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Staff Writers01 July 2009, 10:54 AM
We all want an affordable gaming PC, so we asked professional master builder to come up with one for under AUD $2,000. This was in July 2009, so this PC should be even cheaper now.
Professional PC builder John Zhang suggests the best components for an affordable gaming PC.John Zhang's company,
TI Computers is a system builder specialising in high-end gaming systems, business systems, workstations, and server systems. It has been around for over 16 years and its systems are regular winners of APC’s Editor’s Choice and Highly Recommended awards. (All prices are in Aust dollars).
[Please note, this spec was created in July 2009 - you should be able to get the same components but at cheaper prices]
CPU: Intel E8500 CPU
Intel’s E8500 3.16GHz Core 2 Duo CPU has a fast clock speed, 6MB of cache, and plenty room for overclocking, making it great value for a gaming PC. Intel’s Core i7 is better but costs around an extra $400, which would push our PC over $2,000.
Cooler: Standard fan or Cooler Master V8
The standard fan that comes with the CPU works fine but if you want to overclock then I recommend the Cooler Master V8. Its eight heat pipes and centre-mounted 120mm fan generate enough horsepower to cool any high performance CPU, but it costs $99.
MOBO: Gigabyte GA EP45UD3R
Gigabyte Ultra Durable 3 series motherboards deliver dramatically lower system temperature and enhanced stability for overclocking, plus the one-click Easy Energy Saver button instantly takes advantage of power savings. Great for gaming PCs and business PCs.
RAM: Kingston DDR II PC6400 800MHz
It’s great value, very reliable memory. But, if you want to overclock then better stick with G.Skill performance RAM with heatsink and a voltage range of 1.8v ~ 2.0v.
GRAPHICS: Palit Geforce GTX 285 1GB
Excellent value, great performance, and NVIDIA cards run a lot cooler then their ATI counterparts. If you can spend a bit more the 1792M Geforce GTX 295 dual-GPU video card is the best one available but will cost you an extra $245.
AUDIO: Onboard
The onboard audio is sufficient, it includes eight channel audio for PC speakers and SPDIF optical output for hi-fi systems.
HARD DRIVE: 750GB HDD Samsung SATA II x 2
The motherboard has RAID on board, so with dual HDD setups you can run Raid 0 for maximum performance (game customer) or RAID 1 for mirror (business customer).
OPTICAL: 22 x Speed Dual Layer DVD RW LG
The LG standard DVD RW Dual layer optical drive is very cheap but does the job. A Blu-ray burner is the next step up but costs around $200 extra.
PSU: 550W Power in iCute case
CASE: iCute midtower
At TI Computers we use the iCute midtower case with 9 drive bays with a huge 220mm large side. If you can spend a bit more then the Cooler Master M690 is the best choice, great performance and style, with front USB, Firewire, eSATA ports all built on top of the case.
MONITOR: LG 2252TQ
The 22in LG 2252TQ LCD Monitor is stylish crisp and clear, 2ms refresh speed, 10,000:1 ratio, DVI cable all included.
KEYBOARD & MOUSE: Logitech Ps II Keyboard and Optical Wheel Mouse.
Cheap-but adequate. You can also upgrade to wireless for an extra $30 or to the top-of-the-range bluetooth Logitech MX 5500 for $160.
Operating system: Windows Vista Home Premium SP1
Currently the most capable mainstream OS for general PCs.