$100 Gaming PC - What would this run?

[migo]

Given my almost complete lack of success getting much running on my Netbook (I'm looking at 2, maybe 3, games on it), I've started looking at what I could throw together for a desktop at a really cheap price. I've already got a 15" XGA LCD monitor, which I'd say is sufficient, but buying a 19" SXGA monitor wouldn't cost much.

About 6 months ago, the sweet spot was around $50 for a P4 2GHz with 512MB RAM, but that's gone up a bit at that spec range while the slightly higher range of $70 for a P4 3GHz w/ HT and 1GB of RAM has stayed steady. For some reason, anything even remotely comparable for an Athlon XP or Athlon 64 doesn't get sold. Naturally, a configuration like that leaves you with only an AGP card, and I've looked at what the last native AGP cards were, and that would be the GeForce 6 and 7 series. Radeon's still support AGP up to HD 4 series, but the support is buggy, and I've seen this reflected in sales of a $30 1GB HD4650 that was tried once and then they decided to sell it. 6 and 7 series support DirectX 9.0c, so that's solid for the previous generation.

So a Pentium 4 3GHz with HyperThreading, 1GB of RAM, and a GeForce 6800 256MB GPU comes in at $100. Any lower and I'm suddenly slipping into 256MB RAM territory and a DirectX 7 card, so that is spec wise the balance.

What can I look at running well with that? I'm sure UT2K4 would run, as it's one that actually works on my Netbook. What about Source SDK games? Doom 3? Fallout 3? Anything above that, or am I looking at lower? (this is assuming 1024x768 or possibly 1280x1024 resolution)

 

[Sir-jackington]

not the best but pretty good price

 

[hawkeye52]

im not great on comp specs tbh but i just looking at the price tag unless you are a genious at haggling and getting bang for your buck not really much

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

im not a expert or anything but source games are probably fine on low..alot of games on low..but you are barely meeting specs if that on alot of games unless im reading what you are going for wrong..

 

[Penguinness]

Well I have no idea, but my mate got bought an "ultimate gaming laptop" by his parents which was £1,000 plus and it makes unreal tournament 3 look like quake 1.

 

[Skorpyo]

Had that exact setup for a while. It didn't run anything new, and could barely handle HL2 and FarCry.

Save your money.

 

[lacktheknack]

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The answer to all of your problems.

 

[migo]

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The answer to all of your problems.

It's useless to me in this case because I don't have the system yet (or at all, if it ends up really being pointless).

 

[lacktheknack]

snip

The answer to all of your problems.

It's useless to me in this case because I don't have the system yet (or at all, if it ends up really being pointless).

Fine.

My "expert opinion" says save your money, your set up looks really bad.

 

[migo]

Had that exact setup for a while. It didn't run anything new, and could barely handle HL2 and FarCry.

Save your money.

Nothing better than getting confirmation from someone who has experience. Thanks. If it won't even run HL2 then there's not much point.

 

[Rusty Bucket]

No way in hell that'd run Fallout 3. It'd only just manage Source engine games, and to be honest I'm not even sure if it could run them at all. Do something else with your money.

 

[Enigmers]

If you save a little more money and get a card like a 7600 or 7800, you start to be able to play Source Engine games pretty decently (I used an AMD Athlon 2500+ which ran at 1.83 Ghz and a 7600 GC)

 

[Skorpyo]

Had that exact setup for a while. It didn't run anything new, and could barely handle HL2 and FarCry.

Save your money.

Nothing better than getting confirmation from someone who has experience. Thanks. If it won't even run HL2 then there's not much point.

No problem. In fact, may I recommend this? :

http://www.hardware-revolution.com/budget-gaming-pc/

It's 4 times your current budget, but it is still very cheap.

I could go further with this if you could give me a budgeting run-down.

 

[razer17]

Yeah, that isn't going to run any decent games. You might get TF2 and L4D working on fairly low settings, but probably not.

Fallout 3, you technically meet the minimum specs, but it wouldn't run. The video card and CPU are the biggest bottlenecks, but if you have Vista then the minimum is 2GB ram anyway.

I doubt you're going to get anything decent running. You can get a pretty decent PC for $400 dollars though.

 

[migo]

Had that exact setup for a while. It didn't run anything new, and could barely handle HL2 and FarCry.

Save your money.

Nothing better than getting confirmation from someone who has experience. Thanks. If it won't even run HL2 then there's not much point.

No problem. In fact, may I recommend this? :

http://www.hardware-revolution.com/budget-gaming-pc/

It's 4 times your current budget, but it is still very cheap.

I could go further with this if you could give me a budgeting run-down.

That's a good read. I'm thinking though of just waiting until I have more money (around $1000) and start off with a Puget Aquarium PC as a base to upgrade from. Also, if I'll be buying components individually I think I need to wait for RAM prices to come down. The 1333MHz to 800MHz drop is rather telling there. That's why I was also thinking of going for a used system - a couple years ago RAM costs were lower so if I get the whole system with RAM included it might balance out.

 

[Darktau]

Well I have no idea, but my mate got bought an "ultimate gaming laptop" by his parents which was £1,000 plus and it makes unreal tournament 3 look like quake 1.

My mate just bought a gaming laptop (About £900). Difference was(my comma doesn't work) I spent the money for him (comma) runs crysis like a beast.

OT: As a rule of thumb(comma) if you want to turn up settings(comma) leave shadows on low.

 

[harvz]

if your looking to have a gaming computer thats cheap and not entirely a brick, the mimimum you could probably deal with would be at least:
-a dual core (core duo/core2duo minimum)
-1-2 GB RAM
-7000-8000 Geforce or ati of equivelance
-(may not be an issue) dont have a massive hard drive

that setup will have you running games that are a few years old at half decent quality

 

[Life_Is_A_Mess]

If you really want a gaming PC, go for a desktop, it's much cheaper and if it's good, it can run any game. I have a laptop, but it can only run up to medium-high quality games and gets all choked up with those.
Only buy a laptop if you want to play in different places.
$100 for the laptop? No. If you really want a good gaming laptop, be ready to spend about $700 or more.

 

[L33tsauce_Marty]

It would run nothing past 2005.

 

[blankedboy]

It would run nothing past 2005.

Well it would run them, but you'd have to play on low settings in 800x600 windowed mode.

I use mid-high settings on really low resolution on this computer, it's got shitty specs but the monitor's 1680x1050.