Shopping for a new 'Bare Bones' desktop system

[Lewie 7]

I'm in the market, I'm researching a couple of webistes that sell you the case, M'board, HDD, PSU, and GPU/Ram. I'm looking at an AMD, 3GHz Athlon II dual core with ASUS MB and a GeForce GT220 1 Gig GPU. Roughly $400+. Are there better deals out there? This is for running OFF BHaH 3 and a lot of my older sims I want to keep to Windows XP and such but the hitch is that 32 bit OS's can only handle 3 gigs memory. Would it matter with the GPU?

Edited March 20, 2011 by Lewie

[Rugbyfan1972 1]

I'm in the market, I'm researching a couple of webistes that sell you the case, M'board, HDD, PSU, and GPU/Ram. I'm looking at an AMD, 3GHz Athlon II dual core with ASUS MB and a GeForce GT220 1 Gig GPU. Roughly $400+. Are there better deals out there? This is for running OFF BHaH 3 and a lot of my older sims I want to keep to Windows XP and such but the hitch is that 32 bit OS's can only handle 3 gigs memory. Would it matter with the GPU?

 

 

Lewie,

 

My old system sounds similar to the one you are looking to get:

 

AMD Althlon Dual core 6000+ (running at 3.01ghz

3 gb ram

8600 1gb ram

XP 32 bit

 

That system ran BHAH ok, at about 20-40 fps and the sliders mainly on 2 with the slowdowns mainly occurring over airfields. I would suggest that you try for a better graphics card, possibly an ATI 4870 or an Nvidia 250 as the minium for decent framerates. But in answer to your question, XP did not have any problems with 3gb of ram +1gb of video memory.

 

I would suggest that you let one of the more knowledgeable forumites with regards to the technical details for your system.

 

Thanks

Rugbyfan1972

[Parky 8]

Hi Lewie,

 

Quite honestly, if your budget is limited to under $500, I wouldn't have a whole lot in the way of suggestions for you. You'll easily put something together for that kind of money, but I doubt you'd be very pleased with it. If you were saavy enough to do the build yourself, you could put together a reasonably robust tower for around the $700 mark. Something similar to this would do what you're attempting to accomplish. I realize it's substantially more than you were looking to spend, and it is in fact, probably overkill for most of your older games. I am pretty confident it would run OFF at very good frame-rates and image quality though. It would almost certainly do most modern games justice as well, which would give you very good bang for your buck. Your 32-Bit XP would run very, very efficiently on this hardware in addition, and you could always move to a 64-Bit OS somewhere down the road and take advantage of all four Gig of RAM. Can't really go wrong with the motherboard in this package. The GA-870A-UD3 has received excellent reviews from a number of reputable sites. The G.Skill memory included runs @ very tight timings for DDR3.... 7-8-7-24 if I'm not mistaken. Very nice indeed, and the Nvidia GTX 460 graphics card provides outstanding value for a mid-level GPU. I installed one in a tower for a friend of mine and was very impressed with the price vs performance ratio.

 

As far as the CPU goes, you'll have people tell you that dual-core is better for OFF. I don't buy into that theory, and I've run the game on both dual and quad core systems. I'm not sure where the idea came from, but I've never seen any evidence to support it. The AMD Phenom here will do just fine.

 

We all have our budget restraints, and I know how difficult it is to convince the local finance minister that this kind of expenditure is money well spent. Regardless, if I were you, I'd keep working on her. Hold off for a few months maybe, and get something you'll be happy with in the long run....(The tower I mean......not a new minister).

 

Cheers, and best luck with whatever direction you decide to take.

 

Parky

Edited March 21, 2011 by Parky

[Lewie 7]

I guess I should clarify the system I'm looking at right now. And thanks for the time you both spent discussing this.

 

It's a basic box, with an ASUS M4A88TD-M motherboard with an AMD Athlon II 250 dual core CPU, an AMD frontside that has some sort of souped up onboard video that's capable of working in tandem with a PCIe XX16 video card, 2 Gigs of RAM (I can get 4 gigs easily enough), 600 watt power supply with a PCIe 6 connector extension cord , a ThermalTake copper CP cooler fan, and a dual head Geforce 220 PCIe 16XX video card. I've got all the rest of the gear, the old monitor is only capable of 1200X1600 from what I can find about it.

 

Yeah I know it's a bit limited, but compared to my present desktop it's a speed monster. I don't normally do lot's of other sim's and most of my sims and 3D development software are from circa year 2000, that run good on an ancient sub GHz Athlon with a VooDoodfx 4500.

 

It's the best deal I've seen so far, but I suspect there's others out there that are better for about the same amount of change. It's a close call for the finances, but it looking good this year for IRS refunds, so this is my best chance to upgrade.

Edited March 21, 2011 by Lewie

[carrick58 23]

Just my 2 cents fellas: New Egg is a good place to look for New parts for a rig, They do have off and on combo deals. My old system was a single core and it ran off fine but frame rates are low.but when adding the expansion pack it didnt run at all. I am puttin together a new rig and found that you dont need the newest bell and whistle to make off run good. You can look around at reconditioned computers ( for a good size case cheap) then put new guts in. An Althlon gpu + a GTX 460 card should be good ( as Parky stated ) or as Lewie stated the Nvida 250 card would work decent frame rates ( both are good Bang for the Buck or Pound or Franc.) U can check GPU.com for comparisons of Graphics Cards. What I dont understand is why no one uses : Used computer parts to upgrade rigs? For example: When upgrading to a 5770 card there must have been used 4770 cards out there ? In computer Shops ? But they only seem to carry New 4770 cards. Funny

[Lewie 7]

Just my 2 cents fellas: New Egg is a good place to look for New parts for a rig, They do have off and on combo deals. My old system was a single core and it ran off fine but frame rates are low.but when adding the expansion pack it didnt run at all. I am puttin together a new rig and found that you dont need the newest bell and whistle to make off run good. You can look around at reconditioned computers ( for a good size case cheap) then put new guts in. An Althlon gpu + a GTX 460 card should be good ( as Parky stated ) or as Lewie stated the Nvida 250 card would work decent frame rates ( both are good Bang for the Buck or Pound or Franc.) U can check GPU.com for comparisons of Graphics Cards. What I dont understand is why no one uses : Used computer parts to upgrade rigs? For example: When upgrading to a 5770 card there must have been used 4770 cards out there ? In computer Shops ? But they only seem to carry New 4770 cards. Funny

 

If we still had the local PC gamer computer store that closed a year back, I'd be buying from him, as he often times had decent newer used systems that he checked out and resold.

 

I just don't trust Ebay or Craigslist used 'deals' all that much, especially if there's a warranty ( or lack of one..) I've bought Ebay computer parts before, it's often times a good way to get inexpensive upgrades, but I'm a bit jaundiced about used whole systems without some documentation and history. I've seen some nasty dust bunnies in some friends older machines. Plus there's the whole upgrade route, ( lack of ability ..) of a used machine. The system I'm looking at has some nice features that allow for future upgrades and overclocking, and I've heard ASUS are one of the better motherboards.