Yeah, so uh, I want to build a good and cheap gaming computer that will be able to run well with games for at least 2 years. (E.G. Dragon Age Origins, KOTORO, etc.)

Mostly, I don't know where to find good parts and a good mobo.

I already have a moniter, speaker, mouse, keyboard etc. , which I will salvage from my old computer.

Also, I may be interested in buying a good gaming laptop around the same price.

Any help please?

Edit: I forgot to say, I'm looking for specific parts that would work well together or just plain good.

to buy parts I like to read Tom's Hardware reviews and then check prices at Pricewatch.com

I'm still waiting on Toms Hardware's Second Part of building a balanced system.

Lets see if I can imagine for you a descent system:

• Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit $100
• AMD 790GX Motherboard $100
• Some AMD Processor $60
• AMD HD4850 $100
• 4 Gigs DDR3 $90
• OCZ 500w PSU $50
• Case $50
• Sata2 750GB HDD $75
• Sata2 DVD-RW $25

Hows that I imagined it at $650.  Also I believe there are Acer model laptops that are capable of playing games around $400, so you can probably get one with a bit more power around $650.

lol totally didn't notice the price of ram increased

Video card: 260 GTX, 199 bucks: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130433&cm_re=260_GTX-_-14-130-433-_-Product

CPU: Intel q9550, 255 bucks: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115041&cm_re=q9550-_-19-115-041-_-Product

MB: Intel P45, 105 bucks: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130184

RAM: 4 gigs of DDR2 800, 90 bucks: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231207

That is 655 bucks. You could go with a cheaper CPU, but I would stick with this. Salvage everything else from your old comp.

My imaginary build pwns rallycart's build and it doesn't leave anything out.

Originally posted by Cleffy

My imaginary build pwns rallycart's build and it doesn't leave anything out.

Your "some AMD" CPU for 60 bucks is going to be crap, sorry, lol. And the 4850 is hardly going to beat out the 260gtx either. And they have the same amount of ram. So how, exactly is it going to "pwn" it? :P And yes, yours has more items. However, anything outside of what I specified can be taking from the old comp. The powersupply is the only thing that MIGHT not be re-usable, but most will support what I listed.

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Originally posted by sunjenkwei
Yeah, so uh, I want to build a good and cheap gaming computer that will be able to run well with games for at least 2 years. (E.G. Dragon Age Origins, KOTORO, etc.)
Mostly, I don't know where to find good parts and a good mobo.
I already have a moniter, speaker, mouse, keyboard etc. , which I will salvage from my old computer.
Also, I may be interested in buying a good gaming laptop around the same price.
Any help please?
Edit: I forgot to say, I'm looking for specific parts that would work well together or just plain good.

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Depending on what's in your old PC you may still be able to use your PSU and HD, possibly ram and maybe even mobo. But if your PSU, HD and DVD drive are decent that can save you over $100. Also if you can reuse your OS key or have some way of getting Windows that saves $100 too. I agree with Cleffy's setup if you have to buy all those parts, but if you can avoid buying a new case and such, you could go..

Asus 790GX mobo $105 - With Crossfire so you can use 2 Radeon 5770's later on
4GB DDR3 1600 ram $85 - cheap ram is gone, no more $50 DDR2. If you have DDR2 reuse it
Phenom II X4 945 $165 - Beefy enough to last past a Crossfire upgrade in a couple years
Radeon 5770 $175 - Don't know why you'd go GTX260 for $200..
OCZ 550W PSU $65 - 5770 is very power efficient, this PSU will do Crossfire easily
Seagate 500GB HD $55 - not quite as fast as WD Black but cheaper with better thermal and noise
Reuse DVD drive $0
Reuse Vista $0
Reuse Case $0

$650 total.. if you need an OS, buy Win7 and knock the processor down to an X3 720 $120 or X4 620 $100. You can also drop down to a 770GX mobo $70. There are also plenty of possible combo deals on those parts that may make other memory brand or PSU more attractive.

This setup will last you quite a while and when you need more graphics power you can toss in a 2nd 5770 later on.

Don't have anything to add to the above for parts. Haven't looked at hardware in quite while, upgraded early this year. However, if you have an .edu email account from your school, you can get Win7 Professional, full retail, for $30 plus tax and shipping (optional). Don't shell out $100 for Home Premium if you can avoid it. Feel free to message me if you need to, but it shouldn't be too hard to find the order info.

Originally posted by noquarter

 

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Radeon 5770 $175 - Don't know why you'd go GTX260 for $200..

The ATi 5770 is worse than the 260GTX, that is why. :P The only thing that the 5770 has is DX11 support, but since it is already behind the times, I don't think it will last long enough for that to actually be an advantage. For gods sake, it only has 128bit memory bus... That is what my 7600gt had.

Originally posted by sunjenkwei

Yeah, so uh, I want to build a good and cheap gaming computer that will be able to run well with games for at least 2 years. (E.G. Dragon Age Origins, KOTORO, etc.)

Mostly, I don't know where to find good parts and a good mobo.

I already have a moniter, speaker, mouse, keyboard etc. , which I will salvage from my old computer.

Also, I may be interested in buying a good gaming laptop around the same price.

Any help please?

Edit: I forgot to say, I'm looking for specific parts that would work well together or just plain good.

Hope this helps click

noquarter's suggestion, except change the hdd to samsung f3. 

nVidia right now is losing in every price category because they didn't reduce prices in the wake of the HD5870.  The HD5770 has similiar performance to the HD4870 which outperforms the GTX260.  The GTX260 has similiar performance to the HD4850 at double the price.

Originally posted by Cleffy

nVidia right now is losing in every price category because they didn't reduce prices in the wake of the HD5870.  The HD5770 has similiar performance to the HD4870 which outperforms the GTX260.  The GTX260 has similiar performance to the HD4850 at double the price.

You are completely incorrect. The 4870 performs at about the same level as the 260 GTX 216. It outperfoms the OLD 260 GTX. The 5770 has a lesser performance than the 4870, as shown in just about every test, including Toms hardware. As a matter of fact, the 260GTX is in a three way tie for the best bang for the buck in it's price range, and it is tied in that range with the 4870.

Newer card has better driver support, g200 series won't receive performance increments   from drivers anymore, soon nvidia will drop the whole support on them. 5770 is a better choice.

What size monitor do you have? With the $650 budget, if you have a smaller monitor (<20inch), you can save money on the vid card and buy an I5 based system that will leave all the AMD systems being recommended in the dust. I think it's silly to go with an AMD or Core 2 system anymore in the mid-range (which is where you are with $650 budget).

Newegg has a nice i5 combo deal going right now for $578 which includes everything except the vid card.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.293841

Personally, I'd go with something like this on a $650 budget though:

Intel I5-750: $200

4GB DDR3: $80

Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3R: $140 (could save $35 and go with the Micro-ATX GA-P55M-UD2 though)

Antec 300 Illusion / Antec EA430: $110 http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.288426

This leaves $120 for the hard drive and vid card. There aren't many appealing options here if you stick to the budget strictly. If you jump up to $700 you can get a $50 HD and maybe find a cheap 4850. If you have a smaller monitor though, I wouldn't worry too much about the higher end cards. Maybe a 4650 for $65 and spend the extra money on the nicer Caviar Black HD which gets you to $670. Right now is a bad time to buy a vid card. AMD and NVidia are having issues with their new cards, and the previous generation cards haven't dropped in price yet. Check back in 2 months and vid cards are going to drop drastically. Buy a cheap card now, and upgrade the card in 6 months.

As for where to buy. Newegg or Amazon are my first choices.

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Originally posted by Rallycart

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Originally posted by Cleffy

nVidia right now is losing in every price category because they didn't reduce prices in the wake of the HD5870.  The HD5770 has similiar performance to the HD4870 which outperforms the GTX260.  The GTX260 has similiar performance to the HD4850 at double the price.

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You are completely incorrect. The 4870 performs at about the same level as the 260 GTX 216. It outperfoms the OLD 260 GTX. The 5770 has a lesser performance than the 4870, as shown in just about every test, including Toms hardware. As a matter of fact, the 260GTX is in a three way tie for the best bang for the buck in it's price range, and it is tied in that range with the 4870.

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Yea, to me those 3 cards come down to price-performance (4870), Physx (GTX260), DX11 (5770). 4870 are still about $20 cheaper than the GTX260 and equal performance, so it's $20 if you want Physx.

5770 is same price as GTX260 but a bit slower, however has DX11 and the promise of driver performance enhancements. www.xbitlabs.com does a great job of testing all driver releases. DX11 also has the potential of open platform physics acceleration based on OpenCL/DirectCompute and an open platform physics engine would be better supported than Physx.

I disagree on buying the $200 OC'd GTX260 though, which is slower than a $190 4890 and the 4890 could still be OC'd quite a bit if you wanted to. The argument for a $170 GTX260 is something I could go for but the DX11 part is still my pref.

Originally posted by Rallycart

Originally posted by Cleffy

nVidia right now is losing in every price category because they didn't reduce prices in the wake of the HD5870.  The HD5770 has similiar performance to the HD4870 which outperforms the GTX260.  The GTX260 has similiar performance to the HD4850 at double the price.

 

You are completely incorrect. The 4870 performs at about the same level as the 260 GTX 216. It outperfoms the OLD 260 GTX. The 5770 has a lesser performance than the 4870, as shown in just about every test, including Toms hardware. As a matter of fact, the 260GTX is in a three way tie for the best bang for the buck in it's price range, and it is tied in that range with the 4870.

Toms is biased towards nVidia.  7/10 of the benchmarks they use favor nVidia Architecture.  They don't use more universal benchmarks or AMD favoring architectures.  So of course when you use games that are 7 out of 10 in favor of nVidia it will showcase well for nVidia.  The fact is the HD4890 matches the GTX 285.  The HD4870 matches the GTX 260 Core 216, and the HD4850 is in between the GTS250 and GTX260.  However, after the HD5870 was released.  Nvidia didn't reduce prices while ATI did.  In every category they are outpriced by atleast $20 to similiar videocards.

The difference between the HD5770 and the HD4870 is the 128-bit bus instead of the 256-bit bus, and 1GB DDR5 instead of 512MB DDR5.  In every benchmark I have seen the HD5770 performs 0~6% worse then the HD4870 which puts it in line with the performance from a GTX260

Originally posted by Daear

Don't have anything to add to the above for parts. Haven't looked at hardware in quite while, upgraded early this year. However, if you have an .edu email account from your school, you can get Win7 Professional, full retail, for $30 plus tax and shipping (optional). Don't shell out $100 for Home Premium if you can avoid it. Feel free to message me if you need to, but it shouldn't be too hard to find the order info.

I got Windows 7 Professional free ( as many copies as i need for my own personal use) through my school. My school is partnered with Microsoft through the MSDNAA program. If the OP is a student, s/he should look into this.