By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Jereel Hunter said:
I LOVE GIGGS said:

Can I build a good 3d gaming PC with only $1,500?



Can you ever. I build a pretty solid gaming PC for less than that...  A few months ago... I got -

(This is approx - one or two components I didn't see on Newegg, so I selected the closest equivalent)

Case: XION Predator Gaming Series AXP 970-001BK Mid Tower PC Case w/ Hot-Swap Enabled Front Loading Trays for SATA HDD

Mobo: MSI 890GXM-G65 AM3 AMD 890GX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

GPU: GIGABYTE Super Overclock Series GV-N560SO-1GI-950 GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready ...

PSU: COOLER MASTER Silent Pro M600 RS-600-AMBA-D3 600W ATX12V V2.3 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Bronze Certified Modular ...

RAM: Kingston HyperX 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model KHX1600C9D3K3/6GX

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ965FBGMBOX

Boot HD: OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTXE120G 2.5" 120GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Data HD: Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - OEM

Those exact components total $1,254, and that build is great - but I was just relisting my system. You can get a lot of those things on sale or look for similar items with combo discounts. And Windows Ultimate is entirely unneccesary... I only installed it because I got it free from my job. All told, for $1500 you could get a similar build with a higher end processor and a substantially better video card... and that system would scream.

I STRONGLY recommend using the nVidia chipset (560,570,580 series) As ATI currently have very buggy drivers. I actually started out this built with a 5770, and it was terrible. all sorts of issues in the games I played... Even older/not graphically intensive games (WoW and League of Legends both had serious issues... SC2 had slight issues). And this was with settings not maxed. The card wasn't being taxed, it just didn't work correctly. I hung with it for a pair of driver updates, but how can the 5700/5800 series still be working through so many kinks over a year after launch? Once I got a factory overclocked 560 ti (HIGHLY recommended - generally the same price as regular 560) everything worked perfectly. No hiccups, no stutters, and most importantly, no driver related crashes to desktop.


Thank you very much.

I want to ask about the monitor. Do I have to decide what video card I'm going to buy first or I can buy any 3d monitor I want?

I want a monitor that is bigger than 21" and less than $500. Is this a good one?