This post is mostly for new builders on their first machine, or for those who haven't read up on every possible aspect of systems already.

There's all kinds of refined advanced advice on optimizing, and overclocking is one way to get more for less, with C2Duo 6400 a good Intel choice, and Opteron 1212 on the AM2 side.

But....for the more average budget conscious person that wants to finish quickly and start playing games, at a low budget in time and money and learning curve, overclocking is not needed, and doesn't even matter much. Here are a few rules of thumb meant to be very general. If anyone can help add to or refine these, I'd be pleased.

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Great Performance for Little Time and Money
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1. For general overall system performance on a budget, pay almost as much or even more (some systems) for your hard drive setup as for your cpu! Examples: If you are spending above $1400 (sans Monitor), I feel you absolutely should get either a 150GB Raptor OR the new 74GB version Raptor, and perhaps a 2nd drive for video storage and even game storage. Below $1000 and I'd go Seagate 7200.10. In between, the new 74GB Raptor (not the old version, but the newer one) is very attractive for $150, and I think it's the way to go. Even near $1000 I'd personally think about that 74GB Raptor, but..... the Seagate 7200.10 is still a nice performer for budget builders..

Let me emphasize this! --> Low end cheaper dual cores are fine for now, and upgradable to quad later some day when games finally need them (not yet!). For budget with the possibility of great upgrades in late 2007, I'd go AM2, and I'd feel good about a AM2 4200, 4400, or Opteron 1212 (overclocked if you need it, but few really do). The X2 3800, and Opteron 1210 are fine on a tight budget. I have nothing against the C2duo 6300, but motherboard costs should be included.

2. For great Game Performance on a budget, pay 1.5 to 2.5 times as much for your graphics card as for your cpu. It's quite reasonable to buy a cheap dual core and the most expensive graphics card right now, for a gamer. The idea is you save money on the cpu, and then upgrade the cpu later when you finally need to. This balances things and gives you the maxium bang for buck ratio. This is important, and not widely appreciated.

3. Make your power supply 30% too big just in case you might change your mind about your graphics card or overclocking and such. Easy way if you don't like to read: add the total design power of the cpu and the graphics card (these are on the "specs" at NewEgg for each item) and add 200W. If you know you always want low end graphics cards, just add 100-120W, although top quality power supplies don't need as big a buffer. If you know you want a future upgrade to big time graphics like a 8800 GTX, then read up on the options, and also visit the Nvidia website, where Nvidia has a list of approved PowerSupplies.

4. DRAM. If you're not overclocking, the top speed DDR2 800 isn't price efficient right now IMO. Memory speed isn't nearly so important as the hard drive, for example. So long as you have enough! 2 Gigs is a good rule for now, although the extreme budget builder can do with 1 Gig, and add more later. Read Tom's Hardware on Build It Yourself re memory speeds. One upgrade path avenue for someone who does only moderate multitasking (and not lots of gaming) and wants extra future-proofing but for less $ is 1 Gig of the DDR2 800 (future proofing), and wait to add the 2nd Gig in time, but this 800 speed is less important than the hard drive.


Final Note: RAID and Overclocking. These strategies are beyond the scope of this guide, and Tom's Hardware and other sites have very good overview articles on them that you can and should read if that's your cup of tea. I did. And I choose not to do either one. They don't pay off enough for my time and money vs the high performance that I have without them.

But....they are well respected and well developed strategies. You could build with a low end dual core, and plan to eventually overclock it someday 6 or 12 or 15 months from now when software you like arrives that actually needs that kind of cpu power. Video editing is an example of something few of us do, but that needs big cpu horsepower. If you want to do video encoding everyday, and while you wait (instead of overnight), then, yeah, a faster dual core will pay off. But current games don't need that extra power, because the human eye cannot percieve higher framerates in games or video above 60 to 65 fps, and even the most demanding game can get up close enough to 55 or 60 with just barely noticible choices in the graphic options for the game.

All of the pieces of future quad core upgrade drop-in cpus for the AM2 platform are not revealed yet, except that there will be such, and probably Opteron first (Opterons are just the best chips off the production line in past practice so far as I understand). But the AM2+ type quad core chips will also go into the AM2 platform, running at the AM2 (current standard) of hypertransport speed. The main point is that you can expect to be able to upgrade your cpu to quad core without buying a new motherboard, and this will let you continue having an extremely capable computer thru 2008 for low initial costs and low over all costs.

Finally, let me add an interesting upgrade path. After having the AM2+ quad core in the AM2 for a while, you might be looking at AM3 (in 2008 sometime), and you could actually take that AM2+ quad and drop it in a new AM3 Motherboard, which is a nice way to keep costs low, and your sytem progressively upgraded (with various AM3 type components over time).

I beg to differ with that, I read somewhere on the nVIDIA site that 700W is enough for these in SLI. I wish I could find the link now to show you.

Didn't see much in your post to lead towards low cost. Raptor drives on a budget? 1.5 to 2.5 as much on your GPU? These are NOT low price options.

Thanks for the effort though.

See, this post is not bout doing what's popular. It's about doing what really pays off. Let me tell you something. The current hard drives are a bottleneck.

This means screaming fast cpus *DO NOT* make your computer much faster in actual real world use doing things.

Read that again I say. They don't help.

What helps to make a dual core computer faster is not a 6800. No.

It's a Raptor.

This is just actual results in doing things faster.

Faster loads, Faster Boots, Faster Game Level Loads.

Faster everything.

No, the Raptors are not cheap.

Also, the C2D 6700 isn't cheap.

Which is more effective?

The Raptor.

By all means, somone buying one of the bigger power supplies should have an idea what they are after, and whether they need 600, 650, 700, or 750.

Myself, I know what I'm after, and it's particular to my exact preferences. So I'm satisfied with 450W, and a plan to always use graphics cards that fall within that parameter, for specific reasons.

Definitely we should tell a new builder to think through what they want in terms of price and performance, and that's why I gave a guide on the power supply. But perhaps it's good to emphasize the guides instead of a number.

Look, I applaud you for trying to help people out, but nothing you have recommended fits the category of low prices. Low prices makes me think budget build, or at least nothing higher than mid-range. Raptors and spending what you recommend on a vid card just don't equate to low prices.

Had you left off your title at Rules of thumb for great performance, you'd be golden.

Not going to get into a pissing match with you. Your subject simply doesn't jive with what's actually within the thread.

Thanks, have a nice day.

Let me tell you something, and you can do in depth research and chart comparisions to check on it....

If you want very good gaming performance on the lowest possible budget, you'd *BETTER* spend twice on the graphics what you do on the cpu!

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I'm with thunder on this, the raptor is overkill. Seriously, raptors are for people who already have the best of everything and are looking for the next upgrade. If someone tells me they are a gamer and are looking to upgrade their system, I don't start off by asking about their harddrive. And if a gamer comes to me with a S775 P4, or an 7600GT/7900GS, I'm not going to tell them to get a raptor. They need to move up to a real gaming CPU and/or a faster video card. When looking at gaming, its the video card that pays off, not what harddrive your using.

I'm also not sure I'd tell people to spend twice as much on their GPU then their CPU. If someone bought a 6300 (which is around $180), then this means they need to spend $360 on their video card??? Why so much? For about $250 they could get a 256MB x1900XT, or a 7900GTX. Either of those cards would work fine in a gaming rig, and are $50 to $100 less then the $360 mark.

simple rules for great performance on a budget.

1 2048mb's of ram is better than more processor.

2 2048mb's of ram is better than more motherboard.

3 more graphics is better than more processor.

4 more graphics is better than more motherboard.

5 2048mb of ram and more graphics are better than hard drive size.

6 2048mb's of ram and more graphics are better than more hard drive speed which is irrelavent save for when levels are loading.

7. once you have enough power you don't need more a silverstone 850 watt may be neat but it's not required.

8. more ram and graphics are better than a flashy case.

9. more ram and graphics are better than expensive optical drives.

these are rules of thumb and not 100% etched in stone, I've little interest in those that rant about "my motherboard" or "my processor" or "my hard drive".... the truth is even the fastest processors make little difference compared to a low end processor in the same class when both are using mid to upper end graphics and the difference are even smaller in regards to hard drives and infinitely smaller still in regards to motherboards from any manufacturer or chipset.

an Nvidia 680i motherboard or Intel 975 equipped with 512mb of ram will get their asses handed to them by an Asrock 775 dual vista Via chipseted 4 lane PCIe equipped Sata 1 motherboard with 2048mb of ram..... which given the price descrepency rings in around the same mark.

I like your rules, and they seem all true to me. One reason I point out the importance of a hard drive is because zippier performance almost all the time (hard drive dependent) is something *I* notice a lot, and so I weight it as important. For many people on a budget, they should get a seagate 7200.10, which is a nice compromise between price and performance. A Raptor is always a better buy than a 6600 or 6700 C2Duo, but I know I won't convince many of the posters.....just the clever ones!

Look, I applaud you for trying to help people out, but nothing you have recommended fits the category of low prices. Low prices makes me think budget build, or at least nothing higher than mid-range. Raptors and spending what you recommend on a vid card just don't equate to low prices.

Had you left off your title at Rules of thumb for great performance, you'd be golden.

Not going to get into a pissing match with you. Your subject simply doesn't jive with what's actually within the thread.

Thanks, have a nice day.


I like your feedback, and I think not many people here understand that when they routinely are waiting a moment on their new computer to do something, they are almost always waiting on the hard drive, while the cpu just puts along waiting also.

That aside, I tried to give *ratios*, and that's my point. So I'll reword the op just slightly to avoid a misunderstanding that someone must have a Raptor. Instead I should say if someone is spending $1400 sans monitor, a Raptor is a good idea. Otherwise, the ratio is a general guide, or rough rule of thumb.

Thanks.

We have a problem here with precise numbers vs rough general rules of thumb. No I don't think you should spend *precisely* no more or no less than 2 x the cpu price. :? Unless you get lukcy on price points!

But seriously, yeah, it really is worthwhile for a gamer who wants game performance *now* to put that extra money into the graphics card.

I imagine someone really conserving money who follows my guide might get a C2D 6300, and perhaps a card closer to 1.5x that cpu price, which is in the range I recommend.

Do you think my OP makes it clear enough that a newbie could put one card in now, and buy an upgrade card eventually? If the wording doesn't convey that, I'd better change it again.

Thanks.

I hadn't noticed, but WD updated their 74GB Raptor so that it is just a reduced capacity version of the 150GB, instead of a slower drive as in the past. This makes the $150 Raptor a great choice for the majority of builders even near $1000 for the system (sans monitor).

I pretty much agree in many ways while disagreeing in others.

the problem with building a budget gaming computer is ppl lose focus.

you have to decide on the budget and then decide on it's useage, accept sacrifices and then jump in no holds barred.

keep room for upgradeability and forget about bling.

if one wants a total gaming rig with little multitasking then even a lowly single core is an option although day in day dual core is nicer the price premium can hurt a budget.

2048mb's of ram at this point is almost a minimum for gaming the level loading and in saved games will cause stuttering during gameplay in most modern games once the swap filing starts.

graphics are next on the list if on a budget set aside $150.00 - $250.00+ for a graphics card.

Raptor 74gb's are very nice hard drives of that their is no doubt and while the 7200.10 series is the best offered by Seagate by a mile buyers may simply not have the budget for it because of limited size choices, personally if on a budget I'd go with an 80GB 7200.09 hdd..... I simply don't need the space......, while it might be a pain being forced to backup files you like the tech Gods created External hard drives that can be bought at a later date.

Ah....it's a good point. I did not really write for a $600-700 budget any concrete tips. Perhaps you could make a post like "Best Gaming Rig for Under $750" or something like that once you configured it and priced it out on NewEgg. I'd like to see that, and would put in my 2 cents.

I'm not a regular poster but I'll put something together in this thread and well debate it's merits later.

I'm in the process of finnishing my liquid cooled comp atm, just transferred it to the new case and need to add some stands to clearance, I mounted the radiator underneath the case.

will throw in a pic later if interested already posted them in my usual forum.