Hello, everyone! My name is Alvin (a.k.a. TheDramaLlama) and I’d like to poke fun at all the old… er, say hi to everyone here at TechREACTION. 
For my first blog, I’m going to do a rough overview on budget PC building. No, not your run-of-the-mill budget PC building, I’m writing about college-kid’s-budget gaming PC building, since college kids like me belong to a fantastic little niche, filled with people in situations I like to describe as, “Mommy, I have no money but I love expensive things.”
However, I’m not going to go into too much detail, both because this is my first post, and also because there are plenty of sources for that kind of neck-deep technical stuff already. Instead, I’m going to go over the lessons I’ve learned in building my first budget gaming PC, a rather peckish $1,000 affair with which I am now 90% satisfied. The other 10%, of course, belongs to the group of people I like to describe as, “I’m filthy rich and want more more more more frames.” If only.
Anyway, let’s start off with the specifications of my rig.
For my monitor, I got a 25″ Hanns-G 2ms LCD at 1080p. Deals, deals, deals.
For my CPU, I got an AMD Phenom II X4 at 3.2Ghz. I have yet to overclock this, although I’ve been feeling the bottleneck lately and will probably aim for 3.8 once I get a nice new cooler. Although to be honest, the “stock” cooler included with the processor was surprisingly large and effective. (I promise I’ll have pictures for my next post.)
For my GPU, I got an XFX Radeon 5770. I’ve been having some driver issues with this card (see forum for details), so I’ve been unable to overclock it; however, I’ve heard good stories of >1Ghz overclocks, so I’m holding out for now. I’m also planning on another 5770 in the near future and some Crossfire goodness, if budget allows.
For my motherboard, I have the Gigabyte 790X AM3 USB3 SATA6. Quite a nice futureproof motherboard for about $150.
And for RAM, OCZ 2×2Gb DDR3-1600. Everything else is the usual.
My first piece of advice when looking for a budget rig is to never, ever, ever look at top-of-the-line parts. They will make you feel bad, and you will not be able to afford them. Instead, bump it down a notch. For example, instead of the Phenom II X6, show some love for an X4. Instead of an i7, grab yourself a nice, fat hunk of i5. AMD chips tend to be on the cheaper side as compared to Intel, although they’re naturally outperformed, as well. I would personally never pay more than $200 for a budget PC’s processor, but then again, it’s up to your budget.
My second piece of advice is to get the most expensive mid-range graphics card you can afford. Don’t even bother looking at the 5970, or even the 5870 for that matter; instead, go for a nice mid-range 5770. Keep in mind that the price margin between the 5770 and the 5850 is roughly 40% (i.e. the 5770 is 40% cheaper than the 5850), but, in a brilliant stroke of marketing genius by ATI, you sacrifice about the same amount of performance. I chose the 5770 because $150 fit my budget, but again, it’s up to you.
My third piece of advice is to get a good, futureproof motherboard. I’m not particularly familiar with Intel motherboards, so I won’t say much about them, but I’ve heard horror stories about socket compatibility with the newest i7 chips; make sure you do your research before you invest in a motherboard that will become incompatible with new chips in a year or two. A good idea is to invest in the top-of-the-line previous generation motherboard; they are usually relatively futureproof, as well as extensively tested and reliable.
My fourth piece of advice is to never skimp on essential components. You can skimp on a case if you’d like to, or get a cheap-ish power supply, or settle for value DDR3 RAM, but as far as your CPU and GPU are concerned, you should never go low-end. Remember, you’re building a budget gaming PC, not a budget bucket-o’-bolts. All the savings in the world won’t matter when you dent your tower with a sledgehammer fist out of frustration.
My last piece of advice is to wait for good deals. It’s not always financially prudent to order all of your parts at the same time, and certainly not from the same vendor; you’ll often find fantastic deals on parts from all over the place, and more often than not, it will be worth your time to order your parts piecemeal and hunt for deals. You’d be surprised at how much you could save just by building your rig over the span of a week or two instead of a single day.
Well, that’s all for me for now. If you’re a cash-strapped college student, I hope you found this first post somewhat useful; I doubt all you rich folks with i7s will find much to glean from this.
Till next time,
TheDramaLlama
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I agree with pretty much everything you said except the part on getting a cheap PSU. The PSU is one of the most critical components that should never be based on “cheap”. You want high quality for your PSU for two reasons, 1) It powers everything and if it goes, it can take everything with it, 2) It is one of the few components you want to plan (or at least think about) using for multiple builds.
Great job for a first blog post! Looking forward to some pictures of your rig.
Although I do not agree with your advice to get a cheap-ish power supply. I recommend to never skimp out on a good PSU, I would rather get a better power supply and a cheaper video card if I know I am going to be upgrading soon anyways.
Other than that. Keep up the blogging man!
u dont have to get a bad psu to get a cheap psu, u can get an ocz modX for $50. sure u should not get a rosewill or raidmax or some house brand but that dosnt mean that u cannot go cheap.
nice post but u need some pics
Tecmo/Luis, you guys are absolutely right, although by “cheap-ish” power supply, what I meant was to avoid something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817790002
I’ve probably just been thinking too much lately about top-of-the-line parts, so much that good-quality standard products have turned into cheap-ish ones.
Zanza, I find it funny that you mentioned Rosewill as a house brand to avoid; I’m running on a 600W Rosewill right now. They’ve got great value for the dollar, if not the hefty brand recognition carried by other more well-known companies.
Oh, and yeah, I’ll try to have pics ASAP, although I’ll be posting most of my blogs from work (lol) so I can’t really post pictures until the weekends.
You can always type up your blogs (from work or wherever), save them as a draft and then add pictures later and submit.
I completely disagree, CPU and GPU are where you should skimp in your budget, as this are devices that you likely be upgrading in the future. Case, PSU and HDD will likely make it to your next PC, making them free components for your next build.
Best midrange card is a not exactly accurate either. A 4890 would be a better option than the 5770 for price and performance. Sacrifice DX11 for lower cost AND better performance? Absolutely.
Excuse me, Neuromancer? While I appreciate the feedback, I can’t believe you would ever skimp on a CPU and GPU. Please keep in mind that this blog is about building a *gaming* rig – that is, one that can play games, and play them well. This build is not your run-of-the-mill Core 2 Duo with a low-end graphics card, this is a rig with a considerable amount of power, both for productivity and gaming purposes. And by productivity, I don’t mean Microsoft Office, I mean development, Photoshop, (HD) video editing, (HD) gaming, etc.
My logic for writing this post was that anyone can order a run-of-the-mill “workstation” for half a grand from HP or Dell; however, if you want something better than that but are also on a limited budget, you need to pick quality parts yourself, with good performance.
Also, I never said anything about skimping on an HDD; getting an el-cheapo 5400 RPM will come back to bite you in the butt. Though I didn’t say that in the post, so I grant you that one.
Perhaps I’m being misled by your usage of the word “skimp,” as this all depends on what you mean by skimp. However, if you’re honestly suggesting, as I suspect, that I get a Core 2 Duo and a sub-$100 graphics card for a gaming rig, you must still be playing on a 1280×1024 CRT or something, in which I encourage you to update your system.
I also did not say anything about the 5770 being the “best” midrange card, I said to get the most expensive mid-range card you can afford, quote/unquote. As for the 4890 vs 5770 debate, I agree that the 4890 outperforms in DX9 and DX10 framerates by about 10-20% (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_5770/30.html). However, as you said, the 5770 does have DX11 support, as well as Eyefinity support, and the ability to bitstream Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA straight from DVI. The Dolby out means you can get high-quality audio output without purchasing an additional sound card for your system, and the DX11 support means that, god forbid, someone releases a DX11-only game (cough Shattered Horizons for DX10 only cough), you’ll still be able to play it, albeit at lower settings.
I would explain the benefits of Eyefinity, but as per my CRT argument, it’s probably a moot point already.
By the way, the 4890 is more expensive than the 5770. You can find that at plenty of sources, but take Newegg for example. The 4890 sells for $189.99, whereas the 5770 sells for $167.99. Save $20, sacrifice 10-20% of performance (while still being able to play all games at HD resolutions), get DX11 support, get Dolby out, and get Eyefinity support. Hmm. Gonna have to think about that one.
Oh, almost forgot – the 4890 draws about 290 watts at load and 60 watts at idle, whereas the 5770 draws 108 watts at load and 18 watts at idle. About a third of the power draw at almost the same performance. Need I say more?
TheDramaLlama,
just like what i’m thinking. i already sell off my HD4850 & get HD5750. even with 128-bit memory interface, it still can coupe up with HD4850 performance + i get DirectX 11 support + lower power consumption + less heat + less space (the HD5750 card is shorter than HD4850)
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