I’ve put together a machine solely to run Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.
Here are the pieces and prices:
Case - PowerUp ATX Black Mid-Tower Case with Clear Side and 450-Watt Power Supply = $40
MOBO - ASUS M3A78-EM AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard = $80
CPU - AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Brisbane 2.6GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor w/ Fan = $60
RAM - OCZ Vista Upgrade 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit = $30
Video - PNY GeForce 8500 GT - 512MB DDR2, SLI Ready, PCI Express = $50
DVD Burner - SAMSUNG 22X DVD Burner Black SATA Model = $26
Total: $286 + Taxes + Shipping = $300~
The case & video card were bought at CompUSA in store.
The rest of the pieces were bought from Newegg.
I had a 120 Gb harddrive laying around. You could probably still manage to pull it off with getting a generic MOBO and slower CPU & make up for that cost in buying the hard drive.
Everything went smoothly in the install except for realizing I didn’t have a jumper to make the hard drive a Master instead of a Slave. Windows will keep cycling asking to format and partition the drive if you have it set to Slave. I figured it wouldn’t be a problem if it wasn’t set to Master but sure enough Windows will not do a clean install on a Slave drive.
The case worked out great but the fan on the clear window is really cheap and one of the pins broke when pulling it to disconnect from the power input. I might add some additional fans to keep it real cool but not to worried about it for the time being.
I’ve always ordered PCs from CyberPowerPC and been satisfied. Not to mention recommended so many people to them. I’ve always thought building a machine and building a machine didn’t have a huge difference in price. Yeah I was totally wrong. Granted most of the pieces used by CyberPower are better Mobos but generally doesn’t give you real cheap products. I’m clearly sold on building all my PCs going forward. I will say that if you were going for a full out gaming machine with SLi I’d add another $50~ to compensate for getting a better Mother board. Ultimately when building a machine the Mobo is everything and what you should be spending most of your money on and next most important would be the video card. I really did cheap out the video card but didn’t need anything too fancy. Being a budget PC for gaming I’m extremely happy.
As far as how much knowledge you need to have to build a PC? If you feel confident enough to install RAM, Video cards, and PCI cards building a PC isn’t that difficult. If I had to determine what the hardest part is I’d definately have to say it’s installing the CPU fans. I have no idea why and you’d think it’d be so easy but it’s the one that took me the hardest to figure out. Honestly putting everything together is a breeze. Another thing I’d like to mention is using the coolent gel ontop of the CPU is highly recommended. Luckily in changing the Mobo & CPU on my 2nd computer I had some left over and used that for this PC.
This is proof that you don’t need to spend over $500 on a gaming machine. I’ve put together a machine that will play Warhammer for $300. I could probably put together a machine to play Crysis for around $400. All I’d have to do is get a Mobo with SLi & bought a 2nd video card and maybe SLi Dual Channel Ram and probably play Crysis on medium settings.
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