$300 Gaming PC O_O

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Darkest.Hr

New Member
I'm on a super tight budget and I'm looking to build a gaming PC for roughly $300.

So far I have:

LG 16X DVD-ROM Optical Drive SATA Black OEM


Antec Nine Hundred Mid Tower Gamer Case 900 ATX 9 Drive Bay No PS Top USB2.0 1394 Audio

G.SKILL F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL Ripjaws PC3-12800 4GB 2X2GB DDR3-1600 CL9-9-9-24 Core i5 1.5V Memory Kit

AMD Athlon II X2 250 Dual Core Processor Socket AM3 3.0GHZ 2MB L2 Cache 65W Retail Box

Western Digital Caviar SE 160GB SATA2 7200RPM 8.9MS 8MB Hard Drive OEM 3 Year MFR Warranty

I still need to select a Motherboard and power supply, can anyone make any suggestions?

At the moment the total is $253 I believe, with the mail-in rebate. excluding taxes.

I'll be running Windows 7 as well.

I'm a complete noob at this stuff as well >_<

I know this probably sounds crazy trying to achieve a 'decent' rig for around $300, I hope its possible O_O
 
kobaj

kobaj

VIP Member
I'm just going to be frank and say no.

For 300$ you're not really going to find the components to make a moderately good gaming pc. Maybe a decent home server or web browsing machine...but that's it. You have no GPU planned, case PSUs are terrible, the hard drive is small, no OS, etc etc etc.

However, I do have some suggestions (because this post sounds like a total downer and I don't mean to be so rude), may I recommend any of the following.

A) Save up your money. After a while you could build a nice gaming machine for double what you currently have (600$), and a kick butt gaming rig with all the fixings for three times (900$).

B) Buy Barbones/Used/prebuilt. While not the newest components, it'll be /a/ gaming rig. I don't know how well it would play games.

C) Get a console. Xbox 360's are like 199$ new (I think, its been a while since I purchased mine) and that leaves enough for two (used) games!

D) Find another hobby besides video games?

300$ is just too little for a gaming rig IMO, Sorry.
 
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iRobsta

New Member
It depends whats games your playing too. If you want to play main stream games, well then, i'm sorry but your outa luck ):

I agree when the others said to buy a ps3 or xbox. You'd be happier with that than a laggy 300$ computer and you'd be very frustrated with the limitations.
 
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Darkest.Hr

New Member
I've had a PS3 and 360 for a long time. I want to building a gaming PC so I can play PC exclusives such as WoW, and CSS. I wasn't looking for anything to run Crysis for example. Ah well.
 
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iRobsta

New Member
Darkest.Hr said:
I've had a PS3 and 360 for a long time. I want to building a gaming PC so I can play PC exclusives such as WoW, and CSS. I wasn't looking for anything to run Crysis for example. Ah well.
Click to expand...

Well if you just want WoW and CSS. I'd recommend atleast going up to 600$. If that's still too high then 500$. But anything lower I'd say is kinda useless. :/
Since, some times in WoW you could have those raids with all the players in one single area which would easily cause a 300$ comptuer to lag. And with CSS you also have some maps that are complex which also could cause you to lagg. You gatta boost the price up a bit :)

No offense.
 
=OSS*Xconman=

=OSS*Xconman=

New Member
I know that you said you would wait to build a system. Keep in mind that it doesn't take that much to get a good thing going! You can ask family for your operating system (which is usually $100 for OEM) and call it good! I build you this system for $450 before the OS was added making it $550. As far as OS goes, this can pull Windows 7 64bit.

I aimed for little sacrifice for performance, so you would be able to enjoy this build as long as possible. If you are tech savvy at all you could possibly burn a disk of the operating system you are using now and use your cd key off your computer you currently own, and when you build your new computer use that. But remember not to use two cd keys on two different running computers as that is against Microsoft EULA. Or you could possibly run Linux (requires for tech savvy) Ubuntu. You would have to use loopholes to make games and programs work until you could get windows and dual boot. Anyways, hope you enjoy.

Specs: (All Medium Settings, usually no AA) @ 1280 x 1024 res
Farcry 2 - min: 30fps max: 48fps
WoW Cataclysm - Min: 35fps Max: 55fps
Crysis - Min: 34fps Max: 52fps
CoD MW2 - Min: 32fps Max: 44fps

ASUS M4A785-M AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 785G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

AMD Athlon II X2 250 Regor 3.0GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor

Kingston HyperX 4GB (4 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Quad Kit

Western Digital Caviar Green WD6400AADS-FR 640GB 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

HIS H467QR1GH Radeon HD 4670 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

Diablotek PHD Series PHD550 550W ATX12V V2.2 Power Supply

APEX Vortex 3620mini Black Metal / ABS MicroATX Tower Computer Case

LG Black 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 22X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 22X DVD Burner

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound

2x LOGISYS Computer LT80UVBL 80mm UV Blue LED Case Fan
 
Aastii

Aastii

VIP Member
@Xconman, if he is currently using an OEM version of Windows, he can't install it on his new computer, so says the EULA.

@OP, you could sell your current system, regardless of the specs (unless it is stoneage), you should be able to get ~$100 for it, putting you up to $400 budget, which would make some pretty decent upgrades possible.

With the $300 budget though, to play WoW/CSS, WoW on low - medium, CSS on high would be doable, if you can afford an extra $20 or so.

CPU: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103903 $63

Motherboard: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157176 $65

HDD: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136075 $45

Memory: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820144455 $23.50

Video Card: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130533 $77

PSU: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371029 $51.50

Case: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163168 $40

DVD drive: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135224 $18

With rebates comes out to $323

I assume, as you said you are going to be running Win 7, you already have the OS

However, as with all canadian sites, you are going to get screwed over on the shipping, paying around $100 for that alone. You didn't mention that in the initial post, so is that to be included in the prices as well? If so, save, $200 after shipping isn't possible at all for a gaming system
 
=OSS*Xconman=

=OSS*Xconman=

New Member
You could potentially get a build like the one I posted or Aastii. Only real difference is the amount of ram and video card. You could upgrade those when you have the extra money to do so. That is only if you are in need of a rig asap.
 
Aastii

Aastii

VIP Member
=OSS*Xconman= said:
You could potentially get a build like the one I posted or Aastii. Only real difference is the amount of ram and video card. You could upgrade those when you have the extra money to do so. That is only if you are in need of a rig asap.
Click to expand...

There is a lot of difference:

Mine has a smaller, but faster hard drive

GT 240 a better video card than the 4670

My build has a much, much better power supply, it is infinately higher quality andthose yours is rated at 150W more, it will no way be able to output 550W more, and would probably struggle to output the 400W that the antec I listed in my build would

Mine has mid ATX case rather than uATX, so larger, meaning future upgrades will allow for larger video cards, more hard drives/optical drives, more expansion cards and larger heatsinks, at the cost of taing up more space, which is worth it, unless you are very, very short on room
 
=OSS*Xconman=

=OSS*Xconman=

New Member
Aastii said:
There is a lot of difference:

Mine has a smaller, but faster hard drive

GT 240 a better video card than the 4670

My build has a much, much better power supply, it is infinately higher quality andthose yours is rated at 150W more, it will no way be able to output 550W more, and would probably struggle to output the 400W that the antec I listed in my build would

Mine has mid ATX case rather than uATX, so larger, meaning future upgrades will allow for larger video cards, more hard drives/optical drives, more expansion cards and larger heatsinks, at the cost of taing up more space, which is worth it, unless you are very, very short on room
Click to expand...

@AA
You are right, as the 240 is a less power consuming card. Although I have heard the ATI is better at higher resolution. Antec is a great PSU, the one that came in my case lasted 5 years.

@OP

Everyone is going to have their own way of doing things or different products that they support. You have a bunch of options now to get started with your new build! I wish you all the luck!
 
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