Building a new PC, how's this?

[MeshiaSamurai]

What I am looking to build is a decent gaming machine that can play what's out there now for RPG's and perhaps MMO's, like Dragon Age, Oblivion and Warcraft. I also want to be able to upgrade it pretty significantly over time, as I have the funds.

Budget wise, I'm trying to come in right around $800 or less, without taking a monitor, keyboard or mouse into consideration.

Here's what I've been looking at:

MB: ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 AM3 AMD 880G SATA 6Gb/s
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz
RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM
GPU: Onboard Radeon HD 4250 (Upgrade later?)
PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W
HDD: WD Caviar Blue WD5000AAKX 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s
Optical Drive: LITE-ON 24X DVD Writer Black SATA
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit -OEM
Case: LIAN LI Lancool PC-K58W

Possible upgrades later: Second GPU, HeatSink/Cooling System, more RAM, faster CPU...

Any feedback on how this setup will perform, compatibility of components, and what upgrades to look into first would be greatly appreciated.

P.S. LiNuX, your video tutorial on building a computer was massively helpful, and a great part in making me feel I could actually tackle the project.

[LiNuX]

if you're getting it for gaming, you should get an addon GPU. Onboard GPUs (like that one) are usually weak.

I'm not sure what all that will cost you right now, but this GPU is $50 after MIR and is pretty good: Newegg.com - XFX HD-467X-ZDF2 Radeon HD 4670 1GB 128-bit DDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card

Other than that, you have a good set up. I've had issues playing certain games on Win7 64bit but I've never played the games you mentioned here. So you should be OK.

And I'm glad my videos helped The PC I built there is pretty good and I actually listed it on ebay, if it doesn't sell, I'll be using it as a second gaming PC. It cost me about $500 in total but I waited around for deals. Took me about 2-3 months to gather all the parts.

Good luck with your build! I hope everything goes well and let me know if you have questions. I'll be happy to help.

[W1CKEDTW1STED]

if you're getting it for gaming, you should get an addon GPU. Onboard GPUs (like that one) are usually weak.

+1 on that. Onboard GPUs are terrible for gaming. I have yet to ever see a decent onboard GPU.

[MeshiaSamurai]

I thought an addon GPU might be a good idea. That one looks good. What can you tell me about chipsets? ATI or NVIDIA? Is one better? More compatible?

As far as the OS goes, I'm open to suggestion. I haven't been thrilled with Vista, which I have on my laptop, so I was contemplating XP. I'm not the most savvy with command prompts, so I am staying away from Linux. I would be willing to learn it myself, but it will also be our family computer, so I need something user friendly for my wife and daughters.

Which games did you have problems with on 7?

I have time to wait around for deals. I going to be purchasing the parts with a chunk of my tax return, and I'm not in a hurry (unless the laptop dies on us).

[LiNuX]

There really is no answer for whether ATI or Nvidia is better. The thing with chipset is that if it's an nvidia chipset then you should get an nvidia GPU, it's just works well together. Same for ATI. But I've had to crisscross them for people over the years so it really doesn't matter. It'll still run fine, it's just better to go with the same.

And Vista is terrible. I have it on a laptop too and I barely use it. And XP is good for gaming, well great. That's where I do most of my gaming. I dual boot with win7 and XP and switch when I have to game.

And Linux isn't that bad but I wouldn't recommend it for gaming. not everything is compatible and you do have to learn a bit to get used to it. And Ubuntu is a good free distro that's good for beginners. It would be worth it to give it a shot even if you just dual boot and try it out.

As for games that have problems on Win7. CS 1.6 is an example. For some reason, it doesn't run very well. Probably because the game is so old.

Another one is BFBC2. I'm not sure why, but whenever I play it, windows 7 violently shuts down (meaning skips the shutdown process) - so far I've only seen people have the issue on the 64bit version of win7, not the 32bit.

And waiting is a good idea. Martin Luther King and Valentine's Days are coming up soon and I know stuff will go on sale.

[MeshiaSamurai]

Alright, so I'll stick with ATI chipset for my addon GPU, XP for my OS, (maybe try out Ubuntu via dual booting) and Valentines will probably be right about when I get my return, so I'll look for good deals then. If I have some spare cash (yeah right...) around Martin Luther King Jr. day, I'll take a look then as well.

Thanks for all the help!

[leica]

sounds like a nice machine


i had something more useful to say but i forgot by the time i scrolled down

[W1CKEDTW1STED]

Nvidia = Constant driver updates to take care of any lingering bugs and always listening to their customer feedback.

ATI = No constant driver updates, takes awhile before they fix all the bugs.

Otherwise than that, they are both pretty equal.

[leica]

Otherwise than that, they are both pretty equal.

sounds kinda like you're hatin'

back in my windows days i never had a problem with ati graphics. ati's linux drivers are considerably ****tier than nvidia's or intel's though. (unless you count ancient (pre-2002ish) intels which are way worse than current atis.) with arch linux and ati graphics i get some short blanks (like 250ms or so) when i start certain applications (with my hd 4200 this occurs only in wine apps). with arch linux and intel gfx on an really old inspiron the screen would blank permanently 2/3 of the time after udev came up. i experienced no graphics problems with nvidia.

tl;dr: it doesn't really matter unless you use linux, in which case it rarely matters anyway, but nvidia is probably best

[Diligence109]

I've no experience with the battle between ATI and nVidia, but I've been running with a Radeon X1600 for some time now without any issues (built into the laptop, didn't have a choice!) and my dad (comp sci major, moderate/mild gamer, computer know-a-lot) has always preferred ATI for reasons I don't actually know. Omega Drivers do wonders (for either nVidia or ATI).


I was gonna go through and quote select things that Linux said, but after reading it all it'll be easier and more honest if I just say +1 to EVERYTHING he said. That man knows his computers!

When I first read that you had an $800 budget, my first thought was "pish, he's gonna built a freaking super computer." Also, +over9000 to don't use an onboard GPU. You can (and must) do much better with that budget

Good luck! Tell us how it goes when you build it (in a couple months!)