Budget Gaming Rig

[Whiptaka]

Looking for advice on what components to get for an affordable gaming rig. I'm looking at upgrading my mobo, CPU and GFX card.

The motherboard should cost no more than R1000.
GFX Card should be around R1500.
CPU should be no more than R1500.

Cheers.

 

[Chevron]

Looking for advice on what components to get for an affordable gaming rig. I'm looking at upgrading my mobo, CPU and GFX card.

The motherboard should cost no more than R1000.
GFX Card should be around R1500.
CPU should be no more than R1500.

Cheers.

http://www.prophecy.co.za/gigabyte-880gmd2h-dualchannel-ddr3-pcie-p-85401.html R924.36

http://www.prophecy.co.za/athlon-31ghz-processor-p-83530.html R1453.32

http://www.prophecy.co.za/inno3d-nvidia-geforce-768mb-gddr5-192bit-pcie-p-72601.html R1785.24

Total: 4162.92

 

[Pada]

Whiptaka: what do you currently have that you can just upgrade your motherboard, CPU and graphics card?
Please tell us what CPU, motherboard, RAM, power supply and graphics card you currently have and remember to include model numbers.

You might get those components cheaper at WootWare, but then you have to pay for shipping, which is a percentage of the total since it is insured transportation.
Like the Gainward GTX 460 768MB goes for R1399

 

[Lounger]

What's the cutoff date for Xmas orders I wonder?

 

[Whiptaka]

Whiptaka: what do you currently have that you can just upgrade your motherboard, CPU and graphics card?
Please tell us what CPU, motherboard, RAM, power supply and graphics card you currently have and remember to include model numbers.

You might get those components cheaper at WootWare, but then you have to pay for shipping, which is a percentage of the total since it is insured transportation.
Like the Gainward GTX 460 768MB goes for R1399

Crappy old Athlon x2 3800+, Asus M2NPV-MX, 450W PSU and a 9500GT. Come to think of it, I'll probably need to upgrade the power supply and RAM as well, since it's DDR2.

 

[nakedpeanut]

Ya you'll need a full upgrade basically.. I would wait till January before upgrading though!

 

[Pada]

You'll need a full upgrade.

You can start off by just buying a better graphics card and PSU. You didn't state what brand and model power supply you have, so I can't say whether your PSU would be capable of running a GTX 460 / HD 6870. My guess would be that your PSU should be capable, but you'll most likely have to use the Molex to PCI-E 6-pin adapters then.

 

[Nokkie]

Some companies 15th Decemeber and others 17th December.

What's the cutoff date for Xmas orders I wonder?

 

[Tosser]

http://www.prophecy.co.za/gigabyte-880gmd2h-dualchannel-ddr3-pcie-p-85401.html R924.36

http://www.prophecy.co.za/athlon-31ghz-processor-p-83530.html R1453.32

http://www.prophecy.co.za/inno3d-nvidia-geforce-768mb-gddr5-192bit-pcie-p-72601.html R1785.24

Total: 4162.92

Slightly OT, but I see you recommend a quad core AMD, which I find interesting considering that most people seem to recommend intel instead. Personally I have always liked AMD but it seems that the popular choice these days is intel - any specific reasons for or against AMD? Also, for a gaming rig is dual/tri/quad cores really all that beneficial? I.e. do the games take advantage of this, or are they really just useful for office application multi-taskling?
Sorry for the hijack!

 

[Creag]

Why not take a look at components on www.pcint.co.za. Prices are quite good, methinks.

 

[Chevron]

Slightly OT, but I see you recommend a quad core AMD, which I find interesting considering that most people seem to recommend intel instead. Personally I have always liked AMD but it seems that the popular choice these days is intel - any specific reasons for or against AMD? Also, for a gaming rig is dual/tri/quad cores really all that beneficial? I.e. do the games take advantage of this, or are they really just useful for office application multi-taskling?
Sorry for the hijack!

Most people that choose Intel do so because they are sheep. Intel have another socket releasing soon which will mean 4sockets available at the same time. Long term upgrade potential will be horrendous.

Games do use quads these days.

 

[SirFooK'nG]

I just did a full upgrade from a 775 P4 3.2ghz to a i5-760 (2.8ghz) Quad, with 2X2 gig 1333mhz ram, a 500gig HDD, Intel mobo, 500W coolermaster PSU & a His Radeon HD 5770 for about 7K. Oh yeah and a genuine OEM win 7 X64 disk.