Buying a Computer Suggestions

[DukeofSerbia]

I've got a budget of about $600, looking for a computer to run MTW2, F.E.A.R., Bioshock, CoD2 and some other recent games. Any suggestions as to a computer???

It's hard to make good gaming computer for $600. I will look at newegg.

[DukeofSerbia]

Processor: AMD Athlon64 3000+ Orleans 1.8 GHz Socket AM2 Retail - $75
Motherboard: DFI INFINITY NF ULTRAII-M2 Socket AM2 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard – Retail - $94.99
Memory: 1GB (2X512MB) Corsair Value Select, DDR2 PC5400 (667), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-15 - $140
Hard disk: Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600JS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive – OEM – $55.99
DVD-writer: NEC 16X DVD±R DVD Burner with 5X DVD-RAM Write Black IDE/ATAPI Model ND-4570A BK – OEM – $33.25
Graphics card: SAPPHIRE 100144L Radeon X1600PRO 256MB GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail – $88.99
Sound card: integrated in motherboard
Speakers: ?
Case: Antec Solution SLK3800B Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Rackmount Case 400Watt (SP400) SmartPower 2.0 ATX 12V 2.0 for AMD™ & Intel systems Power Supply – Retail - $94.99
Power Supply: with case
Keyboard: Microsoft S82-00032 Black USB + PS/2 Wired Standard Keyboard Mouse Included – OEM - $24.99
Mouse: with keyboard

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The price is ~$600. I used prices from newegg.com (but you also look at zipzoomfly.com) as they are best and cheapest in USA. Bad news is that memory prices go up for average 20%!
Configuration is without OS and monitor. I can’t find anything good for $600 with monitor included. If you have old CRT monitor use it until save some money. The main is that AMD will only continue to produce new processors for only AM2 platform so I put you the one of best motherboards for AM2 for that price. And in future you will be able to upgrade your PC to new AMD X2 65nm processors and K8L. Case and PSU are expensive but they worth. Good motherboard and PSU are base of every stable computer especially for future upgrade. 1/3 of PCs (and components) in Serbia died because of cheap and poor Chinese PSUs!

For less money you can buy Sempron64 but they can’t be overclocked! And I can find motherboard for lower price but with poor BIOS settings (read – poor or no overclock section).

If anybody found something better for lower price, post it. And don’t expect to play new games in 1280x1024 resolution with highest settings.

Monitor: AG Neovo F-417 Black 17" 4ms LCD Monitor – Retail - $159.99
OS: No OS! The price is without OS.

Good luck!

[Geezer57]

Another option that might be acceptable, although it gives up much of the Duke's future upgrade path, is to settle for a Socket 939 chipset motherboard, use regular (cheaper) DDR memory, and use a matching single-core Athlon 64. The money saved should just be enough for a better graphics card now, rather than later.

Some suggestions for possible choices (all prices from Newegg):

Motherboard: EPoX EP-9NPA7I Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 - $59.99
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice Socket 939 Processor - $64.00
Memory: AMPO 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 - 99.99
Hard disk: Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600JS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s – OEM – $55.99
DVD-writer: NEC 16X DVD±R DVD Burner IDE/ATAPI Model ND-4570A BK – OEM – $33.25
Sound card: integrated in motherboard
Speakers: ?
Case: Antec Solution SLK3800B Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Rackmount Case 400Watt (SP400) SmartPower 2.0 ATX 12V 2.0 for AMD™ & Intel systems Power Supply – Retail - $94.99
Power Supply: with case
Keyboard: Microsoft S82-00032 Black USB + PS/2 Wired Standard Keyboard Mouse Included – OEM - $24.99
Mouse: with keyboard

That leaves not quite $170 for a graphics card, which is more than enough to get you a GeForce 7600GT (starting at $110 after rebate), and almost enough to get you a GeForce 7900GS (starting at $198.00) or an x1900GT ($200.00). If you can squeeze out just a little more money, there are Radeon x1900XT 256Mb cards starting at $240.00 - that one will make your games sit up and take notice!