A little over a year ago I built a $600 gaming machine for my kids, and wrote a post about it. It’s been one of my most popular posts ever, with over 1,000 views, many comments posted, and quite a few emails generated.
I was building a PC for a friend recently, and decided that the original PC needed to be updated. So I rolled up my sleeves and here is the result. I have upgraded to a Quad Core Processor, a Phenom X4, and have added a Creative Labs X-Fi Sound Card, so the machine is better, faster, and has upgraded sound. Here is a direct link to the newegg.com Wish List.
ASUS M3A78-EM AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard – $79 - Asus makes well received motherboards, and this has great specifications. We saved $50 by choosing an ATX mini motherboard instead of a regular ATX motherboard.
CORSAIR 4GB DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - $59 – Corsair is a leader in gaming memory. This 4 gigs kit comes in 2 sticks, which allows you to run the memory in Dual Channel Mode for improved performance. The motherboard will support a total of 8 Gig of memory in four slots, so you can upgrade to the maximum of 8 gig by simply doubling this memory order.
AMD Phenom 9600 Agena 2.3GHz Socket AM2+ 95W Quad-Core Processor – $95 – QUAD CORE 2.3 gig processor. This Black Edition runs at only 95 low low Watts for reduced heat, and improved performance. The Phenom X4 series is a great series for gamers, as the newer Phenom II processors are three times the price and certainly not 3x the performance.
EVGA GeForce 9800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Video Card – $120 – This is a great, low price point, 512 MB Nvidia 9800 series card. Ihave been eVGA customer for years. Their products are warrantied for life, and the last time I returned a card that died, I received an upgraded card for free!
Here is the one notable upgrade to the $600 Gaming PC: A SOUND CARD!
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Card – $91 – This is a great sound card, runs Dolby Home Theater sound, has Toslink Digital SPDIF audio outs, and is the reason I shaved a few dollars in other areas. But we now have awesome gaming sound and improved overall PC performance by taking the sound processing off of the main processor and moving it onto the powerful 24 bit Creative Labs X-Fi audio processor.
Rosewill RP550-2 ATX12V v2.01 550W Power Supply – $50 – This power supply delivers 550 watts, quietly and consistently, with a cool blue lighted fan.
Cooler Master case – $50 – This case has great ventilation, can be set up with almost no tools, and is pretty sharp. It is also roomy and will hold additional drives and equipment if you would like.
SAMSUNG 22X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe – Black – $25 – I like LightScribe well enough, but the only reason it’s here is because its free. This SATA drive is fast, quiet, and mostly cheap.
Western Digital 650 Gig 7200 RPM SATA 3.0 gig HD – $7o . Fast, quiet, and nice amount of storage for just $70.
You can mix this up a bit by adding a better graphics card, bigger hard drive, or a snazzier case if you would like. Remember, the goal here was to build a great gaming machine for $600, and we did that. A PC with an nVidia 9800 series video card, 4 gig of fast gaming tuned RAM, and a QUAD CORE Phenom X4 processor. The total parts list on my newegg wish list was $639, with $40 in mail in rebates. That drops the total price to just $599. What a great deal for a high end gaming PC.
I have built this machine, and it runs every game well on high settings. The parts are all warrantied through the manufacturers, and New Egg has great return and exchange policies.
Let me know what you think, and if you have any questions, or need any help feel free to drop me a line.
Good Luck.
Unfortunately, you’ve left out the Operating system. Which is going to add a bit more to the price. Most people don’t have a good enough understanding of open source OS’s to make them into a proper gaming machine.
ED. Most gamers seem to have their OS issues resolved. Many run Linux and most have a copy of XP around.
Wow, that’s an impressive list.
Have you thought of making tiered lists with higher price points for those with more cash, and perhaps for those with less?
Now, excuse me while I run off to see if I can get myself a new, cheap, gaming rig :>
I always scoff when I see these 3k+ “ultimate gaming” rigs. My personal price point is 500$ every 3-4 years.
Great articles like this + newegg = WIN!
Unfortunately, newegg doesn’t ship to Canada.
ez, see newegg.ca
re: ez
http://www.newegg.ca
EZ – try ncix.com they’re a good Canadian online retailer.. ncixus.com for those of us in the US.
ez : although newegg.com does not ship to canada, they have released a canadian site, newegg.ca , that does.
I sell pc’s for a living, and it rarely happens that my customers expect more from a gaming pc than this setup requires, so I think this is a great article. I do have some customers though, that come back every 18-24 months and spend $1500+ on a new machine. Usually systems like these include multiple video cards, 2 or more harddrives (usually either a WD Raptor or a RAID setup for the OS), water cooling for a better overclock, etc. That’s what I would call a high end gaming machine.
In my book this isn’t a high end gaming machine. And there’s no way this setup will run the latest games with everything on high (including high FSAA & AF, HDR, etc) on a decent resolution (1680×1050 or higher).
Nonetheless, for I guess more than 90% of the gamers out there it’s way more efficient to buy a $600 machine every 2 or 3 years instead of buying a $1500 machine every 4 years.
great post, no need to spen a fortune to get a quality PC.
This is pretty similar to my rig, but I only have a 500GB HD, I only have an Athlon II X2 2.94, I have no sound card and a Radeon HD 4250 vidcard.
Most games I play run fine, but some real resource hogs like Empire: Total War I can only run on minimum settings, and even Star Trek Online I can only run at medium, whith most of the lighting effects off.
I planned to upgrade to a Phenom X3 or X4 anyway, but as my Asus M4 motherboard was optimized with ATI cards in mind, if you were to suggest an ATI card quivalent to the nVidia 9800GT, what would it be?
Would buying an actual sound card increase my performance?
adding a sound card takes the sound processing off of the main processor…