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Spring 2008 PC Build Guide May 05, 2008 Jacob Vandy |
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Summary: With the arrival of spring and tax rebate checks in the mail, many of you may be planning on building a new PC soon. In this article, we're highlighting four different PC budgets ranging from $500-$1,500, and one unlimited budget build. If you're wondering which components to consider, you won't want to miss this article!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 8 ) |
In this guide, you will find complete gaming rig setups for varying budgets, ranging from $500 to several thousand dollars. Although, the last one is mostly for fun. I do not own each and every component listed, so I cannot personally verify their performance and/or perfect compatibility. What I can do is promise you that I have meticulously devised and revised this list to the best of my ability as a gaming enthusiast. At the end of the day, I cannot be held responsible for anything you do of your own accord.
Technology grows and changes quickly, so guides like this need to grow and change, as well. The feedback you fine readers provide is very much appreciated, and is seriously considered when formulating new editions. Please let your voice be heard if you have any suggestions. As always, the quoted prices are from Newegg.com and do not include tax or shipping. Peripherals and operating systems are also omitted.
| How To Get Your Money’s Worth | Page:: ( 2 / 8 ) |
Last time, I went over a few things concerning the compatibility of different hardware; Now, I’ll discuss different specifications of some common pieces of the PC puzzle and how they should factor into your price considerations.
Processors
Clock speed and front-side bus (FSB) are two of the most basic CPU specifications. The clock speed tells you how many operation cycles per second the CPU will go through. It is a somewhat raw measure of performance, but it isn’t as useful as it used to be. AMD was famous for rethinking CPU design and creating chips that ran at lower speeds than Intel’s competing Pentium 4 line, yet were more powerful. In addition to causing mass confusion due to game developers no longer being able to reliably recommend a clock speed requirement, the idea’s success led to Intel following suit with their Core architecture.
All other things being equal, a higher clock speed is better. In fact, most variation in a family of processors is clock speed, generally with no more than a couple hundred megahertz (MHz) in between. Once you’ve decided on a line of CPUs, look at the price difference between models, and decide if the increase in price is worth the increase in frequency. There tends to be a sweet spot, such as an extra $20 buying you another 200MHz, while the next 200MHz is going to cost $80 more.
The front-side bus is a measure of the speed at which the CPU interfaces with the motherboard’s chipset, namely the northbridge. The most important thing to consider when looking at FSB speeds is the speed of the memory you’re going to use. The memory speed should match the FSB for optimal performance. Generally, motherboard manufacturers provide a listing of the memory speeds the board supports, if not a large list of compatible memory modules, so you don’t really have to worry about the front-side bus at all. If you plan to overclock, you could buy memory that is faster if you’re going to increase the FSB speed, or slower memory if you’re going to decrease it. Overall, the FSB isn’t really a price-related factor.
A CPU’s on-board cache is an oft-overlooked detail on a spec sheet. The cache is a small amount of memory that resides directly on the CPU, providing some extremely high-speed storage space. Frequently-accessed data is stored there to prevent excessive requests to the relatively slow main memory of the system. The more cache, the better, so if you can pay a few extra bucks for an increase, you should seriously consider it.
Overclockability is a major concern for those that are interested in kicking things up a notch (at their own risk). Practically every modern CPU can be overclocked at least a bit, but some are notorious for being able to run substantially faster with relative ease. Keep an eye out for the latter because they can provide a great bang for you buck, hopefully not literally. Most CPU reviews say something about overclocking ability; You can also read posts on hardware message boards to get an idea of the latest buzz.
An OEM CPU does not come with a heatsink/fan. If you intend to overclock or otherwise have no need for stock cooling, you can usually save some money by not buying the retail package.
Memory
Clock speed is the chief specification of system RAM. It tells you how many times per second the memory reads or writes data. Higher is better, of course, but it’s going to be limited by the CPU and/or motherboard. It’s usually best to choose a RAM speed that is equal to the front-side bus speed of your CPU and, as with most components, make sure it’s supported by your motherboard. If the RAM doesn’t sync well with the rest of the system, it will run slower than advertised or else will not work at all. Save money by not buying RAM your system can’t handle, unless you’re overclocking, in which case you might want the headroom.
RAM latency timings are shown as a sequence that looks like this: 4-4-4-15. Essentially, the lower the numbers, the better and more expensive the RAM is. They don’t make an enormous impact on performance, though, so the “value RAM” with higher timings but lower price are certainly worth it if you’re watching your budget.
Higher density RAM modules cost more. The trade-off is being able to fit more RAM in the limited number of slots on your motherboard, so decide if that is important to you.
RAM heatsinks aren’t very important so long as your overall cooling situation is sufficient. You shouldn’t have to worry about RAM overheating unless you’re overclocking quite a bit. That said, they tend to show up on all but the cheapest varieities of memory, and they do look kind of cool.
| How To Get Your Money’s Worth (cont.) | Page:: ( 3 / 8 ) |
Video Cards
It is very common to see several overclocked variations of the same video card. From a business perspective, it’s a marvelous way to increase your profit margin because there is no extra manufacturing cost. However, I understand that some of you may not know how to overclock or are afraid of damaging the card if you do it yourself, and I can’t blame you. Although those of you that share the aforementioned sentiments may be willing to pay to have the overclocking done for you, an easy way to save a few bucks is to make sure you buy a video card at stock clock speeds.
Shaders are used to render all the fancy effects in modern games. Vertex shaders help with polygon geometry and pixel shaders handle lighting, reflections, and the like. The more shader processors, the better. DirectX 10 cards have introduced a unified shader model that allows a bunch of generic “stream processors” to do anything the older vertex and pixel shaders did, in addition to a whole lot more. The number of stream processors and their respective clock speed are both important figures in the newest video cards and generally directly affect performance.
DirectX 10 has been around for a year and a half or so, but DX9 cards are still very common purchases. You do pay a premium to support the newer technology, as evidenced by DX9 GPUs outperforming similarly-priced DX10 GPUs. Just keep an eye on the minimum requirements for the games you want; DX10 features are a bonus in current games, but the day they become standard is undoubtedly approaching. If your budget is tight and you don’t need or want DX10 capabilities just yet, go for the DX9 card.
Although more video RAM means a heightened ability to handle high resolution textures, it has to make sense in the context of the card. If the GPU is unable to process textures fast enough to effectively utilize the extra RAM, it’s useless. In other words, a GeForce 6200 card with 512MB isn’t going to be much better than one with 128MB. A more noteworthy number concerning video card RAM is its theoretical memory bandwidth. Basically a measurement of how much raw data that can be pushed around per second, it incorporates memory speed and bus width into one handy statistic.
Hard Drives
Storage capacity is the first thing to look for in a hard drive. Disk space is falling in price per gigabyte almost as fast as gas prices per gallon are rising. The highest-capacity drives are initially disproportionately expensive, but even 1TB drives have dropped to about three times the cost of a 300GB one, which can be had for less than $100. Choose a price range and go to town. (Also, know that hard drive manufacturers define a gigabyte as 1000 megabytes, a megabyte as 1000 kilobytes, and so on. This conflicts with the rest of the computer industry that adheres to the power-of-2 rule, which says that a gigabyte is 2^10 or 1024 megabytes . Remember that before you freak out upon seeing your hard drive is “missing” a few GB.)
A hard drive’s RPM rating tells you how fast the disks spin when accessing data. 7200 RPM is the norm and, because the price difference is negligible, there is no reason to get a 5400 RPM drive. 10000+ RPM drives offer small performance gains at a large premium, and because of this, are usually not worth the additional cost per gigabyte.
The cache size on a hard drive is not quite as significant to the buyer. While a larger cache will improve the performance of an HDD like it will a CPU, they simply tend to scale with other specifications like capacity or RPM. As such, manufacturers don’t usually offer varying cache sizes on lower-end, smaller capacity drives. However, the 750GB Seagate drive chosen for the $1000 build seems to be a revision with twice the cache size as older models.
There isn’t much more than a tiny price difference between IDE and SATA, making hard drive interface another unimportant factor in terms of price. Choose whichever you prefer, but keep in mind that newer motherboards natively support very few IDE devices.
Buying OEM hard drives is an easy way to save a few bucks. Like CPUs, an OEM hard drive won’t come with retail accessories, such as cables or backup software. Most decent retail motherboard packages provide ample hard drive cabling for your use.
| $500 Build | Page:: ( 4 / 8 ) |
This system can play older games on high settings and should support new games on moderate settings.
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ 2.6GHz Black Edition (Brisbane) Socket AM2 CPU - $100
- 2x512KB L2 cache
ASUS M2N-E (nForce 570) Socket AM2 motherboard - $100
G.Skill 2x1GB DDR2 800 (F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ) memory - $45
- flexible voltage range, 1.8v – 2.0v
- unbelievable price
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 160GB (ST3160815AS) OEM hard drive - $51
- 7200 RPM, 8MB cache, SATAII
EVGA GeForce 8600GT 256MB PCI-E video card - $80
- 32 stream processors
Silverstone ST400 400W ATX power supply - $47
- 36A on +12V rail
Samsung 20x DVD±R (SH-S203B) OEM optical drive - $27
- black, SATA
Cooler Master Centurion 534 (RC-534-SKN2-GP) ATX mid-tower case - $50
- black/silver, very basic
- 120mm fans, side vents
GRAND TOTAL = $500
Wiggle Room
If you don’t need the case and/or optical drive, you should definitely upgrade to a GeForce 9600 GT card at ~$150. Other options you may want to consider include doubling the hard drive space for $24 more (ST3320620AS), or even double up on the RAM.
| $750 Build | Page:: ( 5 / 8 ) |
Here by popular demand, this setup should certainly max older games and have little trouble playing newer ones on high settings.
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ 2.6GHz Black Edition (Brisbane) Socket AM2 CPU - $100
- 2x512KB L2 cache
ASUS M2N-E (nForce 570) Socket AM2 motherboard - $100
G.Skill 2x1GB DDR2 800 (F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ) memory - $45
- flexible voltage range, 1.8v – 2.0v
- 5-5-5-15
- unbelievable price
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB (ST3320620AS) OEM hard drive - $75
- 7200 RPM, 16MB cache, SATAII
BFG Tech GeForce 8800GTS (G92) 512MB PCI-E video card - $255
- 128 stream processors
Thermaltake PurePower RX 550W (W0143RU) ATX power supply - $110
- 52A on +12V rail
Samsung 20x DVD±R (SH-S203B) OEM optical drive - $27
- black, SATA
Cooler Master Centurion 534 (RC-534-SKN2-GP) ATX mid-tower case - $50
- black/silver, very basic
- 120mm fans, side vents
GRAND TOTAL = $762
Wiggle Room
If you drop the case, I’d recommend doubling up on the RAM. You could also increase the hard drive size.
| $1000 Build | Page:: ( 6 / 8 ) |
This machine should have no trouble with playing new games on high settings.
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz (Kentsfield) LGA 775 processor - $220
- 2x4MB L2 cache
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 motherboard - $90
G.Skill 2x1GB DDR2 1066 (F2-8500CL5D-2GBPK) memory - $60
- 2.0 - 2.1v
- 5-5-5-15
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 750GB (ST3750330AS) OEM hard drive - $130
- 7200 RPM, 32MB cache, SATAII
BFG Tech GeForce 8800GTS (G92) 512MB PCI-E video card - $255
- 128 stream processors
Thermaltake PurePower RX 550W (W0143RU) ATX power supply - $110
- 52A on +12V rail
Samsung 20x DVD±R (SH-S203B) OEM optical drive - $27
- black, SATA
Thermaltake Tsunami VA3000BWA ATX Mid-Tower - $115
- black, aluminum, windowed
- 120mm fans
GRAND TOTAL = $1007
Wiggle Room
If you prefer a bit more power over enhanced multi-threading capability, get the Core 2 Duo E8400 ($200). You could always get a cheaper case or exchange it for a dedicated sound card, like the X-Fi XtremeGamer for $91. Another option you may want to consider is going with a cheaper case and processor (like a Core 2 Duo E6550 or E8200) and using that money you saved to go with an SLI motherboard and dual GeForce 8800 GTs. You then may want to consider OC’ing the processor a bit so your SLI setup won’t be CPU-bound (particularly if you’re gaming with an LCD that is limited to 1280x1024).
| $1500 Build | Page:: ( 7 / 8 ) |
This system will dominate new games, even on the highest settings.
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz (Kentsfield) LGA 775 processor - $220
- 2x4MB L2 cache
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 motherboard - $90
G.Skill 2x2GB DDR2 1066 (F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK) - $145
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 750GB (ST3750330AS) OEM hard drive - $130
- 7200 RPM, 32MB cache, SATAII
BFG Tech GeForce 9800 GX2 1GB PCI-E video card - $550
- 256 stream processors
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer PCI sound card - $91
OCZ GameXStream (OCZ700GXSSLI) 700W ATX power supply - $125\\
- 72A on +12V rail
Samsung 20x DVD±R (SH-S203B) OEM optical drive - $27
- black, SATA
Thermaltake Tsunami VA3000BWA ATX Mid-Tower - $115
- black, aluminum, windowed
- 120mm fans
GRAND TOTAL = $1493
Wiggle Room
Most of the same recommendations for the $1000 build also apply here. Alternatively, you could double up on the RAM or hard drive space in place of the DVD burner and/or case. For even more performance, you could opt for an SLI motherboard based on the nForce 750i SLI chipset priced around $150-$200, and run it with a pair of GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB cards.
| Dream Build | Page:: ( 8 / 8 ) |
If money is no object, this is what you could buy, without being too obscene. It will remain a gaming powerhouse for years to come.
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 3.2GHz (Yorkfield) LGA 775 processor - $1490
- absolute top-of-the-line for LGA 775 platform
- 12MB L2 cache
- 1600MHz front-side bus
ASUS Striker II Extreme LGA 775 motherboard - $450
2 x CORSAIR XMS3 DHX 2x2GB DDR3 1600 memory - $1438
- total of 8GB RAM
- 1.9v
- 7-7-7-20
2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB (ST31000340AS) OEM hard drive - $460
- total of 2TB storage
- 7200 RPM, 32MB cache, SATAII
2x Western Digital Raptor 150GB (WD1500ADFD) OEM hard drive - $340
- total of 300GB high-speed storage
- 10000 RPM, 16MB cache, SATA
2x EVGA GeForce 9800 GX2 SSC 1GB PCI-E video card - $1220
- Quad-SLI
- highest clock speed you can buy
- 2GB RAM, 512 stream processors
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro PCI sound card - $255
- internal card w/ external audio connections, volume control, remote
Silverstone OP1200 1200W ATX power supply - $370
- 90A on single +12V rail
Pioneer 8x DVD±R 4x Blu-Ray OEM optical drive - $430
- black, SATA
- reads and writes Blue-Ray discs
Silverstone SST-TJ07-BW ATX Full-Tower case - $330
- black, sleek, windowed
- 120mm and 92mm fans, hard drive cooling
- accommodates dual power supplies
GRAND TOTAL = $6703
Wiggle Room
What? Money is no object!
Conclusion
Thanks to rapidly falling prices for RAM, GPUs, and CPUs, building a powerful PC for gaming has never been easier. And if your existing PC isn’t too outdated, you can probably recycle some of the components within your current system and save even more money.
There’s going to be some debate as to which price point SLI begins to become a viable alternative to running a single GPU. The answer to this is probably going to depend on how you use your computer. If your PC is used strictly for gaming, you should hop onto SLI as soon as your budget allows: definitely at the $1,500 price point, and some may even want to integrate dual 9600 GTs or 8800 GTs in the low $1,000 range. If your PC is used for more CPU-intensive tasks like audio or video encoding mixed with gaming, or you play a lot of RTS games that take advantage of multi-core (World in Conflict, Supreme Commander) then a quad-core CPU like the Q6600 would be more appealing.
Hopefully this guide will prove helpful to those of you who plan on upgrading this spring. As always, feel free to drop your thoughts in the comments!