gamer on a budget... | Forums

[tmrtex]

How well will this setup run 1946? If on a budget, what are the "must-haves" that you would advise moving up to to get best performance running the game?

CPU Intel P4 Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4 GHz / 4MB
Asus P5LD2-VM 945/DDR2 MATX
Buffalo 2048 (2 x 1 GB) 533 MHz PC3200
Seagate 160 GB SATA II 8 Mb 7200RPM
ATI X1600 GPU / 512 GDDR2
MadDog SurePower 550 wt PSU
Creative SB X-FI ExtremeGamer
Antec VCool PCI slot fan
WIN XP

Any feedback is be appreciated.

[x6BL_Brando]

ATI X1600 GPU / 512 GDDR2

If you're not looking to overclock then the above looks to be the Achilles heel as far as performance is concerned. Otherwise, well, what a nice rig!

Card-wise, it's a bit screwy since the merged with AMD. Not that the cards ain't still great (Radeon fanboy, me) - it's just that they only push the latest & greatest. of each range.

Ati-wise, perhaps this is a good price?
Go x18xx or 19xx and aim for having an XT or XTX suffix on the model. XL or SE usually signals a watered-down card not particularly good for 'gaming'.

nVidia is pushing out some good products, but I have no personal experience and won't comment. Read around - but be sure to ditch the 1600, you won't regret it when you have upgraded.

As for how you have organised the interior of the case, cables & cooling wise; and whether the rig is configured correctly etc, etc - well that's a whole other topic.

But you should get good results!

B.

[FoolTrottel]

I'm with B. on this one! (Hi B.!)

[x6BL_Brando]

Originally posted by FoolTrottel:
I'm with B. on this one! (Hi B.!)

Hiya F_T

[PF_Coastie]

I would also be wary of the maddog PSU. If I am not mistaken, that is some sort of Comp USA brand. It may be just a rebadged quality PSU, but it could be a weak point in the system.

Never skimp on the PSU. It supplies the life blood for your rig and you want that power to be as clean and stable as possible.

[sunflower1]

Never skimp on the PSU. It supplies the life blood for your rig and you want that power to be as clean and stable as possible.

I am pretty sure that 6 months have not passed in 2 and a half years without somebody turning up here with a fried PSU that took out some or all of their rig. Figure out what grade of PSU that is or buy something that clearly has a decent power supply.

Quazi had a 520 that wouldn't boot his X850, its not the numbers, its the quality grade.

[tmrtex]

Originally posted by PF_Coastie:


I would also be wary of the maddog PSU. If I am not mistaken, that is some sort of Comp USA brand. It may be just a rebadged quality PSU, but it could be a weak point in the system.

Never skimp on the PSU. It supplies the life blood for your rig and you want that power to be as clean and stable as possible.

Here's a link for the PSU...let me know what you think. Thanks.

http://www.mdmm.com/spec.php?productid=155

[-HH-Quazi]

Yea, I got a 500watt MGE PSU with an MGE case when I first built this rig in March '05. It wouldn't boot with a 9800Pro plugged in but booted fine with a PCI slot graphics card. Amperage is what is important. Imho, you shouldn't run any PSU with less than 24 amps on the 12v rail just to be safe. And stick with a trustworthy brand like OCZ, PC Power&Cooling, Antec, Thermaltake, etc. I personally recommend an OCZ 520watt Powerstream or one of the OCZ GameXtreme series PSU's. I am sure one of the other manufactures I mentioned would be fine also.

[x6BL_Brando]

Well picked up Quazi! I don't like to condemn accessories if I have no experience of them - but a look at the PSU's spec page, noting that they carefully avoid mentioning the actual current ratings for the various voltages, just makes me think of Q-Tec

A nice interception, and definitely a situation to remedy if possible. (I love my Hiper 580 modular!)

B.

[tmrtex]

Originally posted by x6BL_Brando:
Well picked up Quazi! I don't like to condemn accessories if I have no experience of them - but a look at the PSU's spec page, noting that they carefully avoid mentioning the actual current ratings for the various voltages, just makes me think of Q-Tec

A nice interception, and definitely a situation to remedy if possible. (I love my Hiper 580 modular!)

B.

It's worse than that...I called them to find out about current ratings, and the guy didn't have any information...said he'd see if he could find out for me. That was nice of him.