Building a computer on a budget

Well my brother is getting a computer for his birthday in October and I want it to be a decent machine that can play games. He mainly plays Age of Empires, 2Moons, Star Wars Battlefront and any other games that might interest him that I tend to buy like Guild Wars, Star Craft and Unreal Tournament. I am not expecting Crysis kind of graphics, medium to high should be fine for him.

I have a budget of 800 CAD and the machine needs to have 2 GB's of RAM and a dual core processor. DirectX 10 is not a big issue since it will be an XP based machine with a microATX motherboard and small form factor case (due to limited spacing in his room). I have already chosen the RAM, OCZ Platinum Revision-2 800 Mhz 2 GB DDR2 RAM since that is what I have in my rig and it works great. So I need a microATX motherboard suggestion (the one I got was expensive and came with an Intel processor for 400 bucks and it is microATX), peferably one that supports up to 4 GB's on 32-bit or 16 on 64-bit. As well as a processor and decent sound card.

Well my brother is getting a computer for his birthday in October and I want it to be a decent machine that can play games. He mainly plays Age of Empires, 2Moons, Star Wars Battlefront and any other games that might interest him that I tend to buy like Guild Wars, Star Craft and Unreal Tournament. I am not expecting Crysis kind of graphics, medium to high should be fine for him.

I have a budget of 800 CAD and the machine needs to have 2 GB's of RAM and a dual core processor. DirectX 10 is not a big issue since it will be an XP based machine with a microATX motherboard and small form factor case (due to limited spacing in his room). I have already chosen the RAM, OCZ Platinum Revision-2 800 Mhz 2 GB DDR2 RAM since that is what I have in my rig and it works great. So I need a microATX motherboard suggestion (the one I got was expensive and came with an Intel processor for 400 bucks and it is microATX), peferably one that supports up to 4 GB's on 32-bit or 16 on 64-bit. As well as a processor and decent sound card.

DSgamer64

The important thing to deal with when building a budget PC is that the video card really should not amount to less than about 20 % of the total cost if you are in the $650 to $750 (USD) range. If you were spending more, the video card cost could eventually be a smaller portion, but you really don't want to drop below the $150 (USD, online) range. Use NCIX's pricing as a guide to what you should spend. On sale, or with special MIR's, you can beat that with careful shopping, but these days, for a gaming box, it is the video card that counts most, so you adjust the rest of the shopping choices to make sure you can spend enough for the proper card.

You want what I think of as "Mainstream" -- middle of Mid-Level, where the 7600 GT sat for much of 2006, but at a better $130 to $140 price point in USD. That would still be a fairly good choice overall, at today's $110 +/- price point, USD.

Here is what I mean (yes, Newegg, and they don't ship to Canada) $150 for a Power Color X1950 Pro, less $30 MIR.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131026

It is possible to assemble a system that will play games on lower settings, using a lesser card, but in my opinion, the percentage of the total for video should be a larger part, the smaller the total.

So is that 800CAD budget before or after that RAM? And what exact components are you looking for? I know you need a motherboard, processor, and hopefully a sound card, but do you need a power supply, case, graphics card, optical drive, or anything else?

So is that 800CAD budget before or after that RAM? And what exact components are you looking for? I know you need a motherboard, processor, and hopefully a sound card, but do you need a power supply, case, graphics card, optical drive, or anything else?

RayvinAzn

The case, power supply, HDD and optical drive have all be set and right now the total.

RAM - 99.97 CAD
Optical drive - 39.99
Ultra X-finity 500 watt PSU - 49.97
Thermaltake LANBOX - 159.99

Total cost of that is 289.90 CAD So I have 500 dollars to spare. I was thinking of getting an XFX 8600 GT for 149.97 for a graphics card, that way if we get Vista in the future, at least the video card won't need to be replaced. I am not too worried about the processor so long as it is dual core and is no less then 1.8 Ghz in speed, don't really care about the motherboard so long as it is decent and supports the 800 mhz DDR2 RAM.

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L

Intel Core 2 Duo E6550

Stick with the graphics card you found, $150CAD for an 8600GT is a good price.

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB hard drive

All told that leaves you a bit over budget, but not by much. I'd suggest buying a cheaper case to get under budget, but it's up to you.

gpu = http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814102067i think this will be the best one if your not planning on going to direct x10 and not willing to go more than $200 on a gpu card.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813128050 = this motherboard should be capable for future needs

gpu = http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814102067i think this will be the best one if your not planning on going to direct x10 and not willing to go more than $200 on a gpu card.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813128050 = this motherboard should be capable for future needs

kier1992

Guys, he said he needed a microATX board, and all suggestions have been standard ATX. I have never looked at micro's before, so I am not sure what to say on it.Munkyman587

Good call, I completely forgot about that. My bad. Got any suggestions? I don't pay much attention to Micro-ATX boards.

Case: http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2448914&CatId=1508

Mobo: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=24780&vpn=GA-G33M-DS2R&manufacture=Gigabyte

Cpu: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=25297&vpn=BX80557E6550&manufacture=Intel

Memory: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=18495&vpn=OCZ2G8002GK&manufacture=OCZ%20Technology

GPU: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=20801&vpn=256-P2-N615-TR&manufacture=eVGA