I have $3,000. I need a gaming machine.

[Bonksnp]

I need the whole kitten kabootle. LCD, speakers, mouse, yadda yadda.

I want at least:

- 250-300 gig o HDD space
- 2 gig o RAM
- an AMD FX proc
- a SLI mobo
- dual nvidia video cards


GO!

 

[Pappy]

If you have to ask these questions then I would just go to www.dell.com

 

[Goran]

3000 is a lot u could save $1000 easily and get near equal performance. Its not worth the extra $1000 for a marginal increase

 

[Bonksnp]

So $2000 is optimal for a gaming machine? Including mouse. monitor everything?

I just want to get some ideas......I have a pretty good idea of what Im looking for, just wondering what other people think

 

[454Casull]

Athlon FX = not worth it
SLI = not as cost effective as a single card

If you do need to fill up your budget, SLI does give you the highest FPS right now. But at the very least, wait for Conroe.

 

[Goran]

My money is on conroe as well. And yes $2000 is plenty enough for a complete rig.

 

[digitalx0]

If you have $3000 to spend, spend $3000. You can always build a nice raid array... gold plated heatsinks... uhh.... diamond incrusted gpu cores..? I take that back, don't spend $3000 on a computer. $2000 is plently.

 

[BMWlover]

Don't mean to sound like a sale's pitch, but if you can't or don't want to build your own, go to www.VelocityMicro.com and click away.

 

[ilkhan]

If he is asking for an FX, I would expect the $3k to available and burning a hole in his pocket. Between the FX and a high quality screen, mouse, keyboard, and speakers, he can easily burn more than half of his budget. A pair of 7900GTs and hes down to $6-700 available for mobo, memory, case, PSU, HDD, optical, etc. Don't forget $200 for XP...

Hes not looking for a tower, hes looking for a complete system, big difference.

 

[Shmuckety]

One of these will suck up a bunch of that cash.

 

[GForce64]

3k is ample for a complete system, I'd use the whole budget.

I'd also wait a bit for Conroe to rear its head so you could gauge your options a bit better, but you could knock out everything but the CPU/Mobo, parts-wise.

Have you considered ordering an OEM PC? Companies like Velocity Micro and Maingear make excellent gaming-rigs. Might be something to investigate if you don't want to/aren't comfortable with building (you didn't say in your post, so...)

 

[454Casull]

C2D E6600 - ~$320
C2D motherboard - ~$180
OCZ Gold 2x1GB DDR2-667 4-4-4-8 EL - $187, free shipping, $40 mail-in rebate
Sapphire X1900XT 512MB - $381, free shipping
Western Digital WD1500ADFD Raptor 150GB - $259, free shipping
Samsung Spinpoint P SP2504C 250GB SATA-II - $84, free shipping
Pioneer DVR-111D - $36 + $5 shipping
OCZ OCZ600GXSSLI GameXStream 600W - $116 + $12 shipping
Antec SLK3000B - $29 + ~$20 shipping
Viewsonic VX2025WM 20" 8-bit LCD - $339, free shipping
Logitech G15 keyboard - $69, free shipping (currently OOS)
Logitech Z-5500 5.1 - $265, free shipping
Corepad Magna mouse pad - $29 + ~$7 shipping

Logitech G5 laser mouse - $45, free shipping
or
Logitech G7 cordless laser mouse - $65, free shipping

Total - $2383/2403 including shipping, plus tax if applicable, before $40 MIR

You can certainly spend more on the case if you like; I'm just fond of the SLK3000B because it's cheap and can be very quiet.

 

[Grap3S0da]

^wow same build I was imagining for myself, 454Casull, except for I would probably prefer a Lian Li 7B Plus II, a 500GB Seagate HDD and that ~$700 NEC 20.1" WS LCD.
The Viewsonic is more budget friendly though haha. Do you guys think that Core 2 Duo will be that price when it first comes out? I remember when Newegg first had the X2 3800+ (which was supposed to be around the $300 range at that time) but they were selling them for $400+ My OC'd Opteron 146 should last me until C2D drops in price and there are more mobos for it.

I would do what everyone else is saying and wait for C2D. Even if you don't want to buy Intel, prices on AM2 will probably drop to compete w/ C2D later this summer. You can also get an X-fi and some extras like round cables + silent fans if you want to spend all of your budget. $3k seems like a lot but its a good investment.

 

[osalcido]

come on dude... at least post what you're thinking of buying so we can take you seriously and give tips..

I'm just gonna copy paste casull's post everytime a thread like this comes up

 

[R3d]

are you wanting to build this yourself? or get a prebuilt system.. if you're wanting to spend that much it might be worth it to just get a prebuilt.. but who knows..