ABOUT BENCH FORUMS PODCAST LOGIN REGISTER
PC Components
Smartphones & tablets
Systems
ENTERPRISE & IT
GUIDES

Gaming Buyer's Guide - November 2004

 by Jarred Walton on November 21, 2004 5:54 PM EST
70 Comments | Add A Comment
70 Comments

AMD Budget Gaming System, Part Two

We cut several corners in order to reduce the price as far as possible on the first AMD system, but if you can afford a few upgrades, we would suggest the following instead.

Budget AMD Athlon 64 939 System
Hardware Recommended Component Price
Processor AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 1.8 GHz (939) 90 nm 170
Motherboard Abit AV8 (939) 103
Memory 1x512MB Mushkin Basic 2.5-4-4 75
Video Card XFX GeForce 6600GT AGP 128 MB 229
Hard Drive Seagate Barracuda 80GB EIDE model 7200.7 59
Optical Drive NEC DVD+/-RW Drive Model 3500A 72
Case and Power Supply Athenatech A602 Black/Silver with 350W PSU 62
Display Samsung 793DF 17 Black/Silver CRT (1280x1024@75 Hz) 139
Speakers Logitech Z-640 5.1 52
Keyboard and Mouse Logitech Optical Desktop Combo 26
Bottom Line   987



Click to enlarge.
Abit's K8T800 Pro based AV8 motherboard has dropped about $20 in price since its release, and it still offers great features and performance. Coming with support for the socket 939 platform, it should have more longevity and will also provide more performance than comparable socket 754 systems. This is especially true in games, where the dual-channel RAM and other performance tweaks can add 5% to 15% to the overall speed. For the RAM, we recommend starting with one 512 MB DIMM and upgrading to a second DIMM and dual-channel when you can afford the extra $75. You could also just add in the RAM right now and push the price over $1000.

The recommended CPU is AMD's cheapest socket 939 chip, the 1.8 GHz 3000+. This chip uses the new 90 nm process and can overclock very well, but more importantly, it has dropped in price about $50 since it first launched. It seems that since the chips were in such high demand, many resellers bumped the price up quite a bit for the first few weeks. Our tests have shown the 90 nm parts to actually be slightly faster than the older 130 nm parts, although the precise details of what changes were made remain largely unknown. What's more impressive is that even the 2.2 GHz 3500+ 90 nm part requires less power and generates less heat than even the slowest 130 nm Athlon 64. If you want to try your hand at overclocking, these chips have shown a lot of potential, with some people reporting overclocks of up to 2.8 GHz. At that speed, performance is very close to that of the FX-55 chip that costs over four times as much. Talk about bang for the buck! You would certainly want better RAM for such an endeavor, though. For the extra $75, then, the socket 939 platform offers quite a few desirable upgrades.


Click to enlarge.
We also changed the graphics card for the 939 platform. Yes, you can use the more expensive card on the less expensive system, but we were really looking to cut costs as much as possible while still maintaining a decent level of performance. For $30 more, the GeForce 6600GT is now available, and performance ranges from being slightly faster than the 9800 Pro to being significantly faster. Doom 3, in particular, shows a huge advantage with the 6600GT. You might also wonder about the GeForce 6800 cards. While they have 12 pipelines, they are also clocked slower, so it ends up basically being a tie in many situations when compared to the 6600GT. At higher resolutions, however, the increased memory bandwidth of the 6800 almost always wins out - a 256-bit interface running at 700 MHz is still about 40% faster than a 128-bit interface running at 1000 MHz.

If you want to try your hand at overclocking, we would also go with the 6800. There have been many reports of success with using a utility like Riva Tuner to re-enable the last four pixel pipelines, and combined with an overclock to 400 MHz, it will definitely outperform the best that the 6600GT can put up. While the list price of the 6800 is $300, there are a few locations that have them for $250 (plus shipping and possibly tax). That's only $20 more than the current price of the 6600GT, so it's definitely worth considering. Once the price of the 6600GT drops - as we assume it will over the next month or two, judging by the price of the 6600GT PCIe parts - the 6800 becomes less attractive.

Student Gaming Student Gaming, Blue Man Style
PRINT THIS ARTICLE
Comments Locked

70 Comments

View All Comments

  • Arkali - Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - link

    For Intel gaming you should have picked the new AOPEN socket 479 855GME motherboard and a Dothan processor.

  • Glassmaster - Monday, November 22, 2004 - link

    #30 Doesn't look like they are going to defend their PSU recommendations. I just want to know if they actually build and stress test these systems with the Generic PSUs to make sure their recommended systems really are reliable.

    Glassmaster.

  • Live - Monday, November 22, 2004 - link

    I like the format of this guide. I think the guides in general has been a great addition to Anandtech.

    To bad PCI-e motherboards is not out yet. Since the sli previews are not out in force yet I'm still not 100% sure if its something you want on your motherboard for more upgradability but it sure looks like it is not. Too expensive both in terms of motherboard and the 2 cards. But for a gamer, investing in anything else then PCI-e seems like a bad move. Unless you like to buy second-hand. I bet a lot of AGP cards will soon be available on the market as the high end crowd switches to the latest.

  • mldeveloper - Monday, November 22, 2004 - link

    i like the format of this guide, since i always jumped to the end to see the final price breakdown anyway.

  • nurazlanshah - Monday, November 22, 2004 - link

    is the a big difference in fps between 128mb and 256mb for a same graphic card?

  • deathwalker - Monday, November 22, 2004 - link

    Jarod...great writeup. Ignore all the sniping. It's a tough job doing a article like this and sometimes there just aren't any absolute rights and wrongs. Somepeople just like to pipe-off and be heard.

  • AaronAxvig - Monday, November 22, 2004 - link

    #15 I think if you really wanted maximum performance for a LOT of money, you would go with RAIDed SCSI. Very fast, no?

  • Momental - Monday, November 22, 2004 - link

    Fantastic article, Trog......I mean Jarrod. ;)

    I was considering going the SLI route with (2) two 6600GT's, but then realized that the performance is identical to that of one 6800GT. And who wants to take the chance of one of the GPU's defecating the bed? Additionally, the cost of the SLI-capable board ain't gonna be cheap. I will, however, wait for the VIA and nVidia PCI-e boards to become available before finally building a new system.

    The only thing I might change from the mid-range system is to put in the lower latency RAM, such as the OCZ Plat Rev. 2 or the Ballistix. Pop on a good aftermarket HSF on the CPU and we're good to go!!

  • gilkman - Monday, November 22, 2004 - link

    Very nice article. It's been a few years since my last homebuilt but with the new games it's def time to upgrade. I like the format of this article. It gives me a few more options and insight compared to the similar guides they have over at sharkeyextreme.com

    I am def looking at high end parts to put together and I was very interested in the Dell 20 inch widescreen LCD - Does anyone have any comments on using a widescreen LCD for games? The Dell widescreen has 16MS refresh and high resolutions, and I know that HL2 will support widescreen play, but what about other modern games like RTS's and RPG's? Is it safer to stick with a 4:3 screen?

  • SDA - Monday, November 22, 2004 - link

    Looks good, but I object to using a cheap PSU for a lot of the systems. It's worth the small amount of extra money you pay to get a better PSU... a TON of the problems I've seen in DIY systems resulted from cheapo PSUs that couldn't deliver enough power or simply couldn't deliver clean enough power. Cheap PSU = false savings, IMHO. There are plenty of good PSUs out there for cheap (TTGI, CWT aka Antec).

    And yeah, sure, the budget rigs don't stress the PSU much. I still hold that you shouldn't go generic. Having looked inside a lot of generic PSUs, I can safely say that I wouldn't ever want to see one in ANY system I build.
Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved.
BENCH
TOPICS
FOLLOW
ABOUT

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now