Posted: 11/30/2011 4:15:41 AM EDT
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My son (13) would like a gaming computer for Christmas. I know there is no such thing as a cheap gaming computer, but is there something out there that would suffice for playing pc games. He won't be playing online, just stand alone COD, etc.
I've seen a Cyberpower gx 6109 for about $500, and others for about $1700 on the low end.Can I get away with a $500-700 version? I just want something that will play the current games, not some monster machine that will run at warp 3. |
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Current games require some hefty graphics cards. Take Skyrim for instance: Windows 7/Vista/XP PC (32 or 64 bit) Processor: Quad-core Intel or AMD CPU 4GB System RAM 6GB free HDD space DirectX 9.0c compatible NVIDIA or AMD ATI video card with 1GB of RAM (Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 or higher (i.e GTX550Ti); ATI Radeon 4890 or higher). DirectX compatible sound card Internet access for Steam activation You may want to just look at getting him a console instead, it would be cheaper. Those sub 1000 dollar machines are going to have a hard time playing anything a few years old much less anything modern. |
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Quoted:
My son (13) would like a gaming computer for Christmas. I know there is no such thing as a cheap gaming computer, but is there something out there that would suffice for playing pc games. He won't be playing online, just stand alone COD, etc. I've seen a Cyberpower gx 6109 for about $500, and others for about $1700 on the low end.Can I get away with a $500-700 version? I just want something that will play the current games, not some monster machine that will run at warp 3. Going to need to open that up to $800-900 to get something decent.. |
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Case $50 (pick one on newegg
Keyboard $20 Mouse $40-50 (for gaming) Intel i5 2500k $180 link Asus P8P67 $85 ($70 after rebate, its originally $150 but you get $60 off for buying CPU too) LINK Zotac GTX 560 Ti Combo w/ free battlefield 3 (battlefield 3 is brand new and is worth $50) $230 ($199 after rebate) LINK OCZ 600W ModXStream Power Supply $75 ($50 after rebate) LINK G.Skill 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz "Sniper memory" $43 LINK DVD burner $18 LINK Windows 7 $30, get a college student you know to buy it for you. CPU Cooler.. $26 ($16 after rebate) LINK Harddrive, GOOD LUCK. 1TB fast drives were $60 a few weeks ago. Now you cannot find a 360gb drive for less then $70 Without the harddrive the total is.... $807......... $727 after rebate You will still need a few items then are <$10 each such as thermal compound You could go cheaper on the graphics card but the 560 Ti is a VERY powerful card, but its still a midrange card. If he wants to play modern games and have the ability to play newer games down the road without buying another video card, definitely get him teh GTX 560 Ti |
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I'm running Skyrim flawlessly on Ultra settings using a ~5 year old machine on Win7 x86/2 GB RAM. The only significant hardware mod I've made was adding a Nvidia GeForce GTX9800+, which at the time cost around $200 and some change. You can have this box, speakers, monitor, etc. for $400 if you want it. I'm sure similar deals exist all over if you look around. |
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Quoted:
I'm running Skyrim flawlessly on Ultra settings using a ~5 year old machine on Win7 x86/2 GB RAM. The only significant hardware mod I've made was adding a Nvidia GeForce GTX9800+, which at the time cost around $200 and some change. You can have this box, speakers, monitor, etc. for $400 if you want it. I'm sure similar deals exist all over if you look around. I don't know of that's worth $400 plus a 9800GTX+ isn't going to be able to keep up past 1280x1024 on any new games plus games like battlefield would only run on medium/ low. what are the total specs of everything. The PC I built doesn't include a monitor but the $250 cpu/motherboard includes a pretty high end cpu. That 400 PC is mostl likely not worth it because it might not last another year and then you need to upgrade the cpu mobo and memory. Plus it's not going to be able to keep up for long. I mean I just sold. 2.5 year old cpu mobo ram combe that was very fast but could nearly keep up in bf3 and it was a core 2 duo going 4.2ghz with 4gb of ddr 2 1150mhz |