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[Snowy]

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[Commander Fuckass]

Because I can't post topics in the Tech board, it's going here.

I'm aiming for $500~$600, it doesn't have to be amazing and run Metro 2033 on high or anything. I only have 1 PC game so far; Portal 2 from the PS3 version.

omg please help me.

PC or laptop?

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/ASUS+-+Laptop+/+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B+i3+Processor+/+15.6%22+Display+/+4GB+Memory+/+640GB+Hard+Drive+-+Burgundy/1775024.p?id=1218290441039&skuId=1775024


http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+Essentio+Desktop+/+AMD+Phenom%26%23153%3B+II+X4+Processor+/+6GB+Memory+/+1TB+Hard+Drive/1700116.p?id=1218282102450&skuId=1700116


the first link is a Laptop the second is a Desktop tower

[applesauce]

Oh. That's not what the word "make" means when you are talking about computers. I got all excited because I thought you were looking to build a desktop, and PC hardware is one of my favorite things. 

If you do go desktop, you should build. It's a useful skill, not hard, and will probably save you around 20%.

[LCK]

Oh. That's not what the word "make" means when you are talking about computers. I got all excited because I thought you were looking to build a desktop, and PC hardware is one of my favorite things. 

If you do go desktop, you should build. It's a useful skill, not hard, and will probably save you around 20%.

I was under the same impression, and I was highly disappointed

[ikanaide]

amd sempron
256mb graphic
1gb ram

[applesauce]

if I find a premade one that is around the same price

You never will.

[applesauce]

Is that budget including monitor and such? Because a gaming PC (even a pretty modest one) is probably going to be around $700. I guess it does depend on what you want to do.

[applesauce]

This is a pretty solid machine. Do you need extras like wifi or card readers?

If this is too much you could save:

-$20 by switching to a 500gb drive
- $5 by switching to a i5-2300 (2.8/3.1ghz) or $40 by switching to an i3-2120 (3.3ghz dual-core) <--don't do that.
- $36 by switching to 4gb of ram

Also obviously whatever case you use doesn't matter much. I just picked a cheap one. You should pick a cheap one that you like.

[applesauce]

Oh, I forgot to mention, I keep track of 3dmarkvantage scores for all the computers I have helped people pick/build and a friend of mine built one a couple months ago with the same mobo, cpu, very similar ram (1600 ripjaws) and a slightly worse gpu (gts 450) and scored 9808 composite, 17052 cpu subscore, and 8592 graphics subscore.

[applesauce]

Do they charge you money to do that? doing it yourself is really easy.

Wireless b/g/n cards are like $20.

[?????]

I think he could get away with less than that.

I would go for a smaller HDD if you can do without it. Besides you can always pick up another one when they're on sale. He could easily save on RAM as well.

You also forgot an important component: the software. He's going to have to pick up a copy of Winders if he wants to play PC games.

@OP here are some links for some budget builds that you can use as a guide:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/budget-gaming-pc-phenom-ii-radeon-hd-6850,2903.html
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/guides/2011/03/ars-system-guide-march-2011-edition.ars/2

[applesauce]

^A lot of schools give free win7 licenses. I'm sure if he asked, someone could give him one.