Need help building for a game

[BigBuck]

I am excited Blizzard is coming out with Diablo 3 soon. I loved the second game, played it all hours of the night. For this game though, I want to build a decent budget-gaming pc. I listed the specs needed for the game below, both recommended and minimum.

If you could recommend me a CPU, motherboard, and videocard based on the specs below I would really appreciate it. I plan to use newegg dot com, so if you wanted to pm me direct links I would appreciate it as well. I have everything else, just need those 3 things.

Thanks in advance!


__________________________________
MINIMUM SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS

PC
OS: Windows® XP/Windows Vista®/Windows® 7 (Latest Service Packs) with DirectX® 9.0c
Processor: Intel Pentium® D 2.8 GHz or AMD AthlonTM 64 X2 4400+
Video: NVIDIA® GeForce® 7800 GT or ATI Radeon™ X1950 Pro or better

All Platforms
HD Space: 12 GB available HD space | Memory: 1 GB RAM (1.5 GB required for Windows Vista®/
Windows® 7 users, 2 GB for Mac® users) | Drive: DVD-ROM drive | Internet: Broadband Internet
connection | Display: 1024x768 minimum display resolution


RECOMMENDED SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS

PC
OS: Windows Vista®/Windows® 7 (Latest Service Packs) | Processor: Intel® Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz
or AMD AthlonTM 64 X2 5600+ 2.8 GHz | Memory: 2 GB RAM | Video: NVIDIA® GeForce® 260 or
ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 or better

 

[d00df00d]

Good to see another Diablo fan.

I play WoW for now, and I just signed up for the Annual Pass so I could get my hands on Diablo when it comes out.

Do you have a system that would work at least moderately well based on those specs? If so, I would advise waiting until the game comes out so that its requirements are better understood and you know what you want from it. Then, based on your budget, you can decide what parts to shell out for and what parts to skimp on. My experience has been that the minimum and recommended specs don't tell you too much about how the game emphasizes various parts of your system.

For example, looking at WoW's minimum/recommended specs, I never would have known that WoW emphasizes RAM and system bus speeds as much as it does. Because the parts of the gameplay that those things influence (moving between zones, loading new content, etc.) are important to me, I built my system around having the best possible chipset and largest/fastest CPU cache for the money, and everything else was secondary.

 

[wkcars]

Are you going to get a new monitor or reusing an existing one (what size monitor(s) and what resolution). And what is your "budget" or price range?

 

[wkcars]

Originally Posted By: wkcars
Are you going to get a new monitor or reusing an existing one (what size monitor(s) and what resolution). And what is your "budget" or price range?


Also forgot to ask since you said you have other parts...what memory do you have (ddr2 or ddr3 and hz speed) and what is the power supply capacity(watts)?

 

[Nick R]

Here is a great build for a budget gamer. If you have an existing SATA HDD, keep that for the time being. Harddrive prices are out of whack because of flooding in thailand (Lots of HDD factories there). Use the SSD below as the windows drive, and most used applications, and likely your most played game. Store everything else on your regular HDD. AMD for budget builds, Quad Core for $100, 8GB of RAM for $45, Radeon 6850 for $145, And so on. If you have any questions or concerns, let me know.

AMD Athlon II X4 630 (Quad Core, 3Ghz)
8GB Corsair DDR3-1333
Sapphire Radeon 6850
Crucial 64GB SSD
Antec VSK-2000 Case
Antec Neo Eco 520C- 80PLUS Power Supply
ASUS CD-DVD/RW SATA
ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 Motherboard
4-pack Coolermaster 120mm fans (Case takes 3, comes with 1. Cheaper than buying 2 seperate fans)
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit



http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129069

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131646

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103871

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102908

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371030

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145315

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148441

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103052

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116986

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204

 

[OVERKILL]

I like Nick's choice of parts for everything except CPU/board. I'm an Intel guy, so I would go i3 or i5 instead of AMD.

I would also go ASUS for the video card instead of Saphire.

The i3 2120 is comparably priced and a fair bit faster, even with half the # of cores*

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115077

And here's a great open-box deal on a board:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131770R

I used this board on a number of recent builds and have been quite satisfied with it.


*this is using Passmark:

i3 2120: 4,145
AMD 640: 3,697

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=AMD+Athlon+II+X4+640

 

[Nick R]

The i3 isn't overclockable. Even if the OP doesn't plan on it, having the capability is always good. The AMD is. Also, I wouldn't go with a Open-Box board. Ever. In my experience, they are usually missing parts. SATA cables or what have you. Otherwise it's a solid motherboard.

If we were comparing the Phenom II X4/X6 against the i5, I'd definitely agree with you, as you well know overkill. But the one place where AMD has remained competetive is the sub $100 market.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: Nick R
The i3 isn't overclockable. Even if the OP doesn't plan on it, having the capability is always good. The AMD is. Also, I wouldn't go with a Open-Box board. Ever. In my experience, they are usually missing parts. SATA cables or what have you. Otherwise it's a solid motherboard.

If we were comparing the Phenom II X4/X6 against the i5, I'd definitely agree with you, as you well know overkill. But the one place where AMD has remained competetive is the sub $100 market.


I've had a lot of good luck with open box deals from my wholesalers, and it is a decent savings over that board's regular price. If he's willing to pay full-pop fine, it was just a suggestion.

If he isn't planning on overclocking, then the i3 is the better CPU, period. it is 800 points faster.

And, with the Intel solution, he can always upgrade to an overclockable i5 at a later date and have something faster than anything AMD has on the market.

Look at the Passmark list. The top 23 CPU's are ALL Intel. AMD's EIGHT CORE offering comes in at #24, bested by the little quad core i7 2600K (#11) by 1,632 points.

 

[nleksan]

Just to chime in... In my experience, which is having built a few dozen PC's (so not nearly as much as some of the IT guys on here), a budget system should be designed around FUTURE COMPATIBILITY. That is something you will never get with an Intel system, as they change their socket types like some people change their clothes... AMD, on the other hand, is going to be supporting AM3+ Motherboards for at LEAST the next two chip cycles, meaning a quality 990FX/890 chipset motherboard will last you a good long while.

Right now, prices on Phenom II X6 processors are ridiculously low, with the 1100T being around $200 or less on many sites (I saw it for $192.99 the day after Xmas). I can say from experience that the 1100T overclocks very well and, if you eventually water cool your rig (or even go with something like the sealed liquid-cooling units i.e. Corsair H60/80/100 or Antec Kuhler), you can get great speed.
RAM has become very inexpensive, and I recently went from 4x4GB DDR3-1600 to 4x8GB sticks of DDR3-1666 (both G.Skill Ripjaws RAM) and got them via Newegg "Shell Shocker" daily deal for 2x$44.99 (no rebates required, free shipping).
If you can afford it, even a (relatively speaking) small SSD used for storing your OS and maybe a few important programs, will speed things up like you wouldn't believe! Two 64GB SSD's, say OCZ Agility or whatever, in RAID0 will hit crazy-fast Read/Write speeds while giving you plenty of "fast" storage space.
HDD/SSD hybrids are an alternative, with ~$150 getting you 500-750GB of storage on a combined 7200rpm HDD and an SSD in one 3.5" or 2.5" package.

As far as graphics go, which is important for games (obviously), I would honestly try to hold out another month or two... AMD/ATI is releasing their 7xxx Radeon series, and it's supposed to be a significant performance jump over the 68xx/69xx cards for the same price. However, as this is a "Budget Build", you can look at it another way: new graphics cards means old ones will drop in price... and I can tell you that dual 6970's are no slouch!!!

Get a nice, big case that gives you plenty of room to grow (I like Lian Li, bc I have 4 2.5" SSDs, 4 3.5" HDD's, 2 6970's, 1 PCIe SSD, a 1500W PSU, and tubing/inline-radiators+pumps for a 3-circuit H2O cooling system (the heart of which is in an external enclosure, however). With all of that, I have MORE THAN ENOUGH room to breath...
I say this only because I have made this mistake in the past... Bought a board for $30-40 less than what I should have, and not had the PCIe slots to expand, or bought a case that didn't allow for the extra HDD I needed for a RAID10 array, or bought a case that didn't allow for good cable management, and thus always ran hot because airflow was terrible...


My advice is this:
Spec out the ULTIMATE RIG that you would want, and then buy the CORE PIECES for it, knowing that you can add on later, but something like switching Motherboards/Cases/etc is more hassle than it's worth. For example, I would buy the best SINGLE VIDEO CARD that you can, but BUY A BOARD THAT SUPPORTS 2-/3-way SLI and/or CrossFire X, so that when prices come down, you can add a second (maybe a third) GPU to enhance your system.
"Budget" DOES NOT HAVE TO MEAN COMPROMISE... It just means "patience"...

I hope that helps you out, at least somewhat, and I wish you all of the best with your new build! Have fun!!