Gamer On A Budget

Gamer on a budget.

I've seen guides for building a PC for $500.00 USD or 600.00 CAD, but in reality the parts mention in these guides are only really available online from multiple websites and aren't very reliable components.

In this guide I will be giving you a more realistic set of parts that you can order from any local computer shop for $650.00 CAD after taxes. I will also be giving you alternative parts that you can get, along with a list of peripherals and their total costs.

Case :

First and foremost we need a case. There is a good name brand candidate that I have come across and built machines in myself.

Thermaltake WingRS 100 ATX Black - $69.99



Just because it will be a cheap build doesn't mean you have to buy a white box case. I would suggest staying away from cheaply made no-name brand cases as much as possible. All of your components will be housed in there and with a no-name case you are risking them for over heating, electrical shorts, etc.

Power :

Next lets pick out a power supply. Again something I would stay away from is no-name power supplies.

Thermaltake PurePower 430-Watt - $64.99

or

OCZ StealthXStream 500-Watt - $69.99

430 Watt should be the lowest wattage you put into a modern gamer. Some video cards can easily steal about half of that 430 Watts themselves while gaming.

Motherboard :

We will be using full sized boards in this guide, but you can save a bit of money if you build off of a micro ATX board. These are high-end entrance level boards and I wouldn’t recommend much over clocking with these.

AMD AM2+

AMD Chipset
ECS A780GM-A Motherboard - $97.99



Northbridge - AMD 780G
Southbridge - AMD SB700
Memory Support – DDR2 Dual Channel 533, 667, 800, 1066(AM2+ CPUs Only)
Audio Chipset - IDT 92HD206, 8 Channel Audio
LAN Support - 10/100/1000Mbps Gigabit
Graphic Interface - PCIe 2.0

Nvidia Chipset
ECS GF8200A Motherboard - $104.99



Northbridge - NVIDIA GeForce 8200
Memory Support – DDR2 Dual Channel 533, 667, 800, 1066(AM2+ CPUs Only)
Audio Chipset - IDT 92HD202, 8 Channel Audio
LAN Support - 10/100/1000Mbps Gigabit
Graphic Interface - PCIe 2.0

Intel LGA775

Intel Chipset
Gigabyte EP43-DS3L Intel P43 - $129.99



Northbridge - Intel P43
Southbridge - Intel ICH10
Memory Support – DDR2 Dual Channel 533, 667, 800, 1066, 1200
Audio Chipset - Realtek ALC888 , 7.1 Channel Audio
LAN Support - 10/100/1000Mbps Gigabit
Graphic Interface - PCIe 2.0

CPU :

These chips counterparts are close matches in performance and won't make any large increases or decreases overall.

AMD AM2+

AMD Athlon X2 5200+ - $84.99
AMD Phenom X3 8450 - $129.99

Intel LGA775

Intel Pentium Dual Core E2200 - $77.99
Intel Pentium Dual Core E5200 - $110.99

Memory :

DDR2 800mhz
OCZ Dual Channel Gold XTC 2048MB - $39.99

or

DDR2 800mhz
Corsair Dual Channel TWINX 2048MB - $39.99

Video Cards :

This is a personal preference, the 9600 GT and HD 4670 both perform about the same. I haven't benchmarked these cards in game but from experience they should be able to handle Crysis on medium settings and CoD 4 on High settings.

HIS Radeon HD 4670 IceQ Turbo 512mb - $123.99

PNY GeForce 9600 GT 512mb - $129.99

Hard/Optical Drives :

Now you don't have to be picky over these parts. There are many great companies that make these components. Personally I prefer Western Digital and LG when it comes to my drives. But you can find other drives such as Seagate, Hitachi, Samsung, Sony, Lite-On etc. for about the same price.

Hard Drive
Western Digital Caviar SE 160GB - $59.99

Optical Drive
LG 20x DVD R/RW Burner - $29.99

Case - $69.99
Power Supply - $64.99
Motherboard - $97.99
CPU - $84.99
RAM - $39.99
Videocard - $123.99
Hard Drive - $59.99
Optical Drive -$29.99

Sub Total : $571.92

GST 5% : $28.60
PST (Ontario 8%) : $45.75

Total : $646.27

Peripherals

Software
Windows XP Home SP2 - $99.00

Mouse/Keyboard
Logitech Deluxe 250 Desktop Keyboard And Mouse Combo - 24.99

Monitor
Samsung 21.6" Widescreen - 199.99

Speakers
Logitech S-220 2.1 Audio - $32.99
Logitech LS21 2.1 Audio - $42.99

Sub Total : $399.96

GST 5% : $20.00
PST (Ontario 8%) : $31.00

Total : $451.96

Total cost of system : $1098.23 CAD

Conclusion
While you can get cheaper parts to build a budget PC Gamer with these parts are extremely unreliable and will only make you waste more money in the long run with more upgrades and the chance of broken parts. You may also save more money buy ordering these parts online from stores like newegg, tigerdirect, etc...

I did not include things like the operating system, monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers because you will most likely have these parts before hand. If not the total comes out to a decent $1100.00 after taxes.

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