Volitions Advocate on 25/11/2011 at 08:00
Are either one of you a student? Or know a student? Microsoft offers cheap upgrades to W7 for students. I got mine for 60 bucks. It doesn't matter if his XP key is for an OEM version. Could put that extra 40 bucks into a better video card.
Dirty_Brute on 25/11/2011 at 08:54
Even an ATI 4890 can still run today's games with a decent AMD CPU. I am currently running an AMD 64X 4800+ (from years ago) with an ATI 4890 and can run Deus Ex 3 at a decent frame rate with most options on max.
Go with an ATI video card a couple generations back. You can also get an AMD Quad Core 955 for cheap and overclock it. Also, first generation AM2+ MBs can probably be had for cheap.
lost_soul on 25/11/2011 at 17:03
We put together a system a month or so ago. Here are the parts
GT440: $54 after rebate
8 GB DDR3 1333: $34 after rebate
Apex case: $20
OCZ Fatal1ty PSU: $50 or so
Cheap DDR3 AM3 mobo: $55
*recycled DVD drives and hard drives*
P2x4 955 black edition: $115
total: about $330
So, there you go. It may not be super high-end, but it plays the only modern PC game I'm interested in (TDM) just fine.
"Oh look, I just realized I forgot a hard drive too. Another $100 for 500Gb... damn Thailand flood.... "
Just go get a 160-200 GB drive from someone's old junker P4 that they don't want anymore. It may not be super fast or super large, but it will last you until the unreasonable prices of HDDs go down. Someone just gave me an Athlon 64 box the other day with a 160 GB drive in it AND a DVD-RW with lightscribe.
I also pulled a 160 GB SATA drive out of my bro's DVR that was headed for the trash. Works great in the computer I put it in, and plenty fast too. It is sad when you think about all the perfectly working stuff that gets trashed every day.
Volitions Advocate on 25/11/2011 at 18:49
How are HDD prices unreasonable today? I can get a 1TB 7200 seagate for $75 CAD. It's the SSD prices that are out of this world.
Sulphur on 25/11/2011 at 21:56
Flooding in Thailand means you're going to have emergency stockpiling driving prices up. If it hasn't hit you in Canada yet, it will. It's already in action in the US, and heck, even us here in India.
Forecasts are that the facilities lost in the floods aren't going to be easily replaceable, and the major manufacturers won't recover until some time away in 2012. So if you're hurting for space right now, you'd better get your storage while rates are still reasonable. Don't be surprised if there's a knock-on effect for SSDs now as well, thanks to people looking for alternative storage solutions.
Volitions Advocate on 26/11/2011 at 08:16
hmmm..... noted.
jay pettitt on 26/11/2011 at 19:10
eBay
lost_soul on 26/11/2011 at 20:47
I also saw $29.99 8 GB (2x4GB) 1666 MHz ram on the egg yesterday. Hell of a great deal.
Funny you mention Ebay. Back when TDM came out, I was interested in some older (but still decent) hardware that could play it. Even the older cards like a 9800GT are still pretty expensive. Can someone explain why this is?
lost_soul on 26/11/2011 at 21:37
I just figured there would be tuns of gamers selling off their old cards to help buy new ones, the way last-generation game consoles can be had for dirt cheap.
