Need help with new gaming computer build

[Hentai]

Ok I been out of the realm of gaming for a while, and I know my computer can't play some of these new games coming out. (1GHZ AMD athlon, 512MB SDR, geforce 5600xt 128MB DDR)

Now can you guys help me find a good mobo, cpu, and ram with a budget of 300usd?

Also how capable is a geforce 6200 with that turbo cache stuff and 64MB of ram?

Thanks all
Tech^salvager

[salandar]

a 64mb Graphics Card won't get you far...get at least 128, with a preference for 256mb

[seanieboy77]

Well it all depends on what kind of games you want to play. Are they high end games or just fun games. So are we talking about F.E.A.R., Doom 3, Batllefield 2 or are we talking about Battlefield 1942, The Sims 2 or Stronghold 2?
-BTY

[Hentai]

fear, doom3, bf2, hl2, etc

[AllGamer]

LOL

then you better get the best video card possible
preferably something with 512 MB of RAM in the video card

at least an ATI X850 or better

those are super heavy and memory hungry games you are talking about, you will even need a better computer, like an AMD 3800+ and at least 1 gig of RAM

[JediOfDarkness]

If you're going to be wanting to play the latest games, you're gonna have to spend more than $300 to do it. For a low end gaming rig I'd go with a AMD Athlon 64 3200, GeForce 6600GT/6800GS and 1GB of RAM. You're probably looking at around $450-$500 for those parts. You don't need an X850/7800 series graphics card unless you can run into a little more money. As for the 6200, I doubt you'd ever even get the latest games to load on one.

[seanieboy77]

Ya unless you need more money, but sometimes you can get really good deals at fry's. I just got a crad that can run BF2 for like 60 bucks. Anyways check out www.geeks.com, www.frys.com, www.pricewatch, and www.newegg.com for great deals. And always check the clearence section.
-BTY

[Hentai]

I don't want to speed lots of money, besides that I side on low end stuff because it can still usually play even if its the low end.
the budget of 300usd only covers the mobo cpu and ram, not the vid card.

[seanieboy77]

Ok well I would go with a 2.8 for CPU and probably 1.5 to 2 gigs of ram as for mobo I don't know.
-BTY

[Rob R.]

I can tell you first hand that FEAR needs an absolutely high end rig to run with all the graphics options enabled. My AMD64 3200 system with 1.5 gigs of RAM and an ATi X850pro required graphics sacrifices for framerate.

[pandaz3]

Your best bet is a A64 754 setup, the 754 Semprons are a good value. Make sure though you get a "BXBOX" not a BABOX or other series, they will all likely be Palmero Cores. They actually work pretty good.

http://www.chiefvalue.com/app/produc...tem=19-104-237

Here is a good EPoX board, they have not forgotten there are 754s out there and this is a NForce 4 chipset to support a PCI-E Video card

http://www.chiefvalue.com/app/produc...tem=13-123-255

If you want to stay AGP (Don't) but here is a AGP alternative anyway

http://www.chiefvalue.com/app/produc...tem=13-123-242

On to Memory, if you can stretch to $335 or so in your budget, get 2 X 1024.

http://www.chiefvalue.com/app/produc...tem=20-231-039

If you don't want to bust your budget get a lesser amount of faster RAM

http://www.chiefvalue.com/app/produc...tem=20-227-220

[pandaz3]

For a Video card thr 6800GS has about the best bang for a buck on the Nvidia side and X800GTO2 for the ATI side, the good ATI stuff is $180 to $200, and the 6800 GS $200 to 235. that is for PCI-E, the best PCI-E cad at the moment if you have $600 + is a HIS X1900XTX, a ATI solution.

All this assumes you are Stateside!