The times when annual computer upgrades were common practice have long passed. Nowadays most PC games tend to be conservative in the graphics department, which has resulted in years old PCs still handling anything recent quite easily in maximum detail. But the hardware market hasn’t stagnated to the same extent and some of you may be looking to replace your old barrels with something new and shiny that isn’t too expensive.
And that’s where this quarterly Budget Gaming PC article comes in. Within I assemble the vital components for a reasonably priced gaming PC that can handle anything recent with relative ease. So if you’re not quite up-to-date with the latest advancements in hardware or simply want to assemble a capable gaming PC at low cost, then this is where you want to be.
This time the Budget Gaming PC is actually based on my current system, which I upgraded just a few weeks ago. This setup is almost identical and works beautifully in all the latest games, including the ridiculously demanding first person shooter Call of Duty: Black Ops.
The following is not a complete gaming system, but a collection of the most vital components. As such this article is geared more towards PC overhauls than the assembling of a brand new PC, but the excluded components are relatively unimportant so this can still serve as a useful guide for putting together an entirely new system. The excluded components can generally be salvaged from previous computers and consist of the computer case, DVD drive, monitor, speakers, headset, keyboard, mouse & operating system.
It’s important to note that manual hardware selection is preferable to purchasing pre-made brand name PCs. Not only will you save several hundred euro for a comparable system, but you’ll be able to manually pick the best performance for your budget. Knowledge of computers and hardware doesn’t even factor into this, because most computer shops will gladly assemble your PC for a small fee. And on that note, it’s advantageous to order all parts at a single store, because the shipping costs usually outweigh any marginal price differences for individual components. It also makes handling warranty issues much easier. Also take a look at this article if you do intend to go ahead with home assembly or want some more general tips for hardware selection.
Now is a great time to upgrade your PC, because hardware components have seen massive price drops these past few months. As a result this is actually a high-end system that massively outperforms the PC we assembled during the previous quarter, but carries a similar price.
Call of Duty: Black Ops is the most demanding PC game to date and this PC eats it for breakfast
Q4 2010 Budget Gaming PC
Motherboard ASUS P7P55 LX 88,- EUR Processor Intel Core i5 760 175,- EUR Video Card Club3D Radeon HD6870 216,- EUR Memory (RAM) Kingston 4GB PC10600 DDR3 51,- EUR Hard Disk Drive Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB 83,- EUR Power Supply OCZ Fatal1ty 550Watt 67,- EUR Total 680,- EUR
Motherboard – ASUS P7P55 LX
The ASUS P7P55 LX is a standard socket LGA1156 motherboard with 6 SATA ports, 1 IDE port and AMD Crossfire support. I primarily chose this motherboard for its low price and reputable brand, but it’s actually quite future proof as well. With its wealth of SATA ports the P5P55 LX should more than suffice for even the most demanding storage requirements and it’s possible to add in another Radeon video card for Crossfire powered graphics in a future upgrade.
Processor – Intel Core i5 760
Quad core processors have dropped in price so much that there’s really no reason to settle for a dual core processor at this point. This Core i5 760 processor also has the added benefit of Intel’s new Turbo Boost technology, which allows for dynamic overclocking of individual cores according to demand. As a result this processor actually outperforms higher clock dual core processors even in most applications and games that aren’t coded specifically for quad core processors.
This newer Core i5 processor also outperforms the more affordable Core i7 alternatives – all the way up to the Core i7 930 – in most cases due to Turbo Boost. The price difference between a Core i7 930 setup and this is more than 100 euro, which makes the Core i5 760 easily the best choice for gamers with a reasonable budget. That 100 euro is better spent towards a superior video card anyway, because that’s still the prime component that determines gaming performance.
Video Card – Club3D Radeon HD6870 1GB
It’s one of the latest video cards in AMD’s line-up and is the perfect choice for gamers looking for a high performance system without spending too much money. It can run all the latest games in maximum detail, comes with DirectX 11 support and ranks amongst the least power hungry video cards available today. It should be more than sufficient for any games released in the foreseeable future.
Gamers with tight budgets can shave off another 50 euro here by opting for the Radeon HD6850 instead. It does perform about 10-20% worse in most benchmarks, but that still makes it more than capable of running the latest games in maximum detail at high resolutions.
Memory – Kingston 4GB PC10600 DDR3
These are still the same memory modules featured in the previous Budget Gaming PC article, but its price has been cut in half since then. It’s a good choice because it’s cheap and from a reputable brand, which are truly the only factors – along with the amount of memory – that matter when selecting memory modules. More than 4GB of memory still seems excessive when considering the fact that there aren’t even any games out there that properly utilize more than 2GB of memory.
Those looking to take advantage of newer triple channel memory with 6GB or 12GB setups, be warned: LGA1156 motherboards do not support triple channel memory!
Hard Disk Drive – Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB
It’s one of the fastest 7.200rpm hard disk drives on the market, almost approaching Western Digital’s 10.000rpm drives, but is very reasonably priced and offers 1TB of storage. This should be more than enough storage space for the average gamer, while not hampering performance or load times in games due to stellar performance.
The real question here is whether you actually need a new hard disk drive, which probably won’t be the case if you’re upgrading an existing system. Solid State Disks are also an option, but these are still very expensive while offering relatively little in the way of storage space. Definitely not a good choice for an upgrade on a budget, even if they do cut load times in half.
Power Supply – OCZ Fatal1ty 550Watt
The OCZ Fatal1ty 550 Watt power supply unit is dependable, affordable and rated at over 80% efficiency. That’s more than enough juice to power this setup comfortably.
When looking at power supplies it’s important to note their efficiency rating. This system needs a power supply of at least 500 Watt, but preferably 550 Watt, with over 80% efficiency and two 6-pin PCIe connectors to power the video card. Admittedly the latter does tend to be standard nowadays, but it’s better to be safe than sorry so ask around if you’re not sure.
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