Building a computer on a budget. Possible?
 

Is it possible to build a decent computer for gaming for say on or around $500. A few friends and I are having a x-mas exchange with a max spend of $500. The person I'm buying for is huge in to computer gaming but always bitches his computer won't play the newest games. Anyway I don't even know where to start with this as I know nothing about part compatability etc. I know certain types of mother boards require certain types of components etc. but don't know which etc. I was looking on price watch but have no idea if I get mother board "x" what type of componets will or wont work with it etc.

So is this even possible around that budget to build a game comp , just the box no monitor, that will play most of the newer games reasonably well or should I just buy him a fruit cake. :D

yea, shouldn't be a problem, especially if you put it together yourself. You won't get the best/fastest but it will be usable for most modern games.

cool. I don't know a hell of a lot about this area of computers so any idea of what particular components I should be searching for would be helpfull. Best mother board for the buck, type of RAM, video card etc. That kind of shit I know nothing about.

I know a guy that will help me put it all togeather once I get the parts so that part won't be a problem.

$93.00 Chain teck Geforce 4 5200 FX
$59.00 ASUS TECK A7VN8X-X
$70.00 SAMSUNG TECHNOLOGY 512MB PC2700 DDR 64X64
$50.00 16x/40x DVD
$34.00 52x32x52 - internal EIDE/ATAPI CD-RW Drive Beige
$54.00 Athlon XP 2200+ 1.80GHz 266Mhz Bus
$37.94 Aluminum 350W Mid Tower Case. 11bays. 4x5.25 2x3.5 5x3.5 hidden. P4 PS. In
$119.00 7F 0.25 Dot Pitch. 1280 x 1024 Max Res, CRT Monitor with Analog VGA adapter, Retail box,

ISO XP PRO + CD-KEY = Priceless

Here, check this out:
http://compsimgames.about.com/cs/hardware/

Should help a little, hit me up on icq if you need some more help, I have a friend that is a big time gamer that has built one for pretty cheap...icq is 178130938 :)

Thanks all for the help. Looks like I have some work to do now. :D Much appreciated.

you can buy a decent one from dell for under $500

nice little system, might wanna scrap that PSU though, most built in's just cannot handle pushing that kind of hardware.

My :2 cents:

Being a computer builder myself ... yes this is possible.

But what I think is a better idea is this:

He already has a computer so why not just buy the components he needs to upgrade his current system.

Still you can spend 500.00 but you can put more money towards quality on the parts he really needs. Like motherboard processosr and video card.

:thumbsup

The one that is advertised at 499 doesnt come with a graphics card, or a slot for a graphics card :-)

Thats the system running next to me :thumbsup Over clocked at 2400 :thumbsup With a Thermal Take 7+ cooling fan

Black Cheiftec Case (Antec close)
Antec 420W Power Supply
5 Antec Case Fans
AMD Athlon XP 2200+
XFX KT400ALH Motherboard
XFX GeForce4 Ti 4200 w/ DVI & SVideo
Kingston 512 MB PC2700 DDR
Black DVD Drive
Black CD-RW Drive

I bought this system from newegg a couple months ago for about ~$490

Very stable and can handle all the new games (call of duty is the shit!) : ))