So you say you want a gaming computer...
Jan 28 '04
The Bottom Line This is entirely my opinion of what to buy in the first quarter of 2004. Use it at your own risk!
How to blow your wallet… uh, I mean… build your dream gaming system
Disclaimer: This will not explain to you how to put together components into a case. There are other great reviews here that do that already. What I am about to tell you is what I think is the best bang for the buck computer you can build on your own if you want to play games with intense, amazing graphics and storylines. I am only referring to what is in the box, and it is only my opinion. I will not tell you what monitor, keyboard, mouse, OS or speakers to use, as this is only what should be in the case. (Although if you want to play the newest games, you do need to use Microsoft OS’s) Further, I assume you have High speed internet connection and use the built in ethernet slot on the motherboard. Finally, I only use on board sound, as it is good enough for me. Some will say that you need a sound card, but I have not found this to be true…
I would guestimate that this review has legs for approximately 2-4 months before the components I am promoting as the cream of the crop become midrange. In two years’ time, we can all come back and laugh at me, as this is my current setup. So sit back, relax, and start taking notes if you want to build a great gaming system!
What is this all about?
I started off innocently enough wanting to upgrade my old HP pavilion desktop a few years back. I went down and bought a new video card so I could play some top of the line games at the time. This started me down a path that has seen me blow through several components, full computers, and a LOT of money to build what I now have. It is by no means complete, as I do not think anyone’s is if they start Do It Yourself (DIY), but I wanted to share with you what I think is the best gaming computer that you can build on your own.
This will not be cheap! If you want top of the line components, you need to spend some cash. However, in some areas I do not recommend the very tip top, and you will see why.
With a few component exceptions, I currently own the Intel system I will review below, and am building the AMD system detailed out. Newegg.com is my best friend, and I should be theirs!
Processor
There are several components in a computer, but none is as important as the processor. There are currently two top dogs of processors out there, and I do not really have a preference. The gaming community is starting to swing back to Intel after quite a run by AMD, due mainly to the 800MHz offerings at lowered pricing. Before you jump on the Intel bandwagon, realize that the ONLY reason that Intel has moved ahead as fast as they have and reduced their prices so much is because of AMD. Give AMD some love, (or business) as they have made this possible. Competition is a good thing, as it reduces prices and speeds up advancement!
Intel
If you want to build an Intel based system, the processor to get is the 2.4c, which is 2.4GHz of goodness at 800MHz FSB. It comes stocked with Hyperthreading and 512kb of L2 ATC cache as well, and is a very reasonable $160.
You may be shocked and asking yourself why I do not promote the biggest, baddest Intel there is right now, the 3.2GHz Extreme Edition. Sure, it comes stocked with 2MB of L3 cache on top of the 512kb of L2 cache, and it runs at 3.2GHz. However, it costs more than the whole computer we are going to put together today, weighing in at $915 by itself! Additionally, if you overclock a chip, you want one with a lower multiplier (12 for the 2.4 and 16 for the 3.2) so that you can overclock to a higher FSB and get higher bandwidth! (For more detailed overclocking explanation, see my review for the 2.6GHz Pentium processor)
In gaming, bandwidth equals performance. If you purchase the 2.4GHz and take the clock speed up to 267MHz, you will have a chip running at 3.204 GHz with a FSB of 1068MHz. You also have DDR RAM running at 267 * 2 = 534 MHz, or somewhere between PC4000 and PC4400. This RAM is capable of bandwidth between 4.00 GB/s and 4.40 GB/s. If, on the other hand, you buy a 3.2 GHz EE and keep it running stock speed (for comparison purposes) you have a clock frequency of 200MHz, which quad-pumped gives a FSB of 800MHz. The memory for this is PC3200, which is only capable of 3.2GB/s bandwidth. What this illustrates is the main reason I recommend the 2.4c: It is cheap and capable of performance bandwidth for gamers.
AMD
If you want to stick with an AMD system, the chip of choice is the AMD 2500 . This is a chip that runs at 1.83GHz with a 333 FSB. I just bought one for $90 recently!
Here again, this is not the top of the line. Why don’t I recommend to buy the 3200 Athlon 64 FX-51? Again, this has much more L2 cache at 1MB, and it has an on-die memory controller. Finally, it runs on true 64 bit processor core. I don’t recommend as it costs WAY too much at $749 and is not truly useful yet without the 64 bit apps. This one has the cart before the horse, in my opinion. In a few months or years when 64 bit apps come out, it will be great to have one of these babies, but you should wait until then, as the prices will undoubtedly drop.
The AMD2500 can easily be overclocked, as AMD (up until recently) left the multipliers unlocked. You could change the multiplier and leave the FSB the same, and get great overclocks. Recent chips have locked down multipliers and you are forced to up the FSB, which is not a bad deal at all. Remember, the higher the FSB, the higher the bandwidth. The only issue is going to be if your memory can handle the overclocks or if you are going to have to upgrade that as well.
Motherboard
Second in importance is the motherboard. Once again, if you have an Intel or AMD you will need separate motherboards.
Intel
I recommend buying an Intel 865PE based motherboard. My current pick for motherboard is the ABIT IS7-E. I bought this for $90 a few months ago. This has Serial ATA, onboard sound, 6-channel audio and S/PDIF audio out, USB2.0 and overclocking capability. If you need to have RAID or Firewire 1394, this is not the board for you. Abit does have a nice selection of others to choose from that can fit your needs, as you can find on their website:
http://www.abit-usa.com
You might have noted that I did not say to step up to the 875 chipset by Intel. The main reason to go to the 875 chipset was to have PAT, or Performance Accelerator Technology. With the IS7 series of 865PE boards, Abit included a little something called GAT, or Game Accelerator Technology. It is very hush-hush as to what it is, but essentially it is believed to be the same thing as PAT. In either case, it is believed to speed up the Northbridge and run lower CAS timings in your memory. This equates out to performance. Testing completed shows that the 865PE with GAT enabled in some cases outperforms the 875 boards by the same manufacturer. The 875 chipset is perceived to be the better of the two by the industry, so the 865 offering is cheaper. You see where I am going with this?
Note: If you have generic memory, GAT may not work well with your system! It lowers the CAS timings, which is much more difficult to run and therefore cheaper memory will not work. If you do this, you may hear a long, loud beep when you start up your computer. Nothing else….
AMD
The AMD board I would buy to build a great gamer is based on the NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra400 chipset. The particular one that I bought was the NF7-S, once again by Abit. This is the chipset for the AMD 2500 , and Abit offers the same overclocking menu that I am used to from my Intel board, and it is about the same price at $90.
As you can tell, I promote Abit as I have had very good luck with my boards from them. I also prefer their BIOS add in to others’ for overclocking the CPU. ASUS makes good products as well, and I would not tell you not to buy from them, but I prefer Abit. Hey, it is my Epinion!
Memory
What to get as far as memory? Well, for my Intel board I have 1024MB TwinX Corsair XMS series PC4000 memory. This is capable of running at 500MHz and up, and this gives you a lot of room for the overclocking that we are looking for here! It is spendy at $369, but I think it is worth it. You can obviously go lower in speed and manufacturer, but I say go for the gold and get the best!
In my AMD board, I went a little cheaper and got 1024MB of Corsair PC3500 memory. Why? The FSB starts out at 333MHz and can easily be taken up to 400MHz. The PC3500 is built to operate at 434MHz, and I am going to go for the gold with this system. This memory cost me $154 total, and I know it should be more than enough for my overclocked system.
I would always recommend buying high quality memory from reputable manufacturers. Buying generic memory will force you to use relaxed CAS timing settings, which will also reduce the performance of the system. You do not have to buy Corsair, but I really like it.
Graphics cards
Oh, the wonderland of gaming! Here again, there are two major manufacturers of graphics cards out there, and they both have high, midrange and budget models. For the purposes of this build, I will give you my recommendation for high end and mid range.
I recommend buying the 5950Ultra chipset for the high end card. This is the graphics engine most recently released by NVIDIA. It is smoking hot, and expensive to boot. I prefer the BFG Asylum version myself, but no matter which way you go it is going to be EXPENSIVE. The BFG version I recommend is $385 today. The ATI radeon 9800XT is another good choice, but the 5950 just edges it out in most benchmarks, and I prefer NVIDIA.
For the midrange I would recommend the 5900se card. My particular one is $188 and came from eVGA.com. I will use this card in the comparison pricing below. You can also look at the 5700Ultra from NVIDIA or the 9600XT from ATI in the same price bracket, but the 5900se blows them out of the water in benchmarks such as 3dMark2001SE and 3dMark2003. Benchmarks are a good indication of how the board will perform in practice, as long as no one is cheating! Based on this, the eVGA.com 5900se is the performance bang for the buck in the midrange!
Hard drives
Hard drives are entirely up to the individual user to determine what is the right fit. Choosing the right drive does depend on what you are going to do with your computer. If you are going to download hours and hours of DVD quality movies, perform Digital Video editing, or use your PC for a TV recorder, you would obviously need a very large hard drive, maybe even two.
However, remember this is a gamers computer, so you need fast and you do not necessarily need massive amounts of data. Since the motherboards we chose above have Serial ATA, you could purchase a Western Digital 36GB raptor! This has sufficient memory for your games, and runs at a blazingly fast 10,000 RPM! I do not have one of these, as they do cost a little more than a regular drive ($104, or $2.88/GB). I don’t see the performance edge there, as the hard drive is the slowest of all components, even if they are running Serial ATA at 150MB/s burst speed.
I instead went with a Western Digital 80GB Special Edition drive with 8MB cache. This is one speedy drive, and it has plenty of memory. The best part is you can find them for $40 after rebates, which makes the the best bang for the buck. You get 80GB at less than $0.50/GB. That is amazing! If you want more memory, you can step up into 120GB, 160GB, or even 200GB for relatively the same price/GB. Seagate has been running some great sales recently!
Optical drive
I am not going to promote one drive over an other here, just suffice it to say that you want a CD-RW with 52X32X52. That way you can run your CD-ROM very fast as well as burn your disks at a very respectable rate. You can find these on sale after rebates for $19.99 frequently at places such as BestBuy.com and CompUSA.com.
As far as a DVD-RW, you may not need it for games but I would still recommend the DRU510 by Sony. It is the first and best DVD burner that could do RW and –RW, and it is still my favorite. You can get this for $150 if you look around right now. For the purposes of the bottom line below, the DRU is in neither system, as it is not needed for gaming.
Power Supply
Keep in mind that you have added a lot of components that eat a lot of voltage, and you are going to overclock which means you may raise the voltage settings as well. You do not want a cheap PSU! Go with at least a 400W, high quality unit. Names such as Antec, Enermax and Vantec are decent manufacturers. You can pick up a good one for under $40, easy. Do not cheap out! I don’t know how many times I have talked to people(including my father) who blame their computer components or software for their computer mysteriously shutting off frequently. Most often this is due to a bad power supply, not the components or the software!
Floppy Drive
I do not recommend a floppy drive. Sheesh, step up and buy a Jump Drive!
Case
I will not take you through all of the iterations of cases, but I would recommend a good ATX full or mid tower case. This will give you plenty of room to get your components in and out, and will also leave airspace for valuable cooling. Check out the varieties that come pre-modified with acrylic windows, designs, and case fans as well. You should be able to get a good case, even with a window, for $35.
Cooling
I recommend an aftermarket cooler for the CPU as well as additional cooling fans for the system/case. I currently run and recommend the Zalman CNPS7000A-Cu all copper cooler for $42. It comes with thermal paste compound and a mounting kit for either AMD or Intel processors, and it is a great air cooling solution for overclocked CPU’s
I also recommend inserting four other fans in the case, 2 sucking and 2 blowing. This will get a crosscurrent of air through the case and cool those valuable components, thus dissipating head and reducing the chance of component failure.
The bottom line
If you followed my recommendations laid out above, I believe that you would have a great gaming machine. No wait, I guarantee it, as I have the same systems! If you add up the cost of the components listed above, you arrive at the costs for these gaming boxes:
Intel system: $984
AMD system: $699
You will note that the Intel system is more costly, and that is due in large part to the fact that the 2.4c can achieve a higher FSB and thus requires speedier memory. The memory I chose is also the top of the line, and this inflated the cost somewhat. No matter what though, the Intel systems will cost more at today’s prices than a comparably equipped AMD system.
The End?
Yes this is the end of this rant, but no, it is not the end of my upgrades. Two months from now some new component will come out and I will have to buy it, and then sell the older one off. It is a losing proposition moneywise, but I love to play with my computers, so I will continue…
Thanks for reading, and I hope you found this helpful. If so, please leave me a comment or a rating, and check out my other reviews! Thanks.
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