Want to build a PC on a budget? Meet the $500 gaming rig...

[enriquetnt]

on the matter of compatibility, i have one of those ridiculously overpriced first generation PS3s (yes the 600 dollars ones) and it plays ALL of my old PS1 and PS2 games just perfectly, dont know about later ones but this one is backward compatible all the way to the mid 90s, and whit the latest update it plays 3d Blurays ALSO perfect, sure it was expensive but is 3 consoles 1 one PLUS a fully featured BR player, my Xbox360 plays all of my Xbox games (all 6 of them) and my Wii plays all my Gamecube games (plus everithing else you could imagine in the virtual consoles) so i dont see how PC is so "superior" in backwards compatibility (unless you count piracy and emulators)

 

[Wolfram23]

I dont thing PC is EVER gonna be a as cheap as console gaming, i mean 300 dollars for a 5 year run? thats IMPOSSIBLE on PC, sure there are people who still play whit 8000 and 9000 series video cards from five years ago, but HOW MUCH THEY DID PAY FOR THOSE CARDS BACK THEN?, and how many times they have changed them, i believe the power curve for PCs has quieted down since the introduction of the corei7 (i tought well be seein 14 cores in less than a year but no, matter of fact is been a lot longer than a year and no significant jumps have been made, nvidia launch the 400s series back then and now theyr launchin the 500s series not exactly know what for, is there ANY pc game out there that can push one of these, (outside of ridiculous 5000p resolutions in 3 simultaneous monitors and such, things which are unrealistic and UNNECESARY **cough-3d-cough**) sure a 500 dollars PC that can run crysis on high is good news but lets face it, outside of the graphics crysis is a subpar fps NOT worthy of a 500 dollar investment, is a much intelligent move to buy the other 2 consoles if you only have one and youll get a truckload of exclusive games (wichever consoles there are, all 3 consoles have GREAT games and MANY right now) i paid nearly 300 dollars for the video card of my PC ALONE, just to play Starcraft 2 maxed out, im sure this card could easily hold for 4 years (about when Diablo 3 gets released and i got to expend another 300 to run it properly) and im sure that by then im gonna still be playin games on my PS3, and maybe a have a spanking new PS4

Sorry but to say that you get 5 years out of your console, you better not expect me to believe that 5 years cost only $300. At release Xboxs were $400 and PS3s were $700.

But this $500 PC, use it for 5 years, and you're ahead of the game when after 2/3 years that Xbox red rings and is out of warranty. My PS3 Slim, after 1yr 3 months, has stopped playing bluray's properly. Guess what? $135 to send it in for repairs, on a $200 console. After just over a year. Yeah, really cheap.

Also, please, learn to punctuate. Not a single period in that entire rant.

 

[Arcanist]

Still waaaay more expensive than a PS3 or Xbox. $500 is just far more than I can spend.

Is it? $300 more than a stock console, without games. While the multiplatform games are all $60 new, you can find a plethora of fun games for cheap, and I don't just mean flash based games either. For example F1 2010 is $20 on Steam right now. Black Ops is $45. Witcher 2 is $45 to preorder. First Witcher is only $10. There's 957 games under $10 on Steam, including games like Gothica, Magicka, Neverwinter Nights... I bought Assassin's Creed Brotherhood for my PS3, used, for $55 2 weeks ago. Saving anywhere from 10-40 dollars on games means in the long haul, you save.

There's also the fact that PCs do a million and one things, while consoles can only play games.

 

[Zer_]

OP, that's great and all, but is Tom's Hardware going to sell me that $500 PC pre-built?

No? Didn't think so.

It's $500 because you have to build it yourself.

Not everyone can do that. (myself included)

Edit:

So you're thinking I'm an idiot by now, "what's this guys point?" you say? To get the same thing, we have to YES pay $1000-1500.

I'll stick with my $299 xbox 360 that has greater compatibility and can do HD gaming just fine.

Nobody is going to charge you $500 to $1000 to put that thing together for you. At most $100 to $200. So total you're still looking at $600ish. Even better, get a PC nerd friend to do it for $50. I know that I love to put them together. And NOTHING has greater compatibility than a gaming PC. You can play games from the early nineties on Windows 7 with no problems. Last I checked, even the vast majority of original Xbox games aren't compatible with the 360.

I have never heard of a place that lets you pick out custom PC parts from anywhere and then puts them together for you. I also think expecting people to all have a nerd friend on hand is a bit silly.

And compatibility. What really? Every xbox game made for the xbox (and subsequently the 360) were completely compatible with their respective console.

You CANNOT say that for PCs. There are PCs you buy brand new that won't run games, give you blue screens of death, etc. It happens and you know it.

If you really know about a company that will let me buy PC parts scattered from different vendors and then will let me pay them 100-200 dollars to put it together for me, please tell me because I WOULD pay that.

There's one that is a 4 minute walk from my place... He also repairs computers.

 

[Wolfram23]

5 years on a single rig wihtout upgrading it? WTF?
Also, even with the repairs...... Thats still $175 cheaper than the PC. Also, looking at your previous posts..... why would you buy an $800 t.v, JUST for the PS3?. That doesn`t seem like the absolute cost of a *complete* system, that seems like excessive personal preference. Add to that the fact that most people have a working T.V. in their house, and you undercut you huge $1200 budget by $900

People with Core 2 Quads or AMD Phenoms, purchased a few years ago, along with decent GPUs like 9800GTX and such, are still ok for gaming.

Regardless, I wasn't trying to say it's cheaper to get the PC. The point was that, in the long run, the cost differences aren't that much after you buy peripherals and games. After, say, 4 years, even if the difference is $200, if you've spent $2000 that's only 10% difference for 150% the functionality and value...

And like I said, in that specific case I was talking about spending the money to make the gaming experience very good. Sitting back on the couch, I'd never play on less than at least 30" HDTV and consider it good. I bought a 40". Plus most people have a PC in their house too so might as well not include monitor or mouse or keyboard or even HDD or case in the cost of the PC, right?

Anyway, the graphics area of PCs - first off the hardware, it made huge leaps and bounds over the last few years, and a midrange card now like the 6850 in the build I posted is better than, and cheaper, than any previous graphics card generation. Secondly, on the software (gaming) side, we're seeing stagnation so you don't need to increase your graphics horsepower to have good graphics now and for a long while. Crysis, good ol' Crysis, is still the 2nd most demanding game released followed closely by Metro 2033 released last year. Besides those, not many games are pushing hardware to the limits, maybe STALKER would be next. So sure enough buy a decent PC now and it'll last several years without touching it, and upgrades are pretty cheap anyway. Add a second 6850 in that PC, in a year or two when they're less than $100 each, and it'll be good to go for many more years. Obviously you can argue that consoles don't need any upgrading, but by upgrading the PC you increase it's abilities.

If you just don't want a gaming PC, then fine you can just go away and have fun on your console. I really don't care. Reread the title of the thread, if you will: "Want to build a PC on a budget? Meet the $500 gaming rig..." If you don't want to build a PC on a budget, what are you doing here?

 

[Wolfram23]

On amazon and newegg there are good 32" 1080p`s for $300, and a PS3 is already 300. So, $600 if you didn`t own a T.V.

Just to be clear, if I didn`t already own a T.V, I would go for, and strongly recommend, building a PC. One thing I think people leave out when they say that their console costs less (Im guilty of this), is that their cheap, brand name PC is another $400 minimum. Atleast with the PC you get almsot an "all in one deal".

Nice Post. Hopefully potential system builders would read this. Also, STALKER can be run on a 5770 or even a 5750 with a lower res moniter.

Oh totally. If you look back, someone asked for a build in Euros so I had to downgrade a little (due to higher prices) and picked a 5770 as well as an Athelon II X4. In dollars it would probably be a $400 PC, and a 5770 is fine at pretty much any res below 1080p (and even plenty of 1080p games too)

 

[Dys]

Wait, you can get a current gen console for $200 now? What looks to be the cheapest package at JB hifi (a pretty typical Australian vendor) is considerably more. The ps3 is even more and that's not including the cost of subscription (xbox live adds up).

...Sooooo, yeah, where I'm from PC gaming is still quite a bit cheaper (you could comfortably shave $100 off the gpu and still have a system that outperforms current gen consoles).

I will throw this in that is with kinect and a large storage space.

EDIT: actually after looking at game australia, even without kinnect it's still $450

Yeah, this concept of console gaming being in any remote way as cheap as PC gaming is completely alien to me, perhaps you really can get an xbox 360 for $200 elsewhere, but you sure as hell can't down under (and that $500us PC works out to something like $490au, so the currency exchange isn't the reason).

5 years on a single rig wihtout upgrading it? WTF?
Also, even with the repairs...... Thats still $175 cheaper than the PC. Also, looking at your previous posts..... why would you buy an $800 t.v, JUST for the PS3?. That doesn`t seem like the absolute cost of a *complete* system, that seems like excessive personal preference. Add to that the fact that most people have a working T.V. in their house, and you undercut you huge $1200 budget by $900

I have a 5 year old PC (well, 6 year old) and I've not spent a cent upgrading or repairing it[footnote]I did buy a 24' screen for it and my ps3, but the 19" still works fine so it wasn't a necessary upgrade.[/footnote], though I did spent $1200au (which at the time was something like $700us)[footnote]This includes a 19" screen, which at the time wasn't cheap.[/footnote]...I guess that xbox 360 I bought 2 years later (for $650au) that needed a full replacement is better value? Even my PS3, which I bought secondhand a few years ago, set me back over $600 (though it did come with some games/extra controllers)...and my PS3 has a broken HDMI port, which would cost a further $150 to repair. So, long story short, the PC is more reliable, more powerful and, assuming the cost of replacing the xbox 360, is actually cheaper than an xbox 360 (even though it was bought when the $au was much less valuable).

Also, isn't saying the cost of a tv can be ignored because most people already have one in their house a bit like saying the cost of a case, keyboard, mouse, screen, speaker system and in many cases core computer components (motherboard, ram etc) can be ignored because most people have a semi-modern computer in their house that those parts can be salvaged from? Funny how those costs never seem to be ignored when people quote a PC price....

 

[Hashime]

5 years on a single rig wihtout upgrading it? WTF?
Also, even with the repairs...... Thats still $175 cheaper than the PC. Also, looking at your previous posts..... why would you buy an $800 t.v, JUST for the PS3?. That doesn`t seem like the absolute cost of a *complete* system, that seems like excessive personal preference. Add to that the fact that most people have a working T.V. in their house, and you undercut you huge $1200 budget by $900

People with Core 2 Quads or AMD Phenoms, purchased a few years ago, along with decent GPUs like 9800GTX and such, are still ok for gaming.

Regardless, I wasn't trying to say it's cheaper to get the PC. The point was that, in the long run, the cost differences aren't that much after you buy peripherals and games. After, say, 4 years, even if the difference is $200, if you've spent $2000 that's only 10% difference for 150% the functionality and value...

And like I said, in that specific case I was talking about spending the money to make the gaming experience very good. Sitting back on the couch, I'd never play on less than at least 30" HDTV and consider it good. I bought a 40". Plus most people have a PC in their house too so might as well not include monitor or mouse or keyboard or even HDD or case in the cost of the PC, right?

Anyway, the graphics area of PCs - first off the hardware, it made huge leaps and bounds over the last few years, and a midrange card now like the 6850 in the build I posted is better than, and cheaper, than any previous graphics card generation. Secondly, on the software (gaming) side, we're seeing stagnation so you don't need to increase your graphics horsepower to have good graphics now and for a long while. Crysis, good ol' Crysis, is still the 2nd most demanding game released followed closely by Metro 2033 released last year. Besides those, not many games are pushing hardware to the limits, maybe STALKER would be next. So sure enough buy a decent PC now and it'll last several years without touching it, and upgrades are pretty cheap anyway. Add a second 6850 in that PC, in a year or two when they're less than $100 each, and it'll be good to go for many more years. Obviously you can argue that consoles don't need any upgrading, but by upgrading the PC you increase it's abilities.

If you just don't want a gaming PC, then fine you can just go away and have fun on your console. I really don't care. Reread the title of the thread, if you will: "Want to build a PC on a budget? Meet the $500 gaming rig..." If you don't want to build a PC on a budget, what are you doing here?

On amazon and newegg there are good 32" 1080p`s for $300, and a PS3 is already 300. So, $600 if you didn`t own a T.V.

Just to be clear, if I didn`t already own a T.V, I would go for, and strongly recommend, building a PC. One thing I think people leave out when they say that their console costs less (Im guilty of this), is that their cheap, brand name PC is another $400 minimum. Atleast with the PC you get almsot an "all in one deal".

Nice Post. Hopefully potential system builders would read this. Also, STALKER can be run on a 5770 or even a 5750 with a lower res moniter.

I have a 5770, I can max out any modern game on my 1600x900 monitor. The 5770 is a great card. (I bought mine just after they were released, so I paid 200 for it)

 

[Sabiancym]

I have very very high end gaming machine. Thousands and thousands of dollars went in to this thing.

Some console players would laugh and point at me for that, but I think that money was well spent and I'm about to throw a few more grand at it in upgrades.

I'm on this thing constantly. Its my gaming machine, my work machine, my media center, my research tool, my damn near everything. The price per hour is ridiculously low. Especially compared to something like a car where people spend $20K+ and only use it for not even an hour a day.



The only thing stopping the PC from becoming the dominant gaming platform is computer literacy rate. For some reason a lot of people just aren't willing to even try to use a computer for anything other than browsing the web. They think it's too hard. Why they think this I don't know. It takes very little knowledge to install and configure games to run.

But I guess that's just telling of the gaming industry as a whole nowadays. Lowest common denominator appeasement while people wanting more advanced and smarter gameplay have to just accept it.

 

[viranimus]

Well I am a firm believer that you can make a workable system that can game for under 500$. Hell I just built a PC for my mom for 350 and with the exception of the GEforce 7300LE it can run Arkham asylum. Now If I went so far as to drop say 60 more dollars on it for a 1gb 9500, It would run the game pretty damned well for her 1240x1024 monitor.

The PC looks pretty good all things considered, though with the AMD components, I think what some people have said about having to upgrade within a year would be a likelihood. Not a fan of AMD. To each their own taste. I perfer overall reliability and longevity over bleeding edge graphics, especially in a system that is far from bleeding edge.

 

[TehCookie]

Here's the big reason why I have a PC: It isn't limited to only playing games. I can spend $300 on a console, and sure it can play movies and games but not at the same time! I spent extra and have dual monitors, and I love it so I can watch anime and do other stuff like post on forums, doodle in gimp, or play games on the other. Or the fact that it has all my music so I can play whatever I want when doing something. You're not paying $500 or more on a system just for gaming, you get so much more for it. If you don't like to do those things the a console is fine, but I like multitasking. Actually most of the time when I play my console I'm still sitting at my desk surfing the web.

 

[Thee Prisoner]

In case you want to know what I'm talking about without clicking his link... here's a summary of what the page looks like:

Asus M4N68T-M V2 AM3 DDR3 NVIDIA Geforce 7025/nForce 630a Chipset mATX w/ Onboard Graphics and Core Unlocker, 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, USB 2.0, SATA-II RAID, 1 Gen2 PCIe, 1 PCIe X1 & 2 PCI [-45]
GigaByte GA-770T-USB3 AMD 770 Chipset Support DDR3 Ultra Durable?3 Socket AM3 ATX Mainboard w/ 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, USB 3.0, SATA-II, RAID, 1 Gen2 PCIe, 4 PCIe X1, & 2 PCI [-15]
GigaByte GA-880GM-USB3 AMD 880G Chipset Support DDR3 Ultra Durable?3 Socket AM3 mATX Mainboard w/ Built-in ATI HD4200 Video, 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, HDMI, USB 3.0, SATA-II, RAID, 1 Gen2 PCIe, 1 PCIe X1, & 2 PCI [+0]
GigaByte GA-870A-UD3 AMD 870/SB850 chipset DDR3 Ultra Durable?3 Socket AM3 ATX Mainboard w/ 7.1 Audio, GBLAN, Support 6-core CPU, CPU Auto Unlocker, USB3.0, SATA-III, ON/OFF Charge for IPod, RAID, 2 Gen2 PCIe, 2 PCIe X1, & 3 PCI [+0]

-----------------------------------------------------SLI Ready------------------------------------------------------
Asus M4N98TD EVO AM3 NVIDIA nForce 980a SLI Chipset DDR3 ATX w/ 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, USB2.0, IEEE1394, SATA-II, RAID, 2 Gen2 PCIe, 2 PCIe X1 & 2 PCI [+45]

--------------------------------------------------CrossFireX Ready--------------------------------------------------
ASUS M4A87TD EVO AMD 870 Chipset CrossFireX Support DDR3 Socket AM3 ATX w/ 7.1 Audio, GbLAN, IEEE1394a, USB3.0, SATA-III, RAID, 2 Gen2 PCIe, 1 PCIe X1, & 3 PCI [+0]
Asus M4A89GTD Pro/USB3 AMD 890GX Chipset Hardware Core Unlocker CrossFireX Support DDR3 Sckt AM3 ATX w/ Built-in ATI HD4290 Graphic, HDMI, DVI, 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, IEEE1394, USB3.0, SATA-III, RAID, 1 Gen2 PCIe, 1 PCIe X4, 1 PCIe X1, & 2 PCI [+60]
(3-Way CrossFire Support) Asus Crosshair IV Formula AMD 890FX Chipset CrossFireX Support DDR3 Socket AM3 ATX w/ 7.1 Audio, GbLAN, IEEE1394a, USB3.0, SATA-III, RAID, 3 Gen2 PCIe, & 2 PCI [+132]
GigaByte GA-890XA-UD3 AM3 AMD 790X Chipset Support CrossFireX DDR3 ATX w/ 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, IEEE1394, USB3.0, SATA-III, RAID, 2 Gen2 PCIe, 3 PCIe X1 & 2 PCI [+36]
GigaByte GA-890GPA-UD3H AMD 890GX Chipset CrossFireX Support DDR3 Socket AM3 Ultra Durable?3 ATX w/ Built-in Integrated ATI Radeon HD4290 Graphic Video, HDMI, DVI, 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, IEEE1394, USB3.0, SATA-III, RAID, 2 Gen2 PCIe, 3 PCIe X1, & 2 PCI [+42]
(3-Way CrossFire Support) GigaByte GA-890FXA-UD5 AMD 890FX Chipset Support CrossFireX DDR3 Ultra Durable?3 Socket AM3 ATX Mainboard w/ 7.1 HD Audio, eSATA, Dual GbLAN, USB 3.0, SATA-III, RAID, IEEE1394a, 4 Gen2 PCIe, 2 PCIe X1, & 1 PCI [+96]
MSI 890GXM-G65 AMD 890GX Chipset CrossFireX Support DDR3 Socket AM3 ATX w/ Built-in Integrated Graphic Video, HDMI, DVI, 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, USB3.0, SATA-III, RAID, 2 Gen2 PCIe, 1 PCIe X1, & 1 PCI [+37]
(3-Way CrossFire Support) MSI 890FXA-GD70 AMD 890FX Chipset CrossFireX Support DDR3 Socket AM3 ATX Mainboard w/ 7.1 HD Audio, eSATA, Dual GbLAN, USB 3.0, SATA-III, RAID, 5 Gen2 PCIe, 1 PCIe X1, & 1 PCI [+118]

YEAH REAL SIMPLE AND EASY.

Those are all motherboards btw. Techie types like me like to have that info so they know what they are getting.

You don't have to be a techie. With these custom build sites it will show an error if you
you pick an incompatible part or forget to add something. Plus they have live chat to help you out.

I can understand being confused. That's a lot on information. But like anything, a little research is good. Building a computer can look like a daunting task. But you would be surprised how easy it is.

If you like your console fine. No big deal.

The only thing I don't understand and this isn't solely directed at you, is that I assume everybody here thats posting already has a computer. So for $100-200 you could upgrade your desktop to a good gaming computer.