Building my first rig for under $700

[Vethrik]

This is my first shot at building a gaming PC. I'm going to be using it for mainly WoW, Elder Scrolls 4: oblivion, assorted source games, and possibly left 4 dead and Crysis to start. Here is what i have so far.

Vista home 64 bit - $100

Western Digital 500GB SATA 7200 RPM Hard drive $60

SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4870 512 GDDR5 $190

DVD-ROM drive $18

XCILO 500W power supply 2x 12v rails 1@16A 2@17A 2x 6 pin PCI-E connectors $50

G.SKILL 4gb DDR2 1066 $55

AMD Phenom 8450 Toliman 2.1 GHz AM2+ Triple core 95W

Foxconn A7GM-S AMD 780G Micro-ATX AM2+/AM2 motherboard

have the processor and motherboard priced as a combo $135

I havent decided on a case but i dont have much money to play around with at this point with this setup.

is this a good start? also can i use a micro ATX board in a mid size ATX case? because i don't think i'll fit that vid card in anything smaller.

I'm at 608 and cant really go over 680 right now

[Seldszar]

I never heard about the power supply. I would check that out. You should make sure it is good because it is the backbone of your computer. Wihtout it, nothing works.

[Vethrik]

Newegg.com - XCLIO GOODPOWER 500W 500W ATX SLI Certified CrossFire Ready Power Supply - Power Supplies

here is the link to the PSU

[JD]

So this is all USD and your in the USA? It would be helpful to post these things...

[Vethrik]

yes its all USD and I'm in the US. sorry about that :)

[JD]

Bump the PSU up to this as that XLICO piece of shyt won't cut it IMO:
Newegg.com - PC Power & Cooling S75CF 750W EPS12V SLI NVIDIA SLI Certified (Dual 8800 GTX and below) CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Power Supplies
Great deal for an awesome PSU.

Then I'd drop down to a HD4850, like such: Newegg.com - HIS Hightech H485FN512P Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards (cheapest one) unless you have a 24"+ LCD.

Then for the motherboard and CPU:
Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!

Guess that puts you over budget though, but it would be a sweet setup then.

EDIT: From what I can find, that CPU + Mobo Combo you chose, comes with an OEM CPU which means there's no heatsink included and you need one unless you want to kill your CPU right away...

[Vethrik]

so OEM means it comes straight from a manufacturer and there aren't any instruction manuals or anything else that is supposed to come with it right? and if i get a AM2 CPU fan for it i should be ok?

[aviduser]

Originally Posted by Vethrik

so OEM means it comes straight from a manufacturer and there aren't any instruction manuals or anything else that is supposed to come with it right? and if i get a AM2 CPU fan for it i should be ok?

Not sure about the instruction manual part, but yes a AM2 Cpu Heatsink/fan will be fine. That Cpu/Mobo combo seems like a really good price. Hard to tell being that hardware in canada is so damned expensive.

[Eagle Eye]

The PSU is garbage, its likely to not power your system or further die in 3 months of running at near full wattage when at full load during gaming.

The cpu is a huge performance killer and not a gaming CPU at 2.1GHz, you'd better of with a X2 6400+ @ 3.2GHz

AMD's Phenom X3 processors - The Tech Report - Page 1

Lastly you might consider saving more money and consider a comparable intel system that would offer far better performance, overclocking, stability and clearly value for your dollar.

Regards,

EE

[JD]

Lets do this right:

Intel Core 2 Duo E7400
GIGABYTE GA-EP43-UD3L
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit
HIS Hightech H485FN512P Radeon HD 4850 512MB
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD3200AAKS 320GB
Pioneer Black 20X DVD Burner
Antec 300 + Antec EA650W PSU Combo Deal
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit for System Builders - Operating Systems

Total: $685.87

Not going to get much better IMO. That'll handle all those games on high settings with 1680x1050 or lower resolution, with the exception of Crysis since it just is a total PC hog.