Building a new system

Peoples, I turn to the wisdom of the forum. I 'm trying to put together an AMD powered PhenomII prolly the 940 or 955 and sit it on a decent 790GX mobo.
Due to budget I'm seriously considering using the onboard video with 128mb on board and say 512mb shared...do you know of anyone or know / heard that Steam games/ like Empires and Counterstrike are playble? Tom's hardware has Crysis and Supreme Commander as benchmarks.

If its not even playable I'll have to look for a deal that includes vid cards. Problem there is most I've seen put in a 200$ vid card. My old Athlon 3200 with 1Gb ram radeon 1600 pro vid card plays my steam games fine, so I would think it'd be possible with the on board video. But I just don'tknow.

I'd rather build the system as I need a computer now and wait on the Video card. But I just dont' know. I thought maybe someone on here knows somethings like this. Thanks for your time. Have a great day. ove:

 

What is your budget?

 

I'd have anywhere from 5-600$ I'd wrather get quality mobo and cpu , decent case and psu , while waiting to get a good gpu set up, possibly doin the whole multiple gpu's thing in the future.

 

I'm pretty much set on the processor, I reallly just dont know if I should look for a combo deal with a video card, If the onboard GPU can play empires, I'd be happy until I could get some good video cards.

 

With 5 dollars you can get, a happy meal

for 600
http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=14816168

Unfortunately, that mobo has no onboard graphics. If you don't want to wait, you can switch it for another am3 mobo with graphics and buy your gfx card later.

 

I would say, gpu wise, go with one of the ATI HD 4xxx cards; they give a really good value at the moment.

also, while you seem set on amd, the later core 2 duo CPUs are very overclockable and killer for games. I am also of the opinion that the quad is unnecessary if you just want game performance. If you want to be able to upgrade your graphics card down the line, make sure you invest in a quality PSU. I would recommend getting something in the order of 900 watts if you can find it for cheap.

 

4770 are actually more expensive now because of demand. 4850s are more powerful and there are some that are cheaper.

phenom2 vs C2 quad is very debatable, however C2 does allow for higher overclocking.

Getting a quad is futureproofing ;D

Don't buy a PSU if you "find it for cheap". PSU is one of the most important parts you should spend money on.

 

Also you wont need 900w.
One gfx card (high end, one core) a cpu (C2D) and a motherboard shouldn't get past 400w.

 

To answer your question, on board graphics can handle the source engine. Just. Empires fucks up PCs much more than HL2 though, so be aware that you will probably have to hack your settings even lower than previously thought possible - there are instructions floating around on the forum on how to do this. It will look and play shit, but it will run. If you're fine with that, go ahead. Why you'd get a quad core CPU but on board GPU for a PC that will run games is beyond me though.

 

Its better in my opinion than spending money on both a CPU and a GPU. GPU can be easily upgraded, while CPU requires more work and a new OS.

 

Today 03:43 PM
Fricken Hamster Quote:
Originally Posted by Roflcopter Rego
Why you'd get a quad core CPU but on board GPU for a PC that will run games is beyond me though.


Its better in my opinion than spending money on both a CPU and a GPU. GPU can be easily upgraded, while CPU requires more work and a new OS.



That is my exact school of thought.

As for the update, I did manage to find some Tom's hardware benchmarks for Left for Dead. Supposidly the mobo's with IGP can run that Supreme Commander, Crysis, granted on low settings but<shrug>.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-desktop-cpu-charts/Left-4-Dead-1.0.0.5,1403.html

But then I saw the new Amd 245 Regor its a dual core but it can run on the AM3 boards that can run ddr3 and the Quad core processesors and have the cool on board video. Tom's Hardware has it on the list of benchmarks that can play left for dead. Granted its on the bottom of the list...BUT its playable. Its sells for around 70 bucks, $130 bucks diff from the X4 core's. 130$ that covers for a good case/psu or monitor. So I'm thinkin I can get the good mobo and ram, and leave the option for a quad core...I just wanna be able to run multiple instances of empires at the same time so I can play as both commanderz <snickers> I swear with all the different combinations its really mind numming.

But trueenough, Empires does do weird things so I dunno..

I'm just not an intel supporter... I mean i've had nothen but amd's for the past few builds..shoot i bet my 386 was Amd's design...

 

Those benchmarks are not with integrated graphics. They're using a GTX260 for the GPU, which costs ~$200 (its MSRP was ~$300-400 at launch, I believe). Try this instead for examples of what you'll get. Supcom might be okay. The difference between Low and High settings is pretty easy to miss from 2km up.

There is no Crysis on video cards that cost less than $100. Or at least there shouldn't be. The game looks like worse than Far Cry when on low settings, and the primary reason to play it is to bask in the glory of what a modern 1-teraflop video card can render.

 

By all means nab a quad core - great future proofing there. Hell, even today I find use for a quad.

For the PSU, go for Corsair or PC Power & Cooling.

Uh, what? I dropped a new CPU into my system and did not reinstall the OS. The OS won't care about the CPU for the most part. The Motherboard, sure. The CPU? No.

For a videocard, take a look at the GTX275s and 285s as well, based on how much money you can put into the GPU.

As for Core2 vs Phenoms, reliability is far better on the Core2s. I OCed my Q6600 B3 stepping (B3 should not overclock well at all - the G0 was far more efficient power wise) by 1 GHz with a TRUE heatsink on it. I'm Intel all the way for now, until AMD can make something worth my money.