Is it just me or is building a descent gaming rig ridiculously expensive these days?

[Messugga]

Topic kind of says it all. After perving Praeses' system for the umpteenth time I decided that I should look into a gaming pc for myself, as I really miss it and haven't had a computer capable of playing anything modern, yet alone at higher resolutions, for 4 years now. Before that I've never been able to play anything above medium, with the hardware I could afford (We're talking CS, Quake 3, etc.). Problem is, assembling a complete pc on Prophecy brought the price up to R16k quite easily, and that's not even going near high specs. Including all the bits I'd actually like and don't really need, such as a steering wheel (I love racing games since I haven't been able to play fps), quad core cpu and an extra hard drive for a RAID setup, brought the price up to a staggering R24 498.79. The screen, motherboard, graphics card and memory seem to be the main culprits and unfortunately you can't really go for anything much cheaper without causing bottlenecks.

I miss the days where R1000 worth of gfx card (TNT2 anyone? ) could run things nicely

 

[D4N]

I see you like racing games, why don't you get a 360?

 

[Ou grote]

Topic kind of says it all. After perving Praeses' system for the umpteenth time I decided that I should look into a gaming pc for myself, as I really miss it and haven't had a computer capable of playing anything modern, yet alone at higher resolutions, for 4 years now. Before that I've never been able to play anything above medium, with the hardware I could afford (We're talking CS, Quake 3, etc.). Problem is, assembling a complete pc on Prophecy brought the price up to R16k quite easily, and that's not even going near high specs. Including all the bits I'd actually like and don't really need, such as a steering wheel (I love racing games since I haven't been able to play fps), quad core cpu and an extra hard drive for a RAID setup, brought the price up to a staggering R24 498.79. The screen, motherboard, graphics card and memory seem to be the main culprits and unfortunately you can't really go for anything much cheaper without causing bottlenecks.

I miss the days where R1000 worth of gfx card (TNT2 anyone? ) could run things nicely

it's only going to be capable for a year, no matter what u spend, so yeah go console.

 

[Messugga]

Yeah I've been thinking about rather getting a xbox. I really like pc's though Ooooh well, unless I win the lotto, I guess it's not happening.

 

[Glordit]

wow... 24k for a PC? sounds more like a Network server.
A 5k PC will give the same results, and give you 100+ fps in CSS and even play Crysis in High in Dx9 mode 1024x768

 

[kronoSX]

you right its expensive...I cant even play rainbow six las vegas on medium.With low low grafix its just not playable.But i will rather get another ps3 than spend money on upgrading just to play ****

 

[Messugga]

Glordit, to be fair, it's a complete new pc.

Specs as follow:

Samsung 2232GW
LG GSA-H55N , 20x - DVD burner
Coolermaster Stacker 690
Logitech 963416 G25 racing wheel
Zalman CNPS9700L - CPU cooler
zalman ZM-MFC2 - Fanbus
Logitech 967674 Oem internet 350 keyboard
Logitech 931352 Mx518
Enermax Noisetaker 600w
2 x Seagate barracuda 7200.11 st3500320as , 500gb
Inno3D 9800GTX 512MB
XFX N780-iSH , nForce 780i SLi
4 x Kingston Hyper-X KHX9600D2/1G , 1Gb/1024mb ddr2-1200
Intel Core2 Quad Q6600

That's the expensive setup.

 

[Re83L]

I'm almost sure you can build a machine similar in performance, but priced about R13k-ish....

 

[Messugga]

The thing is, the motherboard is R3k, the RAM's 4k and the screen's R27xx, with the 9800GTX setting you back around R3.1k That's almost 13k just there and you don't have ANYTHING else yet. Meh.

 

[cyberarmy]

You should not wasting money on DDR1200, you think they will make very noticable difference in game? And the motherboard, why buy a SLi MB if you only get one 9800GTX? How much will you save if you change to normal stuff on the above two?

 

[The_Techie]

You can get 8GB DDR2-1066 (if I recall correctly) for about R2,000 from Rectron

And I'm sure you can settle for an nForce 650i chipset instead of the 780i? Especially since it's been plagued by problems...

 

[Messugga]

Well beanie, I'm sure I could cut down a lot. I haven't really researched the hardware at all and just wanted to futureproof it as best as possible. I noticed that the DDR1200 is considerably more expensive than the slightly slower stuff. As I said, that's the expensive system, the other one is a fair amount cheaper but R15k or so is still too much for me

 

[cyberarmy]

Futureproof? No offence but good luck with that.

 

[Messugga]

Hehe yeah I know. That's why I said "as possible" but I'm well aware of the fact that a good machine now will probably only be able to play things on medium detail in a year's time and probably struggle to run anything the year after that. Guess I should just get me the screen and mouse and a new keyboard at some point and stick my tower underneath the desk somewhere so that I feel like I have a nice pc.

 

[The_Techie]

Well beanie, I'm sure I could cut down a lot. I haven't really researched the hardware at all and just wanted to futureproof it as best as possible. I noticed that the DDR1200 is considerably more expensive than the slightly slower stuff. As I said, that's the expensive system, the other one is a fair amount cheaper but R15k or so is still too much for me

Always research before buying, it's sometimes possible to find hardware at half the price quoted on one website (it's happened to me before)

 

[Messugga]

Hehe I'm not quite that serious about buying just yet. Just wanted to get a general feel for costs these days. Normally I'm a bit silly when it comes to doing research about buying things, but I only put in the effort when I have the money in the bank and want to spend in soon. Didn't know 1066 was THAT much cheaper than 1200 though.

 

[cyberarmy]

Keep an eye on the 'bargin buy' and 'Best Graphics Cards for your money' thread.

 

[Messugga]

Will do, thanks

 

[hj2k_x]

Keep an eye on the 'bargin buy' and 'Best Graphics Cards for your money' thread.

Good advice that.

A good gaming rig with a nice monitor should not set you back more than 10k.

Rather than spending 3k+ on a new gfx card, I'd rather get a Wii...But that's just me

 

[Messugga]

I don't like the Wii much. I'd rather grab myself the xbox, which is something I'm also considering. I have a descent 32" CRT tv which I could use it with. It's not HD screen, but it'll do! Just waiting for a nice xbox special again. My bro picked up the Halo edition with Forza, Halo, Viva Pinata and some other game, for R2999. Was wrongly priced as it was brand new stock and people got confused. Damn his luck.