Building my pops a gaming PC. Please advise...

pwnz0r · Post by **pwnz0r** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 8:43 pm

Please bear with me on the long-winded post, I just wanna give all the background I can.

So even though I work for one of the world's foremost computer manufacturers, I have not kept up with much outside the realm of my day to day in quite some time.

That being said, my mom and dad split, mom got the good PC they had, and now dad is jonesin' for some PC gaming after well over a year without it. He is obsessed with FPS series like Medal of Honor and CoD, Far Cry, Halo, etc.

I get the OS and Office and all that free through work and get great partner deals on Creative, Logitec, blah blah, so I have the mouse, speakers, keyboard, monitor, OS (though I would like some input on Vista), and Office Ultimate software covered. All that is about $350 due to the 22" FP monitor. That leaves about $750 more for his budget of $1100.

He works from home and is going to run work-related apps such as Lotus Notes and Citrix, along with Office Ultimate and Vista Ultimate, in addition to gaming, so I would like for him to have 2GB of RAM.

Needs a decent mid-sized box with decent PSU.

I would prefer he goes the C2D route with a decent mobo. No OC'ing.

Decent GPU that will handle games for the next 2 or so years.

He does no multimedia stuff and has no need for a huge HDD, but I would prefer he get a SATA drive.

Decent cheap DVD-RW

If I am missing something feel free to chime in. Do you think he will encounter problems with Vista? Also, he hasnt bought a new game in probably close to 2 years, so recommend a couple titles you enjoyed (are enjoying). He does not play online, so he will want something with a decent story mode.

I appreciate the help and if at all possible would like to order everything by tomorrow evening, so any and all feedback is appreciated.

Thanks, ~B

zparker · Post by **zparker** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 9:16 pm

sorry to bust your ballz on the dell sucks thread.....now

so you have 750 to spend on a system.

You can build a descent c2d system for that. Check out the forums for cheap MB recomendations for budgets, ram reviews, go to new egg or if in houston directron.com and look up the stuff you found in the forums. Im sure some others in here will give a few tips towards a good system to do what you want.

pwnz0r · Post by **pwnz0r** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 9:33 pm

Yea, ive been reading over some reviews for the past couple days and it's just not the same when you are looking at recommendations for other people. When I create my own thread, folks will give feedback based on what I have written and give the 5 W's along with it.

zparker · Post by **zparker** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 4:12 pm

Well why dont you get your dad a latitude d620

since you love your company so much?

setscrew · Post by **setscrew** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 4:16 pm

New Egg links used for illustrative purposes:

LIAN LI PC-7A plus II $89.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811112068

Antec EA500 ATX12V v2.0 500W $94.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817371007

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS $89.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822148140

GIGABYTE GA-965P-S3 LGA 775 $107.99

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6813128017

G.SKILL 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 $89.99 (times two for 2GB)

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6820231099

Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe 1.86GHz 2M shared $184.00

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6819115005

NEC Black $28.99

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6827152076

Sub-total $775.95

The video card varies as the monitor it will be driving it will be the determining factor for acceptable frame rates during gaming (i.e. resolution).

mid-level cards (buy used for greater savings)

SAPPHIRE 100176L Radeon X1950PRO 256MB $169.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102061

EVGA 256-P2-N624-AR GeForce 7900GS 256MB $159.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814130056

Post by **Apoptosis** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 4:27 pm

Dub,

Give me a call when you get a free second... Been slammed lately, but we can chat about the build on the phone if you haven't built yet.

Nate

holden_m · Post by **holden_m** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 5:24 pm

I like setscrews setup except I would recommend a different mobo, preferably one with an nforce 680i chipset, and you can get a case with a 480 W power supply for $35 at http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... rchInDesc=

After that I would go for the best nVidia card that fits your budget