[TC] Gaming Forums

Hey everyone,

I've been wanting to fix my old desktop since I fried the motherboard (never OC ECS motherboards....) but since it's a motherboard repair, I'm wondering if I should just buy an aged gaming computer off of craigslist.

Also, I wanted better performance than my old computer provided I couldn't record LFS without a massive frameloss, and my current laptop can't even run AA in LFS without starting up in a black screen. I don't need the latest and greatest hardware, since I run older/less demanding games like SimCity 4, Sims 3, LFS and Minecraft.
Whatever I do, this computer will strictly be a gaming computer, my laptop is powerful enough to run everything else.

So, I came up with a few options and I found a few local listings.

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I also found some random parts that could be of use that I may have mentioned earlier:

-C2D 2.13GHz - $30
-C2Q 2.4GHz - $100
-GTX 295 - $150
- 2 GTX 480s - $350
- 9800GT 1GB "Eco" - around $40 i think

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As I previously mentioned, I wanted to use this system purely for playing games and recording them. I'm on a tight budget, but I can sell/save for whatever is worth it.

So, can you help me out?


Thanks in advance


-Kenwood

I'd say if you want gaming, IMO, try going for the fastest CPU, and get a new mobo that supports SLI, (use the two GTX480s). The 600W PSU should run those nicely at stock speed. Quad cores are getting popular now.


I can't really decide on what would be the best choice for you.

I'm in progress of upgrading my PC, buying parts 1 by 1, next on the list is the RAM and motherboard for me.

Well, I don't mean I need a "uber future proofed gaming murderer" like sandy bridge-e/Ivy lol.

The catch with my Tr2 PSU is that it doesn't support SLI/Crossfire. Soooo yeah. I want to stay on the cheaper side too.

I was planning on upgrading my system piece-by-piece in the past but I honestly need a total PC upgrade lol. Pentium's not powerful enough!

For the sake of money, I'll probably go with the GTX 295 if I upgrade my machine, I don't mind having older hardware and for $150 it seems like a really good deal. (GTX 295 is a dual processor GPU, was probably over $500 new a few years ago)

I'm not going to go with Option #4 because it's pretty outdated (DDR2? AM2+? dafuq?) and is way overpriced, even if I negotiated the price down a LOT.

No matter what, I'm probably going to get the 295 because I really think it's worth the money.

Any other suggestions?

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By the way, Zipppy, you have a tri-core right? How well does it perform?

I know my i5-2430m is all the power I need, since hyperthreading handles fraps pretty well.

Mine works okay, but it's most likely being bottlenecked a bit by my mobo, and it's quite hard to overclock, probably due to my low-end mobo as well. Strange enough, it struggles badly in Fraps now, and it's strangely running hotter than usual over the past week. I have an AMD Athlon II X3 445.

(2012-05-08 21:27)Zipppy Wrote: [ -> ]Strange enough, it struggles badly in Fraps now, and it's strangely running hotter than usual over the past week.

That's probably because of your issue in your thread.

Yes, most likely.

OK, so I figured if I sold my laptop I would be able to get a better computer, and simplify it by having all of my files on one computer, and i can take the power with me.

I'm looking at these two Sager laptops, one's a 11.6" and one's a 15.6". The major difference between the two is the graphics card, and mobility.

http://sagernotebook.com/index.php?page=...ame=NP6110

http://sagernotebook.com/index.php?page=...ame=NP6165

Or I could upgrade to this one, with a better graphics card and I believe the ability to ugrade the GPU at a later time:
http://sagernotebook.com/index.php?page=...ame=NP9130

All of these are going to have the base 3rd gen i7.

I'd like to keep it around $1000, cheaper is better. I can pay more, but I just want to get what's reccomended.

I don't have time post much, I'll add more later.