I'm thinking about ordering or building a low-budget gaming PC. This machine would be bare-bones except where it counts -- which means video card, RAM, and processor, as far as I know. It should run at a smooth, above-average framerate and decent level of detail (not necessarily the highest) while playing games like the following:
- Oblivion
- Grand Theft Auto 4
- Half-Life 2 & Portal
In other words, I won't be playing the very latest games. I have a backlog of games from the last few years, but my current computer is a workhorse laptop I bought for law school. It has integrated graphics and it can barely manage 15 FPS running Doom 3 at the lowest level of detail. Boooo.
I want to avoid game-breaking issues like not having the required "pixel shader" or whatever.
High-quality sound isn't that important to me, so I was thinking of going with integrated sound.
Easy upgrading counts. If the hardware is out of date in a couple years, I want to be able to bring it up to speed by replacing a part or two -- not half the system.
SO,
*** What sort of hardware do you recommend for this? ***
I'd like to spend less than $600 (US). That does not include a monitor.
You can recommend manufacturers/OEMs, processor and FSB speeds, RAM types/amounts/speeds, etc. Remember to balance performance with low cost. I'm not trying to run Crysis here.
Thanks.
- Oblivion
- Grand Theft Auto 4
- Half-Life 2 & Portal
In other words, I won't be playing the very latest games. I have a backlog of games from the last few years, but my current computer is a workhorse laptop I bought for law school. It has integrated graphics and it can barely manage 15 FPS running Doom 3 at the lowest level of detail. Boooo.
I want to avoid game-breaking issues like not having the required "pixel shader" or whatever.
High-quality sound isn't that important to me, so I was thinking of going with integrated sound.
Easy upgrading counts. If the hardware is out of date in a couple years, I want to be able to bring it up to speed by replacing a part or two -- not half the system.
SO,
*** What sort of hardware do you recommend for this? ***
I'd like to spend less than $600 (US). That does not include a monitor.
You can recommend manufacturers/OEMs, processor and FSB speeds, RAM types/amounts/speeds, etc. Remember to balance performance with low cost. I'm not trying to run Crysis here.
Thanks.