Here's what I have if I build the whole thing from scratch:

Asus M4N68T-M V2 Motherboard $55

AMD ADX250OCGMBOX Athlon II X2 250 Dual Core Processor $60

PNY Optima MD4096SD3-1333 Desktop Memory Module $23

Seagate ST500DM002 Barracuda 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - 500GB $40

ZOTAC ZT-98GES5P-FDL GeForce 9800 GT Video Card $30

Cooler Master RC-310-RWN1-GP Elite 310 Mid-Tower Case $40

Coolmax / V-500 / 500-Watt / ATX / 120mm Fan / SATA-Ready / 20/24 Pin / Power Supply $20

Total = $268

The only problem is with the graphics card here. It's basically the same card that was in my old laptop and that thing could run Crysis at 45fps on medium settings. I have another $20 to play with here and I'm kind of wondering if it would be worth it to go with a GT 220 or even GT 520 with 1GB.

Originally posted by Quizzical

Exactly which components do you need?  It sounds like you need a motherboard, processor, and video card.  How about OS, memory, optical drive, or hard drive?

If you want the best performance per dollar that you can get on a very tight budget, then try a Radeon HD 5670 with GDDR5 memory:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102871

That kind of sums it up.

I haven't build a rig since 2007, so I'm a little lost. I'm pretty sure that I can put an Socket AM3 CPU in an AM3+, but I'm not sure I have to go there since I've seen the AMD Phenom II X6 is an AM3. Being able to upgrade and expand this thing is key. I want something that I can build cheap, and improve over time.

I've been eyeballing that graphics card quite a bit to be honest. I've also been wondering if I should just buy a decent used Dual Core computer for $100 and then just plug a $200 GeForce GTX 560 into it. I can't really do that with a bare bones kit because I end up going way over budget when I do that.

I'm canabalizing my old DVD burner, but I really don't see the point. Most of the games I get anymore are over Steam or GoG.com. Even the stuff that isn't available on Steam is available for download somewhere else.

The OS isn't a problem at this point because I'll be starting on Windows XP Home Edition, which you can download for free. I figure next month I'll have enough to pick up Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM for $100. Hence the 4 Gigs of memory instead of the 2 Gig maximum that XP can handle.

For right now, this is kind of a proof of concept project. Once I've proven that you CAN make a decent gaming rig for a little more than a console, I'll be ramping this thing up into the $500-$700 performance range.

I actually thought about buying a $30 case and a 500W power supply (about $50), but I could just swap out the power supply in a donor case for $20.

I'm not totally strict with the $300 price. I'm willing to be within $20 over/under my budget. So a 120mm fan for cooling wouldn't be an issue unless there was no place to fit it in the case.

I'd also like to keep the CPU and the graphics cards as close as possible to eachother in price. Hell, I could buy a cheap bare bones kit and put a $60 Geforce GT 520 and call it a day. But the idea is to try and get the highest power to price ratio that I can achieve on this budget. That's why I was looking at somthing along the lines of two Radeon HD 5450s. I'm hoping that the whole would be greater than the sum of the parts.

Also, I'm hoping that low profile parts will make for a cooler running rig. Worst come to worst, I can always make a water cooling system out of car parts ;-)

So It's time for me to build a new PC and I'm trying to challenge myself. To that end I've set the budget at $300. Monitor, keyboard and mouse are not included in the price because I already have all of those things. I'm also not factoring in the case or power supply since I'm just planning on gutting an old donor computer. Most older, off the shelf machines have and ATX form factor and a 400W power supply, so why pay top dollar for something I get by combing yard sales and dumpster diving for.

The first step is to choose a game to build for. I'm kind of thinking about using the recommended set-up for Hard Reset, The Witcher 2, Rage, or Battlefield 3. I want one set up that will potential run them all at medium settings. Since none of these games need more than 4 Gigs of Ram I'll probably just drop $30 for 4 Gigs of DDR3 at the highest speed that the motherboard would support, and I'll probably spend an extra $30 on an AMD CPU like the Athlon II x4. The only real question left is the graphics card(s).

Do I just get something like a Geforce 9800 or Radeon 5570? Or do I go for two cheap Radeon 4850s with Crossfire? SLI is out of the question since 1) there aren't that many SLI motherboards out there and 2) SLI motherboards cost way more than Crossfire X motherboards.

Maybe you guys could come up with something better on that budget. . . .

Ron Jeremy

Finally!!!!

Someone gets it!!!!

Tablets are for viewing media. Period. End of line.

Apple wanted to compete with netbooks and eReaders so he came up with something in between the two. The problem is that you can't do any real work on an iPad or Android tablet. For half the price of an iPad or Android tablet, I can buy a netbook that will run MS Office, Adobe Acrobat Pro, and Dreamweaver. For a fifth of the price of a tablet, I can read books in a way that won't kill my eyes.

Amazon gets the fact that tablets are portable media devices and that the average consumer isn't going to pay more than $200 for such a device. It's about damn time someone figured out.

So we're having a kerfuffle over the economy and the deficit here in the U.S. and this morning it occurs to me that we kill both birds with one stone. Raise the tariff.

Think about how many things you buy that have a 'Made in China' label on them. Think about how many people COULD have been employed of those goods were made here instead. Consider the fact that the U.S. tarif is lower today than it has ever been. Also keep in mind that we give factories huge local, state, and fedral tax breaks as an incentive to manufacture here.

Companies send these jobs to other countries because the labor is cheaper. By raising the tariff, we counter the downward spiral of perpetually under-cutting labor costs. The market in many of these third world countries isn't really strong enough to support the kinds of  products that are made in the sweatshops therein. Without money from the West, those factories would be dead in the water.

Starve the beast and feed yourselves.

Originally posted by PukeBucket

Originally posted by Jimmy_Scythe

Originally posted by PukeBucket
 

 

 

WINNING!

Sorry. . .

I'm not a pedophile. It takes more than a picture of a twelve year old dressed as Cammy to qualify one for WINNING. . . .

Originally posted by Quizzical

Personally, I'm expecting to see tablets with a detachable keyboard (and touchpad, etc. on the keyboard part), so that they can be used like a laptop when desired, without adding much to the cost of the tablet.

Actually, I'm thinking that tablets will be more like the Eee Pad Slider. Tablets really are just over-sized smart phones after all, so why break what ain't broken.

On the other hand, there's already debate over whether or not the Slider is actually a tablet. . . .

Originally posted by PukeBucket

Mobile fits, because that's the point of a tablet.

What do I win?

A fully digital, non-autographed picture of Chuck Norris. . . ?

Or were you hoping for somthing more?

So I got into a discussion with a friend of mine about the whole tablet thing. I personally don't see the point in dropping $500-$800 for what basically amounts to an oversized iPod Touch, but my friend started talking about the "post-PC" world and how he had completely replaced his laptop with his iPad. And that got me thinking about labels.

Technically, tablets are computers. Smartphones are also computers. Hell, regular cell phones are computers. But none of these devices are the same as the machines that we use to get actual work done. Yet when you go to someplace like Tiger Direct or Newegg and look under the computer tab, you'll find iPads and Android tablets listed under 'Tablet PCs.' Huh?!!

So that begs the question: Are games for iPad and Androit tablets PC or console games? I mean, it's easier with the iPod Touch and iPhone since we can just throw those in the mobile games catagory. But games built exclusively with tablets in mind just don't fit that niche.

The iPad also doesn't fit into the console catagory. The PSP and Nintendo DS are both portable consoles, but the iPad and Motorola Xoom lack that kind of focus. I mean, I can read ebooks, listen to music, and watch movies on my PSP, but at the end of the day it's still built to play games. Tablets weren't built to play games. What exactly tablets WERE built for is beyond the scope of this post, but it sure as hell wasn't to play games.

I also can't see tablets as PCs. At no point have I, or anyone I have ever come in contact with, said "Ya' know, I really wish that my PC was more like my smartphone."

Sure, the long battery life and instant on features are selling point, but the limitations of the interface just outweigh those factors when it comes to real work. And don't get me started on the price to power ratio. Between laptops and tablets, the laptop wins when it comes to doing anything useful.

So there it is. I don't know how to classify tablet games. I can't call games like Dungeon Defenders or 100 Rogues bad, so I can't throw tablet games entirely in the "shitty" catagory. I can't call them mobile because the devices themselves aren't very mobile. I can't call them PC games because the devices are closed systems with limited functionality. And I can't call them console games because the devices were just not built for gaming. <sigh>

What do you guys think?

Originally posted by tom_gore

Originally posted by Jimmy_Scythe

Originally posted by tom_gore

 

I was talking about PC gamer enthusiasts. Obviously if you can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p or 30 fps and 60 fps, you aren't one of them. Calling the people who actually can tell the difference graphics whores or technophiles does not strenghten your point.

Of course the undeniable fact is that this particular group of players is getting smaller all the time, but it is still there and probably will be for as long as anyone is willing to make games that push their bleeding edge hardware to the limits.

Currently I'm putting my trust into Battlefield 3 - one of the few games published today which have been primarily developed for high-end gaming PCs (instead of been developed for the 6-year old console hardware and hastily ported over to PC). BF3 is also one of those games I would never ever consider to play on a console or through a streaming service like OnLive.

 

Ho! Ho!

So now you're the sole keeper of the immutable definition of what a PC gamer is?

Seriously, grow up.

Originally posted by tom_gore

I'm getting the feeling that the guys happy with OnLive are the same guys who are happy with playing their 720p (if you're lucky) console game on their LCD TV with 40ms input lag because of the TV is not set up for playing games. Guess it's what you're used to.

 

No. I'm an olde skool gamer that still remembers playing Quake 3 deathmatches over a dail-up connection with a ping 250.

I'm also not a graphics whore or technophile, so 720p isn't exactly making my my eyes bleed or offending my "sophisticated" tastes. TBH, I don't see that much difference between 1080p and 720p and I can barely notice a difference in frame rates once they get over 30-40 fps. Hell, the human eye can only percieve 60 fps.

You are not all gamers. You aren't even all PC gamers. So stop trying to be the self-appointed representative thereof.

Originally posted by Vinterkrig

Originally posted by lordpenquin
 

 

FPS games will always be "installed" unless gaming becomes extremely casual to the point where people don't care anymore

 

What kind of connection to you have? I played Borderlands and Unreal Tournament 3 through OnLive without a hitch.

Originally posted by jugularvein

Question about Onlive if someone doesnt mind answering.  I see its around 9 bucks a month but THAT is only for Playback Bundle games NOT new releases right?  If you want the new releases does that mean you have to buy them or rent them for a few days?

Any help would be great. You can send me a private mail if this question is off topic from the forum.

 

Thanks in advance

Juggie ;)

As far as I can tell, it depends on the game.

Some of the games are included in the bundle. Some of the games allow three or five day rentals. And some of the games require you pay for the game. There isn't any consistency about this either.

You don't have to pay for the monthly sub, but some games are ONLY available through the sub. You can rent some games, but not all of them. Still other games can be bought retail price, but you can't get them through the sub or renting them. You just have to browse the marketplace and find out.

For me, there are enough games that I can rent for five days that I can get through until I have a new game rig built.

You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

Originally posted by psyclum

Originally posted by Brenelael

 

will cloud gaming work?  eventually.  when fiber makes its way to homes.  but that "last mile" is way too expensive for any cable/telco to undertake for any large scale deployment.  that is an ECONOMIC limitation NOT a technological limitation.  eventually, when we all get a gig pipe coming to the house, i'll give this cloud gaming another look,  but as far as today?  i'll just remind you that even HDMI 1.0 spec calls for 4.9Gbit/S bandwidth... :D

OnLive definitely makes some tradeoffs. The image is actually 480i widescreen. This is basically the reason they can get away with what they do. The images lose fidelity over their local installed cousins, but the games are completely playable. The only time I noticed any over significant frame loss was while Playing Pure. Incidentally, the quality of that youtube video is about the same as the image quality on OnLive.

I can't help but think that streaming would work beautifully with retro games. Doom, Quake, Warcraft 2, just about any SNES or Sega Genesis game, all ran at 320X240 or lower resolution. With a broadband connection, streaming those games would be nothing. You could probably even go as high as 800X600 and stream Quake 3 real-time. The tech is not as far behind as you think it is.

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

Originally posted by Jimmy_Scythe

Originally posted by Zezda

When OnLive can play games at 5280x1080

Seriously, a rig that would run Crysis at those settings would cost several thousand dollars. The monitor alone would probably cost as much as my last laptop.

Ummmm.....no.

For $800 I can and recently DID build a system that will crush any game you throw at it.

People claiming that this cloud computing thing is going to change GAMING are delusional. Nvidia and ATI are not going to be closing up shop any time soon. SSD drives are not going to become obsolete just as they are gaining a foothold.

Cloud computing will be handy for movies and music, document sharing, etc. But for PC GAMING, the future still lies in hardware and purchased software.

PC hardware is getting cheaper than ever, and you don't need bleeding edge hardware to max out the newest games.

Now, Onlive is probably a great thing for people with old hardware, or a netbook or something. Hell, if they made a version that would run PC games on Android / iphones, they could rake in the cash.

It IS a good idea, but it will never replace a real gaming rig.

Please. Give us the parts list.

Then again, it wouldn't do any good. You see the highest monitor resolution I was able to find was 1080p. The most expensive monitor on Newegg doesn't even have the resolution that he's banging on about. Of course, I may be reading it wrong and he's talking about THREE monitors at the same time. In which case, my point is still valid since he/she will have sank at least $600 into the display alone.

And I realize that you can make a decent PC for around $500 and a really awesome tower for $800+, but the guy I was responding to wants the bleeding edge and that cost serious bank.

And for the majority of gamers, cloud computing WILL be the future. There will still be some companies, mostly indies, making download only games that you have to install, but the bulk of gaming will be streamed in the future.

Why would I pour money into a huge tower that causes my block to brown out every time I turn it on when I could just pay $7 bucks and play a game from a similar system streamed to my netbook or iPad? The price of game hardware remains roughly the same, but the cost of gaming actually goes down. Cloud computing is just one more milestone on that road.

Originally posted by Zezda

When OnLive can play games at 5280x1080 and I can choose wether or not and I get to choose which kind of Antil Aliasing or DX11 effects I play with etc etc etc then I *might* consider it.

Until then, I will continue to use my own PC which doubles as my work machine as well as my entertainment.

You sir, are a technophile. I would go so far as to say that you're a complete graphics whore, but I'm not sure how you would take that.

At any rate, you represent an extreme niche market. When we start using terms like 'best' we tend to forget that 'best' is a subjective / situational term. "Best" for whom exactly? You base your entire decision on the picture fidelity. Not the gameplay. Not even the number of actual polygons that make up the scene. Just the number of pixels and the frame rate.

Seriously, a rig that would run Crysis at those settings would cost several thousand dollars. The monitor alone would probably cost as much as my last laptop. Even among people that have that much money to burn, those willing to drop that kind of money on a gaming rig is very, very low. And the potential game sales to that market doesn't justify the enourmous cost of developing for that market.

Guess what the best selling game platform is in Brazil. Done?

It's the Sega Master System. Toy companies have made buckets of cash knocking off the SMS in South America for decades. In a country where the income of most people has been less than $500 a month, even the poorest people can scrape together $50 for a clone system with some built in games. The practice has even come to the U.S. in the form of Famiclones like the FC Twin and Retron 3.

The point is, not everyone is like you. Not everyone has, or is willing to part with, the kind of cash needed for such high end toys. And not everyone values the same things in gaming as you.

Get over yourself.

Originally posted by jpnole

Originally posted by Jimmy_Scythe

Yeah and those of us with fast rigs (like me) are perfectly content to buy the games we want and play them in all their graphical glory on our own kick-@ss rigs. No fuzzy graphics here.

<yawn> 

Yes your epeen is soooooooooooo big! <sarcasm>

Now, do you have anything USEFUL to share with the class?