Building computer

Hi, i'm a noob when it comes to computers but my 2002 intel pentium 4 3.2 GHz with 1.5 GB of RAM and a 7600 Geforce GFX card just isnt cutting it anymore. ive milked this computer for all its got and its just not good enough anymore.it is 10 years old i bought SWTOR the other day and can run it but its unbearably laggy. please help me pick out parts from preferably Newegg.com that can build me a good computer to play SWTOR. my price range is 400-500$. i wont need a mouse, key board or monitor just stricly the computer. thanks for any help!

 

Hi Hostel,

Welcome to MG.

Being perfectly honest, whilest it is possible to build a system for that budget you will probably find that you get more bang for your buck by buying a pre-built system. I am not familiar with the game you are refering to but if you want to build a gaming PC your GPU alone would eat a signifficant amount of your budget.

Is your current Rig custom built or manufacture built? If we dont need to replace the case then we may be able to put something together. I usually suggest using AMD architechure for PCs in your price range. you will tend to get a more consistent performance on the various motherboards because AMD have the memory controller built into the CPU. In terms of the overall performance there is little difference between a cheap AMD board when compared to an expensive one.

If your Rig is Custom build I would suggest you download Speccy and post a log so that we can see your exact system specs and see if there are any other parts that can be recycled.

 

I would agree with tueur as you won't be able to reuse anything except the case. Here's one example from TigerDirect for $500. You have everything you need in there to get going right away. If in the future you find that the onboard graphics is not enough then you at least have a spare PCI-E x16 video card slot for a decent card along with a power supply upgrade.

 

thanks for the replies! its not a custom built computer.

 

If it is not custom built you wont get any significant improvement for your budget. Have a look for a prebuilt system.

Look for Intel Sandy Bridge (i5 or i7). avoid celeron

 

thanks again. im willing to spend more if thats what it takes to BUILD a good computer. im looking to build one because you save money and get a better computer. i just need help with the parts because im not sure whats good or compatible with eachother.

 

This is a nice kit, and you can pick up an OEM 64-bit copy of W7 Home Premium for $100.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1376669&CatId=332

It's more than your $500 ceiling, but it's a nice rig and you can save for the graphics card down the road. Or, you COULD run XP for a while since you do own a license key for that. I shuddered a bit typing that sentence, but it would keep you under your budget ceiling until you can save some more.

If you want a custom rig, I recommend this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131736

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150564

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182067

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148482

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103912

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

Total: $660, plus shipping, and a free copy of "Dirt". Plus, the Asus board can easily make that CPU a 3.4 GHz quad core, for $100. You also get a rebate card for $15 on the graphics card.

If you aren't into unlocking, and overclocking, this ain't a bad substitute for the Callisto:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103996

 

nice rig!

You will need a case too as your pre built may have proprietary mountings and from a cooling point of view probably wount hadle the extra heat generated by the upgrade. Ill put a couple of setups on too shortly.

PS I wouldnt touch any of the new Bulldozzer chips personally. I have been waiting for them with great expectation (and every rig I have ever owned has been AMD) but I looked at some benchmarks for the top spec Bulldozzer (the model escapes my memory) which is basically the AMD flagship chip and it was out performed by the intel i5 2500K which is also cheaper! Bad work AMD!

 

I seem to stand corrected.

I have somehow managed to put together a reasonable rig for under $500 although there are some compromises in there.

The case is nothing fancy and I have gone for a budget PSU which I dont like to do. The mother board is also fairly cheap but seem nice spec. I haven't included any HDs as you could re-use those (although purchasing an SSD or 6GBit/s SATA will make a difference to performance) and I have also excluded optical drives for the same reason. I havent included a GPU as you havent stated how much extra you want to spend but basically spend the most that you can afford on a GPU

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811233067
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817339002
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148482
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157249
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835999040

Points to note are i5 2500K CPU and motherboard with 1866MHz Memory Bus:dood

 

@tueur Your PSU is good enough and perhaps a bit too strong, I'd go for 600W quality supply as today's video cards use less power.

You perhaps made an error in your choice of motherboards(I'm not sure) by choosing a P67(no video outputs) vs a H67 which has all the video outputs needed as the I5 has a graphics processor onchip and then the OP has the option to wait to accumulate more money for a new video card if the onchip graphics doesn't cut it. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157233

Also, a separate heatsink fan is not needed as that I5 has the stock HS/F included.

 

Before I retired, a few years ago, I built hundreds if not thousands of PC's over a 30+ year career.

Matching parts is the hardest thing for a novice to do.... impossible actually. Without some experience, you just won't know what parts work well together.

The horror stories are all over the internet, about guys who bought parts separately and then tried, usually in vain, to get them to work efficiently together.

What works best is to get a Bare Bones system, from people who know what they are doing. On my own system, I went to a computer warehouse store where they build systems and had them put together my motherboard, CPU, ram and video card and test it right there, before I ever brought it home.
I followed their advise on what would work the best together.
I also bought a mid-tower case, (extra deep) with a 400w power supply.

As I've done for a long time, (clear back to 386 days) I specified that I wanted an AMD processor. The MSI motherboard is GREAT for AMD processors.
The AMD cpu's cost less, run at a slower clock speed, ergo, draw less power and generate less heat than comparable Intel cpu's.
My five year old AMD x2, dual core, 5200+ CPU outperforms most of the New PC's that I install today for my customers.
These new PC's, today, leave me wanting MORE!
Win-7 doesn't help. It's a HUGE, bloated, monster that will load down ANY PC.
I still run Windows XP-Pro-Sp3 on my main PC. It outperforms Windows Vista or Win-7 hands down.

Windows 8/Developer Preview is fresh off the drawing board and out for public review. It promises to be a great improvement over Windows 7, if MS doesn't load it down with a lot of CRAP. It runs way faster than Vista or 7.

I'm testing it on a six year old Compaq desktop and it's running Great even though it's a 64 bit OS, running on a single core, 32 bit motherboard. Go figure!

Cheers Mates!
:cool

 

well you guys just confused the hell out of me but seriously thank you to all of you. ill try and figure something out. what a great site!

 

Idid think about that but digured the gpu on cpu would not be any good for gaming. and a board of similar spec would cost another $60 - 80. which could go on a pcie gpu.

 

@tueur Ya, options, too many options to confuse the first time builder.

 

I too have an AMD system (6000+) and I agree that hisorically they were cheaper and more efficient. The new Sandy Bridge chips thoroughly kick any AMD chips well into touch. The newest top spec AMD Bulldozzer chip is 8 core but still doesnt benchmark as high as the Intel i5 in my setup below.

Additionally the K8 architechture that our systems are built on only supports DDR2. The new DDR3 systems have way faster memory buses.

As far as OS's go Windows XP was good. but there are new developments going into it so it has grown stale IMO. Vista was a big step backward. When I last upgraded my hardware to th 6000+ I went from XP to Vista and that upgrade wiped out the performance increase gained from the hardware upgrade. I have recently switched to 7 and it is a vast improvement.

Windows 8 will certainly be streamlined as it is designed to work on mobile devices and tablets. therefore it will havee to be well streamlined. not sure about its functionality though as it is designed to work with touchscreen and gestures.