building a budget gaming pc

Dillan500

Dillan500

New Member
i am building a budget gaming rig, and i am trying to do it for under $100-$150
i am open to any options. I am young, and have great interest in the topic of computers. i do know my way around a computer and have built 2 before.

here is what i have to start with:

processor: 2.4ghz p4, or 2.8ghz celeron. (socket 478)

graphics: AGP GeForce 6800 XT 256MB GDDR3

RAM (ddr): x2 ocz 1026mb 333mhz, x4 super talent 512mb 266mhz, x2 samsung 256mb 333mhz (i would like to use 4 sticks of RAM... which combination is best?)

Hard drive: seagate barracuda 7200 250gb SATA

PSU: stock 300w

case: e-macines



what i need:

motherboard:??? (help me out here)

OS: windows xp, or linux?



keep in mind the $150 budget, and i am open to ANY suggestions, i mainly just want to use my graphics card, RAM, and hard drive if possible.

thank you.
 
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Lots of name brands use a custom motherboard style and you may not be able to buy a standard ATX. Not sure about e-Machines though.
 
im pretty sure it is a standard atx case, though not 100% sure... case is not a big deal though, because i can easily accommodate one.
 
This may work for a motherboard:
http://hypermicro.com/ProductDesc.aspx?code=MBIN001L
You need to check the specs of this motherboard with the components that you have!

1. This Mobo will not support sata but any board that I found had either ide and DDR, or sata and DDR2. There are converters for ide to sata but they are kinda spendy. if you can find an ide drive laying around that would be your best bet.

2. It is a microATX. it should fit in any atx case but be sure before you buy it.

3. Check how many pins your ram is. This board will only suport 168-pin unbuffered ram. Also it will only support 2gb of ram so I suggest using x2 ocz 1026mb 333mhz. having 2x1gb sticks of ram will be better than 4x512mb sticks of ram.

4. The operating system alone will cost you over $100 for xp. Linux as far as I know will not support games.

5. Between Celeron and p4 use the p4.

I know that you want to make this work for a gaming computer but I would heavily suggest that you just use the money to buy one second hand from someone who is upgrading their whole system. I have doubts that with this system you will be able to play much more than counterstrike and half-life. Not to mention that both AGP and socket 478 have been phased out over the years, so there is no room to upgrade at all.
 
salvage-this said:
This may work for a motherboard:
http://hypermicro.com/ProductDesc.aspx?code=MBIN001L
You need to check the specs of this motherboard with the components that you have!

1. This Mobo will not support sata but any board that I found had either ide and DDR, or sata and DDR2. There are converters for ide to sata but they are kinda spendy. if you can find an ide drive laying around that would be your best bet.

2. It is a microATX. it should fit in any atx case but be sure before you buy it.

3. Check how many pins your ram is. This board will only suport 168-pin unbuffered ram. Also it will only support 2gb of ram so I suggest using x2 ocz 1026mb 333mhz. having 2x1gb sticks of ram will be better than 4x512mb sticks of ram.

4. The operating system alone will cost you over $100 for xp. Linux as far as I know will not support games.

5. Between Celeron and p4 use the p4.

I know that you want to make this work for a gaming computer but I would heavily suggest that you just use the money to buy one second hand from someone who is upgrading their whole system. I have doubts that with this system you will be able to play much more than counterstrike and half-life. Not to mention that both AGP and socket 478 have been phased out over the years, so there is no room to upgrade at all.
Click to expand...



i can probably get my hands on a copy of XP, so im not too concerned about that.

and for the hard drive, i do have an old 40gb ide, but im not sure if it works, so committing to that would probably not be a good idea

what if i were to get a complete working P4 2.66ghz computer like this?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5058063&CatId=6
 
What kind of RAM is that? I'm assuming DDR?

Which processors do you have, exactly? There should be a model number on the back..."SL7E8" or something along those lines.
 
That'd be a Northwood model. 512KB L2 cache, 533MHz FSB. I'm using a 2.8GHz version of it right now. It'll handle most Source-based games, I think, which should keep you entertained for quite a while.

Out of curiosity, what's the model number on the Celeron?
 
Drenlin said:
That'd be a Northwood model. 512KB L2 cache, 533MHz FSB. I'm using a 2.8GHz version of it right now. It'll handle most Source-based games, I think, which should keep you entertained for quite a while.

Out of curiosity, what's the model number on the Celeron?
Click to expand...

sl7nw 2.8ghz
 
That's Celeron D. It has half the L2 cache, which isn't good, but it's a 90nm Prescott versus the P4's 130nm Northwood. Same FSB speed. When you get your mobo, you should put them both through some benchmarks to see which one is faster.
 
Drenlin said:
That's Celeron D. It has half the L2 cache, which isn't good, but it's a 90nm Prescott versus the P4's 130nm Northwood. Same FSB speed. When you get your mobo, you should put them both through some benchmarks to see which one is faster.
Click to expand...

i will do that, thanks
 
Dillan500 said:
im pretty sure it is a standard atx case, though not 100% sure... case is not a big deal though, because i can easily accommodate one.
Click to expand...

it is a matx case. i have my brand new board in an emachines case temporarily till my new case gets here. just had to take out the i/o sheild.
 
I would advice you to use Windows if you can afford it. I found Linux to be a pain in my opinion, but I did not give it much of a chance either. I believe you would have to use WINE to run Windows games if you installed Linux.
 
Yeah, that'll be ok.

It's very unusual to see a motherboard with both AGP and PCIe x16...cool find. That means you can upgrade to a newer one at some point, if you want.

Do keep in mind that it only has two RAM slots, and supports a max of 2GB.
 
Drenlin said:
Yeah, that'll be ok.

It's very unusual to see a motherboard with both AGP and PCIe x16...cool find. That means you can upgrade to a newer one at some point, if you want.

Do keep in mind that it only has two RAM slots, and supports a max of 2GB.
Click to expand...

true for the ram, but i bet the PCIe, and SATA will make up for the extra half gb i would put in it.


i do have another question...
is this setup overclockable at all?
 
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