Topic: suggestions: good PC that can handle games for under $1200? (Read 1337 times)

Mr_Tricorder · « **on:** May 09, 2006, 02:27:05 pm »

My fiancee just got a tax refund for about $1200 and wants to use it to buy a new computer. She wants to go to Fry's today to shop. We've been talking about a new computer for her for a while, since her current one is an old Pentium II machine running Windows 98 on a 6GB hard drive. I'm going to help her build it, but I'm a little out of touch with the current components on the market. What components would you recommend that are good quality, run most games reasonably well, and all costs under $1200?

Dracho · « **Reply #1 on:** May 09, 2006, 02:45:26 pm »

www.pricewatch.com

Here is a new system from just one of the vendors, $804, free UPS shipping.

http://www.unitedmicro.com/cgi-bin/sysw.cgi?69151514

Case X-QPACK CASE 420WATT BLACK/SILVER 3-SIDE WINDOW X-QPACK-AL/420 mATX
Motherboard Asus A8N-VM SC939 GeFORCE 6100 DDR400 PCI-E x16+INTEGRATED GeFORCE 6 GPU,SATA LAN AUDIO mATX
CPU AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800 DUAL CORE RETAIL BOX w/Heatsink & Cooling Fan
Memory 512MB PC3200 DDR400 Samsung
Hard Drive Western Digital 80GB 7200 RPM 8MB SATA WD800JD
Video Card eVGA 256MB GeForce 7300GS PCI-Express N436
DVD-RW AOpen 16X DVD+RW/-RW DUAL LAYER DUW1616 3 COLOR BEZELS BEIGE/BLACK/SILVER BEZEL RETAIL BOX
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home

Here are their "Gamer Systems" (this is just the one vendor) starting at $657

http://www.unitedmicro.com/cgi-bin/sysw.cgi?69151514

Overmind · « **Reply #2 on:** May 10, 2006, 04:12:42 am »

6100 is a desaster-video card. Won't run anything new above low settings.
I recommand at least a 1600XT card.
If you want games, the most important thing is the video card.
And dual core is not a necesity in running the latest games. The video card, again, is.

Dracho · « **Reply #3 on:** May 10, 2006, 07:10:24 am »

Quote from: Overmind on May 10, 2006, 04:12:42 am

6100 is a desaster-video card. Won't run anything new above low settings.
I recommand at least a 1600XT card.
If you want games, the most important thing is the video card.
And dual core is not a necesity in running the latest games. The video card, again, is.

I think that's a the Nvidia MB chipset, lower it says the video card is a 7300 PCI express.

Mr_Tricorder · « **Reply #4 on:** May 10, 2006, 01:28:24 pm »

Thanks for the replies. We went to Fry's and bought all of the parts in one stop (she wanted this thing up and running as soon as possible). Here's what we got.
CPU: AMD Athlon64 3200+
Motherboard: ASUS A8N-VM
RAM: Kingston 1GB DDR RAM PC 4000
Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce 7300GS PCIexpress 256MB DDR RAM
Sound Card: Turtle Beach Catalina
Hard Drive: Seagate 250GB
CD-Writer: pulled from her old system (planning on replacing it with a DVD writer soon)

The case is a simple black and silver case. She didn't want anything fancy or expensive. We also got a 19" flat screen monitor.
Altogether, everything we bought for it cost a little over a thousand dollars.

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