Mid level gaming rig

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  1. #1
    Grouchy Tech Recon's Avatar
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    Mid level gaming rig

    I'm not looking to spend thousands but using new egg any reccomendations on a mid level gaming rig using a SSHD

  2. #2
    [Insert witty title here] Spaceman Spiff's Avatar
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    What's your budget? Without that, there's really no place to start...
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  3. #3
    Grouchy Tech Recon's Avatar
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    500-600

    Its been 4-5 years since I've paid attention to hardware so I have no clue anymore

  4. #4
    Ultra Great White Shark!! richardginn's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Recon View Post
    500-600

    Its been 4-5 years since I've paid attention to hardware so I have no clue anymore
    At that price point a SSHD to me is out of the question.

    At 700 bucks though we can buy that SSHD without any sacrifice on the rest of the pieces for the computer.
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  5. #5
    Great White Shark
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    Aww come on, give it a try. A 60GB SSD is only about 119, and good enough for a boot drive + base apps.

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    I don't roll on Shabbos! Timman_24's Avatar
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  7. #7
    Ultra Great White Shark!! richardginn's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by James View Post
    Aww come on, give it a try. A 60GB SSD is only about 119, and good enough for a boot drive + base apps.
    At 700 bucks an SSD at 119 bucks is doable...
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  8. #8
    Grouchy Tech Recon's Avatar
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    I should have stipulated I have the OS already, also I have a 1TB data drive

  9. #9
    Tiger Shark
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    500-600 is a budget gaming rig, so if ssd is really demanded then going to have to treat it as such which means going AMD. For intel, which is really a better idea, going to have to go over-budget for the ssd.

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  10. #10
    Ultra Great White Shark!! richardginn's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Recon View Post
    I should have stipulated I have the OS already, also I have a 1TB data drive
    Yesssssss you should have. That makes spending 500-600 bucks for the rest of the computer that much easier.
    Last edited by richardginn; 03-02-2011 at 10:12 AM.
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  11. #11
    Grouchy Tech Recon's Avatar
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    I'm not to opposed to AMD its been 5 years since I've had a AMD but if it works it works.

    If AMD isn't reccomended I guess I could skip the SSHD and just make sure that the MoBo is compatible with the newer SSs

    Im running a 5 year old core 2 @ 2.4 with the crappy slow FSB and no Cache..I'm also running two 8800's in SLI.

  12. #12
    Mako Shark kent1146's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Recon View Post
    I'm not to opposed to AMD its been 5 years since I've had a AMD but if it works it works.

    If AMD isn't reccomended I guess I could skip the SSHD and just make sure that the MoBo is compatible with the newer SSs

    Im running a 5 year old core 2 @ 2.4 with the crappy slow FSB and no Cache..I'm also running two 8800's in SLI.
    Ok... so here's the deal.

    (1) First, the bad news: $500 - $700 really isn't enough to build a totally new computer from the ground up, that would give you any significant performance bump in what you already have today. You really need to look at around $1000 for a bang-for-your-buck mid-range gaming rig that give you a noticeable upgrade.

    If you want to learn more about this, I can show you an article in the most recent issue of MaximumPC that is a good starting point. They built a Sandy Bridge Core i3 gaming rig with an AMD Radeon 6850 GPU running on a mechanical hard drive for about $1000. Great bang-for-your-buck.




    (2) Now, the good news: You can easily get a very nice upgrade for your machine for under $500. Most games these days depend heavily on the GPU, and not the CPU. Core 2 CPU's aren't the fastest these days, but are still workhorses that are "good enough" for most gaming, especially if you overclock it to squeeze a little bit more life out of it (that's what I did).

    So, if you want a bump in performance on a budget, focus on the GPU and the SSD. I'd go with:
    • If you do not already have at least 4GB of RAM, get 4GB of RAM as inexpensively as you can. I'd go to eBay and buy used RAM for that. No point in buying new DDR2 RAM, since DDR2 is a dead standard.
    • nVidia GeForce GTX560Ti for ~$250. You can pick from the different vendors that build video cards around that GPU, depending on the particular packaging and warranty you like. Incredible amount of performance for the price you pay.
    • A 120GB SSD for around $200. Specfiically, you want to look for drives using the SandForce SF-1200 or the Intel X25-M controller.... G.Skill Phoenix 120GB, Corsair F120 120GB, or Intel X25-M 120GB.

      Next-gen SATA3 SSD's are just starting to come out, but I would advise against buying those. They have a price premium on them because they are the fastest / newest products out, they don't give any significant real-world performance advantages over the drives I mentioned, and they require SATA3 support which you currently do not have on your motherboard.
    • Overclock your CPU, to squeeze more life out of it.


    All of that should cost you <$500, give you a significant jump in performance over what you currently have, and squeeze every dollar you spend to give you as much bang-for-your-buck as possible.

    The primary benefit of doing a <$500 piecemeal upgrade (versus a new system build) is that you leave yourself room for future upgrades. Some time down the road, when you want more performance, you can easily upgrade CPU / motherboard / RAM, and keep the nVidia GTX560 video card and the SSD. All of those parts will pair nicely together. And even further down the road, when you want more performance than that, you can buy a 2nd GTX560Ti and run those two cards in SLI. The method I suggest gives you room to re-use parts through two major upgrades down the road over the next 2-5 years, without ever having to dump a bunch of cash into a full system build.
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  13. #13
    Grouchy Tech Recon's Avatar
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    I lied my CPU is at 2.8 so I guess I'll follow Kent's advice and chase a video card first.

    I am running 4gb of DDR2 at the moment.

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