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SaiyanZ

SaiyanZ

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Hi, I'm looking to put together a budget pc mainly for playing games. I think an E7400, HD4850 and 4GB ram will be the core items. Not sure what else to get (motherboard, power supply etc.) or wear to buy all this stuff from. I'll be using my Samsung 32" as the screen and I want to spend as little as possible. Help?
 
SaiyanZ said:
Hi, I'm looking to put together a budget pc mainly for playing games. I think an E7400, HD4850 and 4GB ram will be the core items. Not sure what else to get (motherboard, power supply etc.) or wear to buy all this stuff from. I'll be using my Samsung 32" as the screen and I want to spend as little as possible. Help?
Click to expand...

Check my sig. might be cheaper than those online stores
 
:D I love referring people to PostmanPot... Each time I do it, I get a nice little thank-you note in my inbox :D:D:D
 
postmanpot is the man to go to in CT. Fast reliable and always helpful, if he can't find it for you he'll give you a great alternative :)
 
Thanks for the recommendations, guys. Really do appreciate the kind words! :)

@SaiyanZ: Feel free to PM me with what you're looking for and I'll do my best to sort you out.
 
Ok cool. I'll probably get the stuff from you. Though I still need suggestions for the other components.

I think the E7400 and HD4850 would be good. What other components can I get that will let these do their best job? I'm not going to be upgrading for a year or two. So I don't need an expensive motherboard with crossfire etc. I do want a 500GB hard drive because those seem the most cost effective. Am not sure about how many watt power supply will be needed.

I may do some minor overclocking on the CPU to 3.0Ghz and possibly the graphics card as well if the return on performance is worth it.


Edit: Oh, and I'll also sell this laptop that I'm writing this with once I put together the PC. 1.46GHz Celeron M Fujitsu Siemens Amilo. 1.5GB ram. I bought it for R5500 1.5 years ago. What do you think I can get for it? R2000? It works great. I've never carried it around and have always used it at home. Should've bought a PC instead :)
 
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I am sure a 500W PSU should do the trick ... dont skimp too much on the Mobo as I did and now buying a new one as I cant take this Micro ATX *****
 
Yeah postmanpot is a cool guy. :-) He hooked me up with my Q9450 and I'm loving it!
 
SaiyanZ said:
Ok cool. I'll probably get the stuff from you. Though I still need suggestions for the other components.

I think the E7400 and HD4850 would be good. What other components can I get that will let these do their best job? I'm not going to be upgrading for a year or two. So I don't need an expensive motherboard with crossfire etc. I do want a 500GB hard drive because those seem the most cost effective. Am not sure about how many watt power supply will be needed.

I may do some minor overclocking on the CPU to 3.0Ghz and possibly the graphics card as well if the return on performance is worth it.
Click to expand...

An E7400 and a HD4850 would be a good choice for now if you're looking for good bang for buck. You could always upgrade to a quad core CPU at a later stage if need be. Bear in mind though that many games are starting to use all four CPU cores - so if you have the budget to spend around R800 extra on the CPU and go for something like the Q8300, I would recommend that. Both the E7xxx and Q8xxx overclock well.

You could go for a cheap G31 motherboard at around R500. I've owned one before and it was a really good mobo - had a 7900GT on it. The only downside to this chip set is that they're limited to 4GB RAM (plenty for your to-be PC) and to 4 SATA ports (e.g. 1 optical drive and 3 HDDs). They have onboard sound, VGA and Gigabit LAN. They have a PCI-E 16x slot (i.e. for a graphics card). Another downside to this board is that they don't OC well, so if you intend on OCing, you should look at spending a bit more and getting a ±R1000 board, perhaps a P43 chip set board like the Asus P5QL-SE.

A 500watt PSU would provide plenty of juice. Even a good branded 460watt PSU. I recommend the Cooler Master Extreme Power 460watt.

Edit: Oh, and I'll also sell this laptop that I'm writing this with once I put together the PC. 1.46GHz Celeron M Fujitsu Siemens Amilo. 1.5GB ram. I bought it for R5500 1.5 years ago. What do you think I can get for it? R2000? It works great. I've never carried it around and have always used it at home. Should've bought a PC instead :)
Click to expand...

You should be able to get around R2000 - R2500 for it. Use Gumtree and you'll be able to get as much as possible. ;)
 
Sweet. Can you give me a quote on the following and substitute if the you can think of something that will be better/cheaper. I wont overclock so the G31 board will be fine. I've only got about R6000 to spend until payday in last week of May so will have to wait until then if it costs too much. If you buy my laptop for R2000 then that should help me get the stuff now ;)


E7400
HD4850
4GB Ram (cheapish ram...as long as it works!)
G31 board
Coolermaster 460W PSU
DVD writer
Case (nothing too fancy or expensive.... I dont care about looks)
Mouse+Keyboard
500GB hard drive (reliable +cheap)


I think that should be it. If I missed something necessary please add it in.
 
SaiyanZ said:
Sweet. Can you give me a quote on the following and substitute if the you can think of something that will be better/cheaper. I wont overclock so the G31 board will be fine. I've only got about R6000 to spend until payday in last week of May so will have to wait until then if it costs too much. If you buy my laptop for R2000 then that should help me get the stuff now ;)


E7400
HD4850
4GB Ram (cheapish ram...as long as it works!)
G31 board
Coolermaster 460W PSU
DVD writer
Case (nothing too fancy or expensive.... I dont care about looks)
Mouse+Keyboard
500GB hard drive (reliable +cheap)


I think that should be it. If I missed something necessary please add it in.
Click to expand...

Sure. Will PM you.

About the laptop too. ;)
 
Update: I'm going to use a 32" Samsung as the only monitor. So I'm going to need a graphics card that will give me the output at native resolution of 1360x768. At the moment I have the TV connected to this laptop with a standard vga cable for picture and optical cable for sound and it works as it should.

The TV can also be connect to the PC via HDMI/DVI according to the manual. It has 2 HDMI inputs. Has anyone connected their TV with HDMI to HDMI and what were the problems/issues? I'm just concerned about getting a graphics card with the best output. If HDMI will work best without hiccups then I'll get a card with an HDMI output.
 
i have on-board HD on my graphics card and Motherboard. Both work flawlessly on my Samsung 37" TV as well as the VGA.
 
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