41 replies to this topic

[VinJade]

I am finely getting around to rebuilding my old emachine Computer and want to see if anyone can give me two rig ideas.

first rig I was hoping to get cheap parts that is better than the bare minimum requirements so it doesn't lag.

second rig I was wanting to know the best parts that won't break the bank.

I am sure I am going to need to completely gut it, does anyone know if I will be able to salvage anything from it?

Thanks in advance for everyone's advice.

~VJ~

here is the insides of the tower

Processor AMD Athlon X2 4050e(2.1GHz)
64 bit Dual Core Processor
Cache Per Processor 2 x 512KB L2
Cache Memory 3GB DDR2
Hard Drive 320GB SATA II 7200RPM
Optical Drive 18x DVD +/- RW Super Multi-Format Dual Layer Drive featuring Labelflash Technology
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE Integrated Graphics, Up to 128MB of Shared Video Memory
Audio 8-Channel (7.1) High Definition Audio
Ethernet 10/100 Mbps Ethernet LAN Power Supply 250W Speaker Amplified Stereo Speakers (USB Powered)
Keyboard Standard Multifunction
Keyboard Mouse 2-Button Wheel Mouse
Operating System Windows Vista Home
Premium Motherboard Chipset NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE
CPU CPU Type Athlon X2
Installed Qty 1 CPU Speed 4050e (2.1GHz)
L2 Cache
Per CPU 2 x 512KB
64 bit Dual Core Processor
Graphics GPU/VGA Type NVIDIA GeForce 6150 SE
Graphics Interface Integrated video
3GB DDR2 Form Factor DIMM 240-pin Memory Slots (Available/Total) 1/4
Supported 8GB Hard Drive HDD 320GB HDD Interface SATA II HDD RPM 7200rpm

Edited by VinJade, 21 July 2015 - 10:36 AM.

[xWiredx]

The only things you're salvaging are the optical drive and HDD probably. As for build ideas, we have a thread or two dedicated to being updated with builds that fit certain budgets so diving into one of those might be useful. If you give us a certain budgetary restriction in this thread, I'm sure there will be a few build suggestions we can give.

DISCLAIMER: there will no doubt be some haggling and nitpicking between build suggestions because we're all enthusiasts. It just helps you get the best ideas, we promise.

[Big Tin Man]

Salvage the CD drive, salvage the hard disk as a secondary/small media drive. Throw the rest of the emachines cheap stuff away.

Now tell us your budget for a new computer.

[VinJade]

I have 500 set aside.
I can spend a little more if need be.

[xWiredx]

Here's a rough sketch that is everything but the Windows OS for ~500:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor ($109.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($25.98 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97-HD3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($78.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill NS Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($44.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital RE4 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Asus Radeon R7 260X 2GB Video Card ($88.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Fractal Design Core 2300 ATX Mid Tower Case ($48.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA GS 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($59.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $516.92
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-07-21 15:56 EDT-0400

I didn't have time to nitpick, hence 'rough sketch'

[Lord Letto]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($64.98 @ NCIX US)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($25.88 @ OutletPC)
Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver Ceramique 2 Tri-Linear 2.7g Thermal Paste ($4.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97-HD3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($78.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Z Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2400 Memory ($59.89 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R7 250 1GB Video Card ($64.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Raidmax ATX-502WBG ATX Mid Tower Case ($44.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA GS 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($64.99 @ NCIX US)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (32/64-bit) ($89.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $499.59
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-07-21 19:09 EDT-0400

[Summon3r]

honestly man if you can squeeze an I5 (3.5ghz range) into your budget somehow like into the builds above you will be VERY happy you did so.

[Goose]

What can you tell us about your case …

[Gumon Choji]

If you want "cheapest" to play this game get the newest AMD chip, motherboard, 8+ gigs of ram (4 + for the game and the rest for windows) and a huge cooler. If you want a good system on the cheap to play on that chip or intell chip and the best card from last year that was recently canceled. Again AMD 290, 285 come to mind. Just so you know these became the 390 and the 380. The new ones are a little nicer but not worth the price difference when making a low cost option. Nvidea is off this list as it lacks the recently canceled super deals and intell plus board is more then AMD. The key of what you said is the low price option. PS also get a good PSU.

http://www.nowinstoc...uters/amdr9290/

[Gumon Choji]

http://www.tomshardw...iew,3107-7.html

[Gumon Choji]

amd apu for CPU is on par with graphics of new lintel and to see a real difference you need to go up over 2 variables of change on the chart I sent. Again my advice is price specific.

[Gumon Choji]

Sorry just read on 6200 on new intell chips comparing to amd 250 card. I think this is the new apu king.

[xWiredx]

Gumon Choji, on 21 July 2015 - 05:22 PM, said:

amd apu for CPU is on par with graphics of new lintel and to see a real difference you need to go up over 2 variables of change on the chart I sent. Again my advice is price specific.

The problem with suggesting AMD is that in almost any price point you can get an Intel CPU that will perform better for MWO. Not necessarily for overall gaming, but for MWO for sure. Since this is the MWO forums, that's what we go by unless otherwise stated.

Still pretty sure the build I put together this afternoon is the best-performing one suggested so far. I was sure Letto would kill mine. Fitting the OS into the budget tends to do that, with these 500 or less builds, though.

[Lord Letto]

MWO=Intel>AMD
and yeah, adding a OS is a Killer for sure, It's a Shame MWO Can't Run on Linux to Remove the OS & Use that $ For Better Parts.
But due to Low Budget, AMD May be the Way to go?:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-4350 4.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($79.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($25.88 @ OutletPC)
Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver Ceramique 2 Tri-Linear 2.7g Thermal Paste ($4.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($101.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Z Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2400 Memory ($59.89 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R7 265 2GB Video Card ($119.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Thermaltake Commander MS-I ID ATX Mid Tower Case ($32.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA GS 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($64.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $490.60
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-07-22 00:08 EDT-0400

Do remember any AMD build requires overclocking and a good-sized set of tweaks to settings and the user.cfg. You've Been Warned.

Member FDIC; Taxes, Titles, and Tags not included; Close cover before striking; Previous overclocks may not be indicative of future framerates; Some parts may not exist; Set Printer Foo; MW:O is for 'MechPorn, and should not be taken internally; There is water at the bottom of the ocean; Ultra/20: Apply directly to forehead; If you can read this, you are too close; …

[Dragoon20005]

Hi VinJade

based on your current system specs

sad to say you pretty much need a whole new system to play MW:O

500+- dollars budget means you can get a Intel system like this

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor ($109.99 @ Newegg)
<div>Motherboard: ASRock H97M Anniversary Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($64.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: A-Data XPG V1.0 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($42.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($52.89 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($48.89 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R7 265 2GB Video Card ($112.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 USB 3.0 MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($25.00 @ Newegg)
Total: $487.72
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-07-22 04:23 EDT-0400

if you are a student

see if you can get Windows 8.1 with student discount

And those who know me

I am kinda back after 2 years being MIA due to work and studies

Edited by Dragoon20005, 22 July 2015 - 12:28 AM.

[Lord Letto]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($64.98 @ NCIX US)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($25.88 @ OutletPC)
Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver Ceramique 2 Tri-Linear 2.7g Thermal Paste ($4.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97-HD3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($78.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($52.49 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 280 3GB Double Dissipation Video Card ($149.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Thermaltake Commander MS-I ID ATX Mid Tower Case ($32.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($25.00 @ Newegg)
Total: $490.20
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-07-22 10:24 EDT-0400

[VagGR]

stay away from dual-cores. an i5 is what you should be looking for not too expensive good perfomance. save your money and dont buy a third party CPU cooler. the one provided is good enough UNLESS you looking into overclocking.

regarding GPUs well ... dont make your decision thinkng about MWO. most likely it will run like crap and you will have to drop everything to low in order to get ~ 60fps. maybe it will run better on an nVidia but on my i5-3470/R9-290/8Gb ram run as i mentioned. all settings (except textures) on low to get a steady 60fps (and even then sometimes it drops to 30). Apart from that AMD GPUs are a bit cheaper and their low/mid tier cards are just as good but if you can afford an nVidia they tend to perform better on higher tier cards.

[xWiredx]

I think it's a toss-up between that unlocked pentium and the i3. I'm not sure if the extra clock room makes enough of a difference compared to the hyperthreading since being a dual-core means more background threads vying for attention from each core where hyperthreading will take care of some of that and thus maybe make up the difference of even be the difference. The nice thing is that pentium CPU is cheap and with a Z97 motherboard OP can upgrade to a much nicer CPU later.

I'd ditch the ceramique in favor of MX-2 since OP is gonna wanna OC that Pentium chip. I've had considerably worse results OCing on ceramique than AS5, MX-2, and MX-4.

With that extra $10 of headroom, you can definitely bump up to DDR3-1600. There's a somewhat noticeable difference between 1333 and 1600 (not just in MWO, but in most games).

Everything else looks good for this budget IMO.

VagGR, on 22 July 2015 - 06:48 AM, said:

stay away from dual-cores. an i5 is what you should be looking for not too expensive good perfomance. save your money and dont buy a third party CPU cooler. the one provided is good enough UNLESS you looking into overclocking.

regarding GPUs well ... dont make your decision thinkng about MWO. most likely it will run like crap and you will have to drop everything to low in order to get ~ 60fps. maybe it will run better on an nVidia but on my i5-3470/R9-290/8Gb ram run as i mentioned. all settings (except textures) on low to get a steady 60fps (and even then sometimes it drops to 30). Apart from that AMD GPUs are a bit cheaper and their low/mid tier cards are just as good but if you can afford an nVidia they tend to perform better on higher tier cards.

An i5 that is worth it for MWO would blow OPs budget out by a lot.

You probably have issues with your system if you have to keep everything on low to manage 60fps. You might want to open a new thread on that and start giving out all the info you can so we can attempt to help.

[Big Tin Man]

i5 is possible, just isn't ideal. I'm assuming your emachine rig has a copy of Win 7 you can use? Also, you'd be using the stock cooler for a while so no overclocking. Really $200 more in the budget would go a very long way.

$500 rig with room to grow once budget improves (MB, SSD, and Cooling to be upgrades later on)

PCPartPicker part list (http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Nhn2D3) / Price breakdown by merchant(http://pcpartpicker....D3/by_merchant/)

**CPU** Intel Core i5-4590 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor http://pcpartpicker....u-bx80646i54590 $189.99 @ NCIX US
**Motherboard** MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard http://pcpartpicker....erboard-h81mp33 | $42.89 @ OutletPC
**Memory** G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 Memory (http://pcpartpicker....-f32133c10d8gab) $56.99 @ Newegg
**Storage** Seagate Barracuda 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive http://pcpartpicker....rive-st500dm002 $38.99 @ SuperBiiz
**Video Card** EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Superclocked Video Card http://pcpartpicker....ard-02gp43753kr $119.99 @ Newegg <---- Lots of good choices at the $120 price point
**Case** Thermaltake VL80001W2Z ATX Mid Tower Case http://pcpartpicker....case-vl80001w2z $24.99 @ Micro Center
**Power Supply** EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply http://pcpartpicker....ply-100w10430kr $24.99 @ NCIX US

*Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts*
Total (before mail-in rebates) $543.83
Mail-in rebates -$45.00
**Total** **$498.83**
Generated by [PCPartPicker](http://pcpartpicker.com) 2015-07-22 12:28 EDT-0400 |

Sorry for the bad formating, how do you C&P that so cleanly?

edit: and for $30 more you can step up to a i5 4690k, which would be money very, very well spent. That would give you some headroom to grow with an improved cpu cooler and power supply, and then you can OC that thing to get some more performance out of it. Don't OC on a stock cooler though...

Edited by Big Tin Man, 22 July 2015 - 09:17 AM.

[xWiredx]

In MWO, I think the i3's much higher clock speed will offset the fact that the i5 has 4 real cores instead of 2 real cores and 2 hyperthread "cores". Where things are CPU-limited, it seems like a Haswell i3 at 3.7GhZ is just barely outpaced compared to a 3.5GhZ Haswell i5.

That means it then comes down to the motherboard and the overall monetary sacrifice going with the i5 that could be used on other components.
- the motherboard isn't Z97, so OP couldn't eventually upgrade to an unlocked Haswell chip and overclock it properly
- the monetary sacrifice means going with a lesser motherboard, PSU, case, and GPU: overall kind of a big sacrifice

This is why I specifically stated 'an i5 that is worth it'.