Hello,

I do most of my gaming on PS3, but want to play Crysis (high settings, if possible). Need to keep costs low and found this HP a6342p for $420 on Tigerdirect; would you recommend?

The processor is the Dual Core E2180, which I read on this site is decent when overclocked to 3.3ghz.

Looking to install the XFX 8800gt and upgrade the power supply.



http://www.tigerdirect.com/applica [...] =M975-5174



I am definitely not committed to this and am open to suggestions.



Thank you for any assistance.

Keep in mind that HP motherboards do not allow cpu overclocking. The cpu at stock will likely be bottlenecked. A 8800gt should be good enough to run Crysis at high settings on a moderate 1024x720 resolution.

I appreciate the info, dagger, thanks a lot.

I see you have the Q6600. Using my employer's discount, I can get a Dell Inspiron 530 w/Q6600 (or Q9300 +$100) and 4GB DDR2, install the XFX 8800gt and a Corsair power supply for around $850....?

I keep reading that Dell sucks, but my Inspiron 8600 w/ATI 128mb has lasted me four years with zero problems.

Any other company's motherboards that do not allow overclocking?

Actually I ran Crysis on high with an 8800gt w/256mb of vram. I had to turn down shaders and shadows to medium... One thing I found however with the game was that 4gb of ram made a big difference over 2gb in overall smoothness. Also, I was running on Vista 64 bit and had the graphics card pretty OC'ed so I don't know how all this factors in.

On a side note I just bought a Visiontek 4850 for $145 after taxes from Bestbuy. This would be a better purchase than that 8800gt in my opinion.

Also, don't buy an HP... Build everything yourself. Newegg yo.

145?! eh? how?

I play Crysis at all high @ 1680x1050 resolution DX9. I'd recommend you turn down shader quality to medium or keep it at high and turn down post processing and shadow quality to medium so it's perfectly fluid. DX10 looks same and reduces FPS. I'd recommend a E8400 at stock, my E4600 seems like a bottleneck for 2-3FPS which can matter between playing all high or almost all high.

on that X3100 with high in crysis? i dont think so.not even the CPU could cope with it at stock speed.

Using nVidea's configuration tool (below link), it shows that both the E8400/E4600 outperform the Q6600 with the 8800gt; interesting.

http://www.nvidia.com/content/opc/v2/configurator.asp


So I thought the only options out there were ATI/nVidea; I have never heard of Visiontek...superior to nVidea? Also, with all the different variations of the 8800GT, ie MSI, XFX, EVGA, etc.; how do you narrow it down? Newegg alone has 46 8800GTs to choose from.

I will be playing at 1680 x 1050.

Would you recommend a barebones kit from Tigerdirect?


Thanks, guys!

Are you opposed to building it yourself? I ask cuz those stock cases suck for cooling. I used to work for best buy and we would get alot of those OEM pc's back after upgrading them. I good pc could be built for about 600 which is about the same price you'd pay after upgrading that one.

Quickly having browsed the barebone selection i would get all the parts yourself. Toms hardware has a good write up on a 500 dollar gaming machine. I'd use that to start.

A bit opposed, yes. I have never built a PC from the ground up before. I've installed power supplies, RAM, and video cards on several PCs, but never the whole process. Scared to make a fatal mistake.

I'm am quite intrigued by the option to play Crysis for $600...can you point me (or link me) in the right direction.

You guys are great. Thanks a lot!

You're too quick, thanks!

Just to put things into perspective, my computer (with a lowly 2.2GHz Athlon 64, 1GB RAM, and Radeon X600) can run Crysis at 1024 x 768 low settings.

As others have said, you can't overclock with HP motherboards. I would stay away from the refurb HP, or any other refurbished computers or components, for that matter. I say this from experience; I got burned with a refurb HP (the processor and motherboard fried), and there's no warranty, I believe.

That Dell you mentioned with the Q6600 looks a like a great deal, and I'll second the recommendation to get a Radeon HD 4850 instead of the 8800GT. You could always go the route of building it yourself, though...

Here's what I would do for a reasonably cheap crysis worthy system:

CPU:
Either the E8400 or the Q6600 ($189.99-$199.99, the 8400 would be faster in games, run cooler, and probably overclock higher, the 6600 would be a bit faster overall computer experience). Note that the Q6600 is an OEM, and therefore does not come with a heat sink - here is the non OEM version with the stock heat sink. I would recommend the OEM if you go with the quad though, as even though the stock heatsink is adequate on the duals even with a moderate overclock, it is severely taxed on the quads, and insufficient if you overclock at all.

Video: HD4850 - I'm partial to MSI and Diamond myself, but any would work ($199)

Motherboard: I like the intel chipsets myself - I've had great success with the MSI P35 Neo2 ($110) - I currently have a C2D E6750 @3.5GHz (1750 fsb) that's rock solid all day long.

RAM: I've found amount to be more important than speed here. I'd go with some DDR2-800, such as the excellent Crucial Ballistix ($110 for 4GB or $55 for 2GB normally, currently at $70 for 4GB, $35 for 2)

PSU: I like the Thermaltake Toughpowers - this one's a 750W (normally $170, right now $130 after a mail in rebate). You could get away with less, but having a little extra power allows for some leeway in the future.

Hard drive: 500GB Seagate 7200.10 - currently $80

Case: the Cooler Master Centurion is a good choice - not too big, easy to work with, and sturdy. Only $50 too.

Operating system: Windows Vista Home Premium (OEM version) ($100)

Add in a few other essentials, such as a DVD burner ($35), as well as anything else you might want, and you're set. Total for this setup? Not counting any of the rebates going on right now, it would cost about $990-$1055, depending on the amount of RAM and the CPU chosen, and if you factor in the currently available rebates, it's more like $930-$975. You could definitely go cheaper, such as by using a 430w power supply instead of the 750 ($40), and it would definitely still work, though if you ever got a significantly better system in the future, you might have to replace the power supply. This would bring the system down to the high $800 range (mid $800's counting the current rebates), and you could cut the hard drive down too (if you don't need 500 gigs, the 250GB model goes for $20 less). I wouldn't go much below that config though for CPU, GPU or motherboard, as if you want to run Crysis on high smoothly (depending on the resolution), you want absolutely top notch components for those.

You can go below this, and it will run crysis, but depending on the resolution, something like the above configuration would really give the best bang for the buck, and should be able to pull Crysis on high at any resolution <1920x1200 very smoothly.

I use the 1066 pin mod on my compaq board (no overclocking options), and it works great. Some cpus may even work with the 1333 mod. With 1066, you get a 33% overclock; with 1333 on a 1066 cpu, 25%. My cpu was done with copper tape, available at Fry's for $3.