Hardware Revolution

For other computer systems, see: Computer Systems

Hi everyone! Time for an update for “The Best gaming desktop computer under 1000$”!

Here is a list of the changes on this build compared to the previous build:
April 25th: 1st build that you can click here to see.
June 12th:

• Cpu: 20.00$ price drop
• Video Card: Moving from a GeForce 8800 GTX to two Geforce 8800GT in SLI
• Motherboard: The EVGA nForce 650i Ultra is not available anymore and does not support SLI, so we are moving to a MSI P6N Diamond.
• RAM: Changing from Crucial Ballistix to Corsair TWINX, due to a lower price on the Corsair.
• Hard Drives: Upgrading from 200GB to 250GB.
• Power Supply: Upgrading from a 400 Watt XVS Modular to a Ultra LSP650 650-Watt Power Supply, in order to support the SLI support and leave some headroom for overclocking.
• Sound Card: Upgrading from a AC ‘97 Integrated Sound Card all the way to a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme HD audio Integrated Sound Card.

What an update! Far better video cards performance, way better sound quality, more powerful power supply and an extra 100GB of storage. All of these for the same price tag as before! Simply amazing!

Let’s move on with the build.
As the name implies, I will suggest to you all the hardware parts required to build your own custom build desktop computer. For the time being, I will not recommend a screen, but I will suggest that you either use a CRT type of screen or a 2ms, maximum 5ms LCD screen. Be careful for LCD screen latency, that is the time between when the action happens and when it shows on the screen. As a gamer, you cannot tolerate this and it is not indicated nowhere, so you will have to check out reviews. If you are interested in a particular model, check out the reviews on it before buying it. Feel free to ask my opinion on it as well

As for the keyboard and mouse, that is entirely up to you, as each gamer have his own preferences.

For the Operating system, I still recommend WIndows XP Pro, as Vista still has some compatibility issues and it consumes more ressources then XP. The only reason you might want to use Vista is to get DirectX 10 support, but from the websites, blogs and various information that I read, apparently DirectX 10 brings very little improvement over its previous version. Not to mention that there aren’t so many games supporting Direct X 10 yet. So, in my opinion, Direct X 10 is not worth the trouble of using Vista.

I encourage you to comment, ask any question you may have and if you going to buy a new computer soon and are unsure of what kind of computer you require to answer you needs, please contact me, it will be my pleasure to assist you. You can Contact me through this link.

The 1000$ Gaming System was designed for a person who uses a computer mainly for gaming (Casually called a “gamer”) and who’s looking for an excellent gaming computer, with great performance, without being silly on spending either. This system will be excellent at running video games and will be great for other uses as well. It is based on a Socket 775 platform, which allows for upgrades in the future. You will be able to swap your cpu, video card, ram for better performing ones if you want to do so in the future.

Here are my recommendations for what hardware to use to build a great gaming desktop computer. These are the parts that I believe that will answer your needs, for a gaming system with outstanding performance that is. For each part of the system, I will tell you my choice, the reason for it and a link to buy the item. Of course, I’m open to suggestions, comments, questions so please post them.

My hardware parts recommendations:

Cpu: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Processor BX80570E8400 - 3.0GHz, 6MB Cache, 1333MHz FSB, Wolfdale, Dual-Core, Retail, Socket 775, Processor with Fan for only 199.99$
Click here to buy it for only 199.99$!
This is an mainstream gaming system and I’ve chose nothing else than one of the fastest processor available on the market. For a gaming system, you want raw speed and a large cache. 3 years warranty, which is voided by overclocking for your information. That is if you kill your chip. If you know what you are doing when overclocking, I wouldn’t worry about it and just go ahead and overclock this awesome cpu, which has a lot of overclocking headroom. Just a reminder to keep reading information and ask if you have any question related to overclocking.

Video Card: XFX GeForce 8800 GT Video Card - Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare PC Game, 256MB DDR3, PCI Express 2.0, SLI Ready, (Dual Link) Dual DVI, HDTV, Video Card 146.99 - 30.00$ Rebate= 116.99 X 2 = 233.98$
Click here to buy 2 of them, for only 233.98$!
That’s right, we are going for a SLI setup. Yes, I hear you say, isn’t a single video card better than 2 or why didn’t you go for a GX2 9800 instead?! I was thinking of using two 9800GT at first at first, then I compared prices, performances and I’ve found that those 2 8800GT cannot be beaten for the price! They are cheaper than two Radeon HD3870, a 8800GTX or 2 9800GT and other high-end video cards and that it will beat the all of that in most benchmarks. Impressive. Also, the 8800GTs are excellent overclockers, so go for it!
233.98$ for two 8800GT is a mind blowing price! One 8800GT used to cost that or more barely a few months ago!
Did I mention that it includes 2 FREE copies of Call of Duty?! And a lifetime warranty?!

Motherboard: MSI P6N Diamond Motherboard - NVIDIA nForce 680I, Socket 775, ATX, Audio, SLI Ready, PCI Express, Gigabit LAN, S/PDIF, USB 2.0, Firewire, eSATA, RAID for only 182.99$
Click here to buy it, for only 182.99$!
Is there anything else you could possibly want from a motherboard? This is the perfect candidate to help us overclock our processor at a very high speed, use two video cards in SLI and two hard drives in RAID 0.
1 year warranty.

RAM: Corsair Dual Channel TWINX PC6400 DDR2 800MHz E.P.P. Memory (2 x 1024MB) for only 29.99$
Click here to buy it, for only 29.99$!
This is a high-end gaming system and we want all the bandwidth we can possibly have from your RAM. At 800mhz and with dual channel, this will blow your mind. Timings of 4-4-4-12 and a lifetime warranty.

Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB Hard Drive - 7200RPM, 16MB, Serial ATA-300, OEM, X 2 in a RAID 0 setup. 59.99$ X 2 = 119.98$
Click here to buy 2 of them, for only 119.98$!
In order to have your OS, programs and more importantly, games load faster, you are going to use RAID 0. In simple terms, this imply using two identical hard drives and splitting the data between them, so that nearly doubles the write and read speed of data. Plus, you get the storage space of two hard drives, that is 500GB is this case. If you don’t have enough of 500GB, you can always add more hard drives in the future. I would recommend two more of the same model that you have, in order to keep using RAID and to ensure compatibility. 5 years warranty.

Case: Thermaltake Soprano RS101 Black Mid-Tower ATX Case with Clear Side, Front USB and Audio Ports 73.99$
Click here to buy it, for only 73.99$!
Good price, Thermaltake is a renowned company for cases and many other products. The case includes a 120mm fan in the back for exhaust, to keep your system cool. 3 years warranty.

Power Supply: Ultra LSP650 650-Watt Power Supply - ATX, SATA-Ready, SLI-Ready, 135mm Fan 97.99$
Click here to buy it, for only 97.99$!
I’ve used an Ultra Power Supply for my own system and I’ve never had a single problem with it. 650 Watts and 38A available on the single 12V rail. Enough connections to power up everything you will have in your system as well, including your SLI video cards. 33 months warranty

Cpu Cooler: ZEROtherm / CF800 / Socket 775 / Copper Base / Heatpipes / CPU Cooler 26.99$
Click here to buy it, for only 26.99$!
A very efficient cooler for its price, this will help you overclock your Core 2 Duo cpu. At 18dba, it will be very silent as well. 1 year warranty

DVD Burner: Sony DRU190A 20X DVD Rewritable Drive - 20x DVD±R, 8 DVD+RW, 6x DVD-R, 8x DVD±R DL, ATAPI/EIDE, Black 29.99$
Click here to buy it, for only 29.99$!
A 20X DVD Burner and it’s from Sony. At this price, it’s a great deal. 1 year warranty.

Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme HD Audio Integrated Sound Card. Considering that this comes with your motherboard, it’s a nice surprise. The sound quality coming out of this is simply outstanding!

Total price: $995.89
Add taxes; I’m in the province of Quebec, Canada, so in this case it’s 5% GST and 7.5% QST, for a total of 12.5%.
Final Price: $1124.12

Ratings -On a scale of 10- :
Gaming : 9.5/10 You will be able to play pretty much any game with max quality and full AA AF. You will be able to use a screen up to 24″ and still use max quality for most games. Nearly the best performance you can get.
Office : 9/10 This system is based on a dual core processor; it will run most applications very quickly, it will run several cpu intensive programs (Image/Video editing, media burning) at once without latency(lag). Quick on multi-threaded optimized applications as well, great at multi-tasking. The raw speed will help you a lot.
Overclocking : 8/10 This system was designed with overclocking in mind, so you will be able to squeeze a lot more performance by overclocking, from the cpu, video cards and the ram. Intel Core 2 Duo cpus are renowned for being amazing overclockers, especially the Wolfdale core, based on the 45nm process. Thus why this system is using after-market cooling, in order to overclock to a really high speed. Reaching 4.0ghz on your cpu is a reasonable and realistic goal. Even more if you’re lucky or have more experience with overclocking.
Also from what I’ve read the Radeon HD3870 overclocks very well and the cooler on them will do the job.
Power consumption : 4/10 With a low-energy 45nm processor, 2 hard drives and a SLI setup, this system will consume quite a large amount of electricity. The video cards will be the parts which will draw the most power.
Value for the money: 9/10 This system will offer you outstanding performance for a the price tag, it simply stuns me!

In conclusion: Is this the perfect 1000$ gaming system? It is certainly the best I could design at this given time, given the current promotions and using brand new parts. Can you find better parts or better prices? Probably, promotions ends and starts everyday, prices drops, new products come up, sellers clear their warehouses. You could also buy a used or refurbished product on Ebay, from various websites, friends, a local shop, etc. There’s a reason why this is called a custom computer =)

I hope you’ve enjoyed this article and if you have any comment or questions, fire them away!
Let me end this article with a question: What kind of system would you like me to “build” for you? What are you needs and what is your budget?

Cheers, Mathieu.