sites, they all say that w/the 5770 you need 550+watt power supplies. The card specs say 450+
I can get a 600w supply cheaply enough.
-Arrian
Or:
$814 = $65 shipping + $150 monitor = $1029AMD Phenom II AM3 DDR3 Configurator
Case ( KME CG-2C62 Standard Case - Black/Silver )
Processor ( [== Quad Core ==] AMD Phenom™ II X4 945 Quad-Core CPU )
Processor Cooling ( Liquid CPU Cooling System [AMD] - [Free Upgrade] Standard 120mm Fan )
Memory ( 4 GB [2 GB X2] DDR3-1333 Memory Module - Corsair or Major Brand )
Video Card ( ATI Radeon HD 5770 - 1GB - Single Card )
Motherboard ( ASUS M4A77T/USB3 -- AMD 770 Chipset )
Motherboard USB / SATA Interface ( Motherboard default USB / SATA Interface )
Power Supply ( 600 Watt -- Standard )
Primary Hard Drive ( 500 GB HARD DRIVE -- 16M Cache, 7200 RPM, 3.0Gb/s - Single Drive )
Optical Drive ( 24X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - Black )
Flash Media Reader/Writer ( 12-In-1 Internal Flash Media Card Reader/Writer - Black )
Sound Card ( 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard )
Network Card ( Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100) )
Operating System ( Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium + Office Starter 2010 (Includes basic versions of Word and Excel) - 64-Bit )
Monitor ( None )
Warranty ( Standard Warranty Service - Standard 3-Year Limited Warranty + Lifetime Technical Support )
grog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!
The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.
Just scanning it, but it seems the only difference is the CPUs.
Here's the comparison of the two CPUs: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/144?vs=80
The Intel looks faster in most of the more relevant benchmarks.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking (I ran the benchmark test too). Of the two, I'd go with that one.
I should suck it up and design a build that comes in ~$150 cheaper and see what the result is.
How much does DDR2 vs DDR3 matter? DDR2-800 vs DDR3-1333.
-Arrian
grog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!
The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.
Hrm.
Processor ( AMD Athlon™ II X2 255 Dual-Core CPU )
Processor Cooling ( Liquid CPU Cooling System [AMD] - [Free Upgrade] Standard 120mm Fan )
Memory ( 4 GB [2 GB X2] DDR2-800 PC6400 Memory Module - Corsair-Value or Major Brand )
Video Card ( ATI Radeon HD 5770 - 1GB - Single Card )
Motherboard ( ASUS M4A785-M -- AMD 785G Hybrid CrossFire Chipset )
All else the same... $747 + shipping. So I save ~$75. That's not a helluva lot.
-Arrian
grog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!
The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.
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