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WereAllCritics

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#1 WereAllCritics

Member since 2007 • 42 Posts

I looked up the ideal specs on some of the lateset games and realized that it was time for a whole new PC. This one I plan to be used pretty much only for gaming and I've got a budget of just under 2.5K. I want to be able to play games like Bioshock maxed out and Crysis on high. Should I look for a pre-made PC or build my own? If I should go for a pre-made, what model? What specific components if I should build my own?

17 years ago

yoyo462001

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#2 yoyo462001

Member since 2005 • 7535 Posts

if you can invest that much time then building it is better, what currency is that in?

17 years ago

WereAllCritics

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#3 WereAllCritics

Member since 2007 • 42 Posts

it's in US dollars

17 years ago

yoyo462001

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#5 yoyo462001

Member since 2005 • 7535 Posts

go for a 780i so you have the option of tri-sli (even though id not recomend it at all), also get the a new penryn and pick up z 9xxx series card...

17 years ago

NamelessPlayer

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#6 NamelessPlayer

Member since 2004 • 7729 Posts

That's quite a budget you have there...if you don't bother to buy peripherals and only factor the cost of the hardware and OS in a system, you can easily buy two pretty good gaming PCs and LAN them together for some multiplayer fun! Or, if you want an excellent single PC, you could probably afford one of thoseIntel Skulltrail boards and a pair of Xeon X54x0 CPUs to stuff in its dual LGA771 sockets. (Octo-core CPU power, anyone?) The required FB-DIMMs will also be quite expensive, but I think you can afford those with that budget, too. Also, since this particular Intel board has a pair of nVIDIA MCPs driving its four PCIe x16 slots, you can actually SLI with this board if you desire(though I still think it's a waste given how not all games benefit from it-especially Crysis, which needs it most!). Provided that your graphics card(s) isn't/aren't blocking any of the PCI slots, I'd also throw in an Auzentech X-Fi Prelude to max out your sound as well as your graphics. And, of course, we can't forget the hard drive-one 500 GB drive should still fit within that budget by this point. Of course, I could be overestimating there, and you'll have to settle for something more modest-a single-CPU board based on P35, 680i, 780i, or X38(depending on your desire to SLI or CrossFire), the CPU filling the socket being either a Q6600 or perhaps the way overpriced QX9650 if you want your Penryn, 45nm, and SSE4 right now, 4-8 GB of overclockable DDR2(Crucial Ballistix and other Micron D9-based DDR2 sets work great, though they only seem to come in 1 GB per DIMM), your choice of 8800 GTs or HD Radeon 3870s(or perhaps 8800 GTXs or Ultras if you want the miniscule performance increase for a lot more money spent), and a nice sound card(X-Fi XtremeGamer if you're on a budget by this point, X-Fi Prelude if you still have 190-200 US$ to spare just for a sound card). Throw in a 500 GB drive or better, as well as a good optical drive and floppy drive, stuff it all into a quality case, and buy copies of both Windows XP Pro and Windows Vista Ultimate x64 to dual-boot. With those components, you could also buy yourself a nice display, speakers, mouse, and keyboard with the money left over if you desire. (Which leads me to my next point-do you want to include peripherals such as the display, speakers, and input devices in your new PC budget, or do you make like me and just re-use whatever you have lying around for your previous system?)

17 years ago

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