My less than $300 rig

[dkff49]

Put this together for AHIII play and I am hoping it will run the game reasonably well. I realize it won’t be top notch and some setting will need cut back but hoping to get something nice from it.

Motherboard GA-M68MT-S2P
Cpu AMD Phenom 965
RAM 16 gig
Gpu NVidia 580
Psu Corsair 650

The CPU from my research is 4 core and 3.2 baseline but have heard of some overclocking to 4.0 and up. The Gpu is a Galaxy Gforce 580 with 2 gb ram. The Ram is Gskill Ripjaw DDR3 16gb. I hope to be able to install windows 10 on it, not sure if I can aquire anything predated this since the hardware is all older.

All total was
$65 for casE, MB, and CPU.
$40 for the RAM
$38 for the GPU
$25 for the PSU
$36 for the OS

Hopefully this will get me through until I can muster up enough to build a new more modern rig. Right now running a HP Pavilion 570-p223 with 3.0 MHz CPU and 8 gig ram and a Gforce 1030 and 500 watt PSU. So I am thinking at least a small upgrade even though “older”.

[oboe]

Sounds like a winner in performance per dollar spent.   I think Brooke has some experience too, in building low budget rigs that handle AH with 60fps average.

Interested to hear what your frame rates are.   How did you get OS for $36?

[dkff49]

Sounds like a winner in performance per dollar spent.   I think Brooke has some experience too, in building low budget rigs that handle AH with 60fps average.

Interested to hear what your frame rates are.   How did you get OS for $36?

Not going to guarantee it is 100% legit but off ebay from a seller with high ratings. So we will see.

I will certainly share my results though

[Shuffler]

Windows 10 was available for anyone with win 7 for free for years. It may still be so for those that can't upgrade to 11.

[dkff49]

Windows 10 was available for anyone with win 7 for free for years. It may still be so for those that can't upgrade to 11.

Unfortunately the case, mb, n cpu only came with an xp recovery disk scratched to hell and my current hp wont download to a drive so I had to get a usb drive version ordered. Small price to pay though.

Thank you though

[Shuffler]

Unfortunately the case, mb, n cpu only came with an xp recovery disk scratched to hell and my current hp wont download to a drive so I had to get a usb drive version ordered. Small price to pay though.

Thank you though

Well.... heck of a price point you got in any case.

[dkff49]

Well.... heck of a price point you got in any case.

I figured at the very least the gain outweighed the risk.

[Shuffler]

Let us know how she runs.

[dkff49]

Let us know how she runs.

Absolutely. The rest of her parts should be here by next weekend and finally assembly will be then.

[dkff49]

While not fully operational yet since I am still waiting on the PSU, I did decide to rob Peter to pay Paul to generate some kind of fair assessment of the 2 rigs. I took the PSU and GPU from the HP and put them into the build. The testing showed a slight improvement when running the game at the same settings. Considering the age of the build and what I payed for it all, I would say not too shabby.

I will run the test with the 650 PSU and the GTX580 after the PSU arrives and if anyone is still interested I will post.

I do want to add a note here. This was not nearly as hard to complete as I thought. Though today was a little stressful as some of settings in the BIOS were not appropriate to what I needed and trouble shooting took loads of Google research, it was still very much worth the effort. If anyone is remotely considering a Offerup/Ebay all used build in an effort to save money just remember that Haxxor did it so anyone can.

Edit: no overclock option in bios for cpu and was unable to get any software to do the cpu either

[dkff49]

I should also add I ran my game test at 2048 textures and the in game detail on default and was able to fly NOE over a hill at >40 FPS in offline practice

[Shuffler]

 

My last rig was very long in the tooth before I finally built a new one. I had upgraded it over time but the processor and motherboard were just too out paced by the other hardware. I had nowhere to go till I went to a new MB and processor.

[dkff49]

I know I will have to get a new MB, CPU, and RAM at some point but I figured this will get me threw for a while at the very least. I am a little disappointed that I couldn’t overclock the CPU but I will try updating the BIOS yet and maybe get lucky with that. This is a win either way. If no other reason it gives me a little confidence and experience when I go to build my new setup and gives me some pieces to build something more powerful without having to go all in.

[Shuffler]

When you go to build a new PC, go to www.pcpartpicker.com. As you shop it will let you know if your parts will work together. If you are new to building, it can be a life saver. You can even see machines others have built and buy the same parts to build your own.

[dkff49]

I will most certainly do that. Thank you