How to Build a Kick-ass $800 Gaming PC

Benson Hong and Florence Ion from MaximumPC.com: "In October, we spec'ed out a respectable $800 gaming PC in our monthly Buyer's Guide feature. While the price and parts looked promising, we had to see for ourselves if this sub-$1000 system could hold its ground against today's top rigs. After all, if you don't need to spend your next month's paycheck on performance parts, why should you?

"We had to make some careful choices to keep this machine within our constrained budget, but in the end we were surprised by this little PC's kick ass performance. Want to learn how to build it yourself? We'll walk you through our meticulous build process, explain why we chose each component, and give you our final thoughts on the benchmark results this little-PC-that-could throws down."

[PS-3PO the Droid]

I can get 4gig at newegg for the exact same price.

[Nathan Drake]

Love your name,has an "Alternate account" ring to it

[ElementX]

Your name as a "douchebag" ring to it.

Sony fanboy. I seriously doubt you even own a 360, but you seem to always comment in the 360 articles. Actually, you seem to voice your opinion in every article regardless of console. Seems that you only have 9 bubbles because of other Sony fanboys.

[KidMakeshift]

No reason to get fussy

[Fishy Fingers]

Take the $800 bucks and buy a ticket to imagination land?

It's not a bad rig, but far from "kick ass". Your basically getting a machine that will give you good results from UE3, a notoriously easy engine to run. You'd stuggle with the majority of current games like COD4/5 and be seriously disappointed by games on the horizen.

The article also suggests benchmarks for a "typical 22-inch LCD" so unless you manage to find one in the street, with a half decent k/b and mouse to go alone with it you can stick at least another $300 onto of that.

[Elimin8]

$800.00 Just for Gaming and they b!tch about the Ps3 Price..... For that price I can get a 80 GIG PS3, Xb360 Arcade and a couple of games... Just saying.

[Fishy Fingers]

Yes but obviously a PC has far more practical applications than just gaming. Case in point, you here on N4G.

[FordGTGuy]

Maybe in a lower resolution with no filters. Trying turning all the filters on with high quality textures and a higher resolution. Want a challenge try running Crysis with high quality textures, all filters and in 1680x1050 smoothly on a single graphics card.

[moses]

That 4850 will take on COD4 and 5 easily, hell I can run COD5 maxed out with max AA + AF on 1920x1200 with over 60 fps on my GTX 280 most games are easy as hell to run, the only ball breakers are the PC exclusive DX 10 games.

[Ryudo]

Sorry but your wrong I run COD4 at 1680x1050 on my secondary machine.

Specs:
Asus mobo A8N-SLI
2gig of crucial value select ram
AMD 4000+ Single core
Graphics Nvidia 7800GT

Am even using 4x AA with that old rig and everything on high. my Dell XPS E6700 core 2 and my 8800GTOC runs that game at 1920x1200 with full everything like its a joke.

[evrfighter]

struggle with cod4/5 with an e8400 and a 4850....lolololol...that is all

I lied. I'm using an x2 5400 (yes thats amd, which an e8400 spanks to next tuesday) and an hd3870. yes my rig is about 250 dollars cheaper than this one. I play cod4/5 All high 4xAA at 80-100fps constant.

I can definately max it out with 8xAA but id be going into the 50-60fps range. most casual gamers won't notice a different between those two ranges but it's night and day for me. Even Though lcd monitors will only show 75 frames max I keep it there so I'm assured I'll never dip below 75fps.

edit. Whats with that crappy Power Supply. 15 dollars cheaper would get them an OCZ stealthstream 600watt and 30 dollars cheaper would get them the 500watt stealthstream at the egg.

[FordGTGuy]

for a hundred or so more dollars you could get 1TB HDD, Radeon HD4870 1GB or GTX 260 216 core and 4 GB of ram through newegg.

[caladbolg777]

... go to http://www.newegg.com, toss in a collection of choice hardware pieces, check out, and get ready to enjoy a number of 360 "exclusives" the way they were MEANT to be played.

[fossilfern]

Could of got that AMD 7750 Black Edition its like £60 and ALMOST as fast as an E8400 and it overclocks well

[FordGTGuy]

they got a E8400 over 5.0 Ghz although that is extreme cooling.

[moses]

The same CLOCKSPEED, not performance, not sure if you know, but Core2Duo architecture>>>AMDx2 plus you can OC the 45nm E8400 EASILY to 3.6~4 on air.

[Funky Town_TX]

What about an OS. Are they free or something. I don't steal software but I did want to know. Everyone builds PCs but were do they get the OS from for free and legal.

[JDW]

Q6600 @ 3.4 Ghz
P5k-SE
HID HD4850 iceq4 700/1050
4 gb Corsair xms2 RAM
640GB WD
Corsair HX620W
Windows XP SP3 x86

I run at 1680 x 1050, and I can run Crysis (DX9, High) at an average of 35-40 fps with 2XAA.

CoD4 runs at the same resolution with 4XAA, 16XAF and maximum details at a constant 60 - 90 fps. Not got World at War yet, but I'm sure I will get similar performance due to the same engine being used.

This system is comparable in price to the one in the article....and as you can see I have no problem running Crysis at a very playable rate with some eye candy turned on.

Consider that the same engine is being stripped down and streamlined so that it can run smaller environments at 30fps on consoles and it is clear that while PC gaming is expensive, the performance rewards are obvious.

[Mutley416]

My 797$ Rig.... can do it all Night Long!!!
Crisis/WOW/WAW...you can`t stop the PWNEG!!!
Phenom 4 2.6ghz
4850
Beefed up power supply and cooling system-

Check out PCUSA.com

800$ buys you a monster!!!

any mut knows that-

[sukru]

Everybody knows you can have it a few dollars cheaper, or increase the performance if you spend a hundred or more (they even mention that).

The point is "helping people" (i.e.: newbies) do this on their own. They've even shown step-by-step assembly instructions with illustrative photos in the article.

Instead of trying to show of your gaming gig, you may try to build such a site and actually help people.

[krazykid]

I could build a better pc with $800 just slower the case price and find a case that includes a psu.

[lelo]

I have been telling this for a long time... 700-800$ you can get a very decent PC (will last at least 3 years). Console fanboys say it costs 5000$ for a PC. Noobs.

BTW, with the 800$ in the article, i could build a better PC.

[snowsurge]

The PC has good specs, if you plan on keeping the deal cheap and not very hardcore gaming.