 | |||
|
|
|
|
|
 |
The $500 Gaming PC Upgrade: Call of Duty 4, Crysis, Unreal Tournament 3 Performance Explored November 02, 2007 |
|
 |
|
| |
Summary: While cynics believe otherwise, it doesn't cost a fortune to build a solid PC for gaming. In fact, we believe $500 is all you need to upgrade an existing PC. In this article, we spec out a $500 upgrade and compare its performance to that of a high-end Core 2 Extreme gaming rig. How close do they perform to one another? You may be surprised by the results!
 The $500 Gaming PC Upgrade: Call of Duty 4, Crysis, Unreal Tournament 3 Performance Explored | Page:: ( 1 / 9 ) |
At their highest settings, all of these games feature beautiful graphics which will bring many gamers existing PCs to their knees, which will of course send them scurrying to Newegg, Zipzoomfly, TigerDirect and tons of other e-tailers looking for hardware upgrades, as well as brick and mortar stores such as Fry’s. This brings us to today’s article: exactly what kind of performance can you expect in these games if you’ve got $500 to spend on upgrading your existing PC?
Generally this is a loaded question to answer. What is the state of your current PC? For example, do you need to upgrade your entire system, or just the CPU and graphics? Perhaps you are gaming on a 3-year old Pentium 4 or Athlon XP system with AGP graphics and need to upgrade your whole rig?
There’s a silly misconception out there that you need to spend $1,500 or more to own a decent gaming rig. This is just nonsense, especially if you know how to build your own computer. If you know the right components to focus on, and pick them wisely, you can get by spending half as much as $1,500, if not more. In this article we’re going to make an argument that $500 is all you need. That’s just $50 more than an Xbox 360 Elite, and the same price as an 80GB Playstation 3. With this $500 investment, you’ll have a PC system capable of dishing out graphics that are better than either game console.
“$500 is all you need? You’re insane!”
Many of you probably think we’re crazy to suggest that $500 is all you need to build a decent gaming rig. With gaming systems from Alienware/Dell, Falcon Northwest, and HP/VoodoPC selling for thousands more, this just doesn’t sound feasible. However, this simply isn’t true. In fact, thanks to rapidly falling hardware prices, building a powerful PC for gaming has never been easier!
You see, in the PC hardware world, the rate of innovation on the hardware side far exceeds the gaming industry. This hardware innovation leads to the aforementioned price cuts. A year ago quad-core CPU sold for over $1K, now thanks to those cuts, Intel’s Core 2 Q6600 can be found for under $300. Likewise, dual-core CPUs from AMD can be easily had for under $100! These aren’t gimpy CPUs either, with two processing cores running at 2.1GHz, AMD’s Athlon 64 X2 4000+ is a fine processor. This CPU is the foundation of our $500 build.
Again though, in order to build a good gaming rig with a $500 budget for upgrading, it’s critical that you prioritize the components properly that are most needed for delivering a good gaming experience. The most critical component is definitely the GPU, followed shortly thereafter by the CPU, you can then save a little money by either re-using existing parts in your current PC such as the hard drive, keyboard/mouse and monitor. We’re going to assume you need new RAM and motherboard and include those in the $500 budget. We’re using Newegg and Zipzoomfly.com as our e-tailers in this article, because they are companies we know and trust, and have bought from for our own personal systems as well as PCs we’ve built for friends and family. Let’s get started…
| The Components | Page:: ( 2 / 9 ) |
GPU
GeForce 8800 GT (EVGA) $249.99 Zipzoomfly
While Intel and AMD would certainly argue differently, in our opinion the GPU is definitely the most important component you’ll need in order to have a good gaming experience. It’s the GPU that connects you to the world you’re gaming in, as it’s responsible for handling all the visuals you see on your monitor. Now certainly if you’re gaming at a very low resolution like 800x600 or 1024x768 the CPU plays more of a role in game performance, but we’re going to assume that most of you game at a screen resolution of at least 1280x1024, and most of you also know to turn on extra eye candy features like anti-aliasing (AA) and anisotropic filtering (AF), which result in crisper visuals and sharper textures. As you crank up the screen resolution and the game’s visual settings, the burden increasingly shifts from the CPU to the GPU, until you eventually get to the point where it’s all on the GPU. At this point you could be running on a 10GHz Core 2 or Athlon CPU and it wouldn’t matter, as you’re bottlenecked by the GPU.
The GPU of choice in our upgrade article is without a doubt the recently announced GeForce 8800 GT from NVIDIA. This GPU redefines the mainstream graphics segment, delivering levels of performance that were previously only found in graphics cards costing $400 or more. In comparison, the GeForce 8800 GT starts right around $250 for a bone stock 512MB card. Zipzoomfly sells this GeForce 8800 GT card from EVGA for $249.99 with free shipping but it’s out of stock right now. Most of the online retailers sold out of their inventory of GeForce 8800 GT cards within hours of the GPU’s release, but hopefully they’ll be restocked shortly. EVGA is a great brand, offering goodies like a lifetime warranty and their Step Up trade-in program. We’ve reviewed their cards in the past quite extensively and always liked them.
Keep in mind that NVIDIA is producing all of the early GeForce 8800 GT cards for their board partners like EVGA anyway, so regardless of the brand of card you choose they’re all coming off the same production line. This includes the factory overclocked cards.
Alternatives: Until AMD ships their upcoming RV670 chip, the Radeon HD 3800, there really is no viable alternative to the GeForce 8800 GT that we’d recommend. If you want to save a little money the Radeon X1950 Pro would be an excellent alternative though.
CPU
Athlon 64 X2 4000+ $75.90 Zipzoomfly
For years the CPU was considered the core component in any system, but nowadays that isn’t necessarily the case. 3D graphics cards like NVIDIA’s GeForce series and AMD’s RADEON cards offload graphics duties from the processor, freeing it up to handle other tasks. AGEIA’s physX chip hopes to do the same for game physics.
With that being said however, the CPU still plays a very important role in your system’s overall performance. It’s just that its importance varies depending on how you use your CPU. If you’re a home video buff or spend lots of time in Photoshop tinkering with your photos the CPU is crucial, as it’s responsible for encoding your home movies or applying your Photoshop filters. If you use your PC primarily for browsing the Internet or checking email, the CPU isn’t nearly as important, as it spends most of its time idling waiting for something to do. Since we’re a gaming-oriented site, we’re going to look at things from the perspective of a gamer rather than a video enthusiast, hence why we’re allocating significantly more of our $500 budget towards the GPU and not the CPU.
While they once sold for hundreds of dollars, AMD’s dual-core Athlon 64 X2 CPUs can be found for well under $100. We chose the cheapest dual-core X2 CPU AMD currently builds, the X2 4000+. The 4000+ is built on AMD’s 65-nm manufacturing process and runs at 2.1GHz with 512KB of L2 cache per core.
The X2 4000+ can be found for $75.90 on Zipzoomfly right now with free shipping, which is much cheaper than Newegg’s current price of $100. For whatever reason Newegg is selling the 4000+ at the same price as the 4800+ right now, $99.99.
Alternatives: If you want to go Intel, the Core 2 Duo E4300 would be the CPU we recommend. The E4300 is based on the same architecture as the rest of the Core 2 CPUs, only it runs at 1.8GHz has half the L2 cache (2MB) and runs at a slower FSB (800MHz) and lacks support for virtualization. It’s priced higher than the 4000+, often selling in the $120-$140 range. We’ve included benchmarks with it, as well as the X2 5200+ (which is priced comparably to the E4300) in this article so you can see how these two faster CPUs stack up against the 4000+.
| Final Components | Page:: ( 3 / 9 ) |
The Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H $79.99 Newegg
Before you can determine which motherboard to buy, you first have to pick a chipset. Here we decided to go with AMD’s 690 chipset, which has proven popular among enthusiasts on a budget due to its excellent feature set: the AMD-690 chipset supports two independent digital outputs. This allows motherboard manufacturers to include both DVI and HDMI outputs directly on the back plane of the motherboard in addition to the standard VGA output. The chipset also boasts 10-bit display output and HDCP support, as well as support dual-link DVI; this feature allows the 690 chipset to drive 30” monitors like the Dell 3007 at resolutions as high as 2560x1600.
AMD-690 is also known for generating very little heat -- the chipset is cooled entirely with simple heatsinks -- this has made it popular among HTPC users. Enthusiasts who overclock have also found that the chipset can scale to very high speeds for such an inexpensive platform.
Picking the AMD-690 motherboard was a tossup between the ASUS M2A-VM series and the Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H. Ultimately we chose the Gigabyte in part because it has an x4 PCIe slot versus the x1 slot on the ASUS M2A-VM HDMI, which gives us a little more flexibility when upgrading. We also like the Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H because it has both DVI and HDMI outputs on the back plane of the motherboard, as well as a VGA output. This gives end users lots of flexibility when it comes to display output options.
There are other AMD-690 motherboards with out-of-the-box support for all three display options, but most of these other motherboards require the use of riser cards to get all three display outputs (usually it’s an HDMI riser card). This is less than ideal, as you must plug the riser card into your motherboard’s PCI Express graphics slot in order to get full functionality.
In terms of overclocking, the motherboard’s BIOS supports bus speeds up to 500MHz. We managed to hit 290MHz with our particular motherboard, although we do wish the board’s BIOS offered voltage options within BIOS. This ultimately limits its overclocking potential. If overclocking is important to you, you may wish to go with our alternative pick…
Alternatives: …we have a strong feeling that the MSI K9AG Neo2-Digital would make an excellent alternative to Gigabyte’s GA-MA69GB-S2H. The MSI K9AG Neo2-Digital is one of the few ATX AMD-690 motherboards on the market; the majority of AMD-690 boards are micro-ATX. Like the GA-MA69GB-S2H, the K9AG Neo2-Digital offers HDMI, DVI, and VGA outputs all on the back plane of the motherboard, and with its larger form factor, the motherboard features 3 PCI slots (in comparison to the Gigabyte’s two) and two x1 PCIe slots (the Gigabyte motherboard has one x4 PCIe slot).
The only reason we didn’t include it as our primary choice is really because we don’t have any firsthand experience with this motherboard, but its specs look awesome on paper, and it’s priced similarly to the Gigabyte motherboard despite the fact that it’s a larger, much more capable full-sized ATX motherboard. In fact it sells for $5 less than the Gigabyte motherboard on Newegg if you want to save a little money.
Memory
OCZ PC2-6400 Platinum Revision 2 Dual Channel $79.99 Newegg ($44.99 after mail-in rebate)
You may or may not need this last component, depending on the specs of your current system. We’re going to go ahead and assume that you do though just to be safe. In this case, our top pick is OCZ’s PC2-6400 Platinum Revision 2 Dual Channel. Zipzoomfly currently sells a 2GB kit (2x1GB) of this memory for just $79.80 with free shipping. Newegg carries it for $79.99 with a $35 mail-in rebate, bringing the price down to just $44.99! We’ve been using OCZ’s Platinum memory modules on our testbeds for years now and simply love their memory. You can often run them at tighter timings than what they’re officially rated for, and of course, OCZ’s modules are well known for their ability to scale to high speeds.
The newer OCZ modules like the PC2-6400 Platinum Revision 2 Dual Channel come with OCZ’s 2nd-generation XTC heatspreaders which have dozens of tiny holes. These holes provide better airflow to the actual memory chips underneath the heatspeader. One interesting side affect is that it also makes these memory modules a little lighter.
Alternatives: When it comes to memory we tend to stick with the more well known brand names we know and trust like Corsair, Kingston, and OCZ, but with their cachet they tend to sell for more money than other manufacturers, particularly at the higher-end of the market where they offer some really exotic memory. If you’re on a really tight budget and need to save some money, a brand like pqi may not be a bad idea. We don’t have any firsthand experience with them, but they’re certainly growing in popularity among enthusiasts. This pqi Turbo module on Newegg looks like it would make a good alternative to the OCZ Platinum, although if you use the mail-in rebate at Newegg, the OCZ 2GB kit is actually cheaper than this.
Components Summary
With the CPU, GPU, motherboard, and RAM in place, we’ve got a very solid foundation for a good gaming rig, and we’re actually under budget by $15 ($20 if you go with the MSI motherboard).
Again, this is an upgrade article, you’ve clearly already got a hard drive, optical drive, case, keyboard, mouse, monitor, and OS, or else you wouldn’t be reading this site. If you can, you might as well recycle those components and upgrade them as soon as your budget allows. In fact, if you take the $20 saved and scrape up another $50, you could easily add a 250GB SATA HDD with 16MB cache to finish the system off. Or use that money towards a new case and power supply.
Both the GeForce 8800 GT and X2 4000+ CPU we selected are 65-nm parts, so you don’t need a nuclear reactor to power this system. Running the Crysis GPU benchmark we noted a peak power load of 219 watts, at idle the system was pegged at just 116 watts. Based on this, a good 400W power supply should be enough to get by, but if you want a little more headroom for upgrades and/or you plan on overclocking, you may want to go with a 500W PSU just to be safe.
To see how our budget build stacks up against a high-end PC, we’ve included one of our high-end testbed configurations in this article. Our high-end rig consists of a Core 2 Extreme X6800 with an EVGA nForce 680i SLI motherboard and the GeForce 8800 GTX GPU. We’ve also included a high-end Athlon 64 X2 6000+ system with an ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe for good measure. Our exact test configs are outlined on the next page.
| Test Systems | Page:: ( 4 / 9 ) |
High-end rig #1
Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800
EVGA nForce 680i SLI motherboard
2GB Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C4
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX
XFX GeForce 8800 GT (stock clocks)
ForceWare 169.01
High-end rig #2
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+
ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe
2GB Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C4
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX
XFX GeForce 8800 GT (stock clocks)
ForceWare 169.01
Budget rig #1
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+
Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H
2GB OCZ PC2-6400 Platinum Revision 2 Dual Channel
XFX GeForce 8800 GT (stock clocks)
ForceWare 169.01
Budget rig #2
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+
Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H
2GB OCZ PC2-6400 Platinum Revision 2 Dual Channel
XFX GeForce 8800 GT (stock clocks)
ForceWare 169.01
Budget rig #3
Intel Core 2 Duo E4300
Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R
2GB OCZ PC2-6400 Platinum Revision 2 Dual Channel
XFX GeForce 8800 GT (stock clocks)
ForceWare 169.01
Windows XP Professional SP2
Benchmarks
Call of Duty 4 Demo Highest settings available in demo include extra quality textures
Unreal Tournament 3 Demo Highest settings available in demo (all 5s)
Crysis Demo High Settings
| Call of Duty 4 | Page:: ( 5 / 9 ) |
| Call of Duty 4 Performance 1280x1024x32 | ||
| Configuration | Min FPS | Max FPS |
| Core 2 Extreme X6800 w/8800 GT | 46 | 108 |
| Core 2 Extreme X6800 w/8800 GTX | 54 | 122 |
| Athlon 64 X2 6000+ w/8800 GTX | 52 | 118 |
| Athlon 64 X2 6000+ w/8800 GT | 43 | 108 |
| Athlon 64 X2 5200+ w/8800 GT | 39 | 101 |
| Athlon 64 X2 4000+ w/8800 GT | 30 | 92 |
| Core 2 Duo E4300 w/8800 GT | 43 | 106 |
| ||
Notes
At 1280x1024, the high-end rigs are able to outpace our budget systems, particularly when equipped with the GeForce 8800 GTX: our 4000+ system trails the mega high-end Core 2 Extreme/GeForce 8800 GTX rig by over 30% at 1280x1024! But as you increase the screen resolution, the performance burden shifts from the CPU to the GPU, and the performance margin between the high-end and budget rigs closes quickly. At 1600x1200 the 4000+ system is now only behind by 15%! At this point the Core 2 Extreme system only performs faster because of its GeForce 8800 GTX GPU, when the Core 2 system is equipped with a GeForce 8800 GT, the 4000+ runs just as fast.
| Unreal Tournament 3 | Page:: ( 6 / 9 ) |
Notes
We see the sequence repeat itself in Unreal Tournament 3. At low-res, the CPU plays a bigger role in performance and thus the Core 2 Extreme and Athlon 64 X2 6000+ systems hold a sizeable advantage over the budget rigs, but as the resolution increases this advantage slowly decreases. Ultimately by 1920x1200 the budget rigs trail the high-end GeForce 8800 GTX systems by roughly 12%, and if the high-end rigs are equally outfitted with GeForce 8800 GT cards performance is essentially the same, as you’re GPU-bound at that resolution and the CPU has no impact on performance.
| Crysis | Page:: ( 7 / 9 ) |
Crysis – Direct3D
| Crysis Performance 1280x1024x32 | ||
| Card | Min FPS | Max FPS |
| Athlon 64 X2 6000+ w/8800 GTX | 20.7 | 35.4 |
| Athlon 64 X2 6000+ w/8800 GT | 18.7 | 32.8 |
| Core 2 Extreme X6800 w/8800 GTX | 21.2 | 35.6 |
| Core 2 Extreme X6800 w/8800 GT | 18.9 | 32.5 |
| Athlon 64 X2 5200+ w/8800 GT | 13.7 | 32.6 |
| Athlon 64 X2 4000+ w/8800 GT | 6.7 | 33 |
| Core 2 Duo E4300 w/8800 GT | 7.7 | 32.7 |
| ||
| Crysis Performance 1920x1200x32 | ||
| Card | Min FPS | Max FPS |
| Athlon 64 X2 6000+ w/8800 GTX | 18.2 | 29.5 |
| Athlon 64 X2 6000+ w/8800 GT | 15.6 | 26.8 |
| Core 2 Extreme X6800 w/8800 GTX | 19.5 | 29.1 |
| Core 2 Extreme X6800 w/8800 GT | 15.3 | 26.8 |
| Athlon 64 X2 5200+ w/8800 GT | 13.5 | 26.7 |
| Athlon 64 X2 4000+ w/8800 GT | 6.8 | 26.7 |
| Core 2 Duo E4300 w/8800 GT | 8.5 | 26.5 |
| ||
Notes
The same general trends repeat again in Crysis, but here we wanted to pay more attention to the minimum/maximum frame rate data, which is why we included that info at 2 resolutions here. See how the minimums are significantly lower for the budget rigs? This even occurs at 1920x1200 when the high-end and budget rigs are equally equipped with GeForce 8800 GT GPUs. Under these conditions the cards should be performing similarly, including their minimum frame rates, but instead what we’re seeing in Crysis is that the budget rigs consistently hit lower minimums, including higher resolutions where we should be GPU-bound.
We checked it out with FRAPS running in the background and it appears to be an isolated case that occurs towards the beginning of the Crysis flyby as you’re going across the beach – in this case the frame rate with the budget CPUs takes a significant dip, whereas the high-end rigs don’t see their performance suffer nearly as significantly. For the remainder of the flyby the budget cards deliver pretty good performance numbers, there are no significant spikes in frame rate like we see in the early portion of the demo. In other words, we wouldn’t be too concerned by the minimum frame rate data, yes, there is a dip in performance, but it doesn’t occur consistently throughout the demo run. It’s just an isolated dip that occurs once and the remainder of the time the budget system performs comparably to the higher-end PCs.
| Crysis 2xAA/4xAF | Page:: ( 8 / 9 ) |
Crysis – Direct3D
| Crysis Performance 1280x1024x32 | ||
| Card | Min FPS | Max FPS |
| Athlon 64 X2 6000+ w/8800 GTX | 20.1 | 40.8 |
| Athlon 64 X2 6000+ w/8800 GT | 15.2 | 36.5 |
| Core 2 Extreme X6800 w/8800 GTX | 23.9 | 41.4 |
| Core 2 Extreme X6800 w/8800 GT | 16.9 | 36.8 |
| Athlon 64 X2 5200+ w/8800 GT | 13.7 | 36.2 |
| Athlon 64 X2 4000+ w/8800 GT | 9.7 | 36.5 |
| Core 2 Duo E4300 w/8800 GT | 15.1 | 36.1 |
| ||
Notes
Even under the added demands of 2xAA, we still see the budget rigs taking a dip in performance at the beginning of the Crysis flyby demo. Again, as we discussed on the previous page it’s not a huge deal, but something we wanted to show you nonetheless.
The bottom line is that the budget rigs are able to perform quite well in comparison to the higher-end setups we included.
| Conclusion | Page:: ( 9 / 9 ) |
The Components
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+: $75.90
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB: $249.99
Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H: $79.99
OCZ PC2-6400 Platinum Revision 2 Dual Channel: $79.99 ($44.99 after mail-in rebate)
Total: $485.87
Normally your typical gamer or hardware enthusiast cringes at the thought of a budget sub-$1000 system. These systems are frequently equipped with value processors from AMD and Intel, and ship with integrated graphics solutions, or lethargic graphics cards that are often incredibly outdated. As you’ve just seen in our budget system build today though, this doesn’t have to be the case. Our results today prove that you clearly don’t have to spend a fortune to upgrade a decent rig for gaming.
Thanks to rapidly falling hardware prices, and the introduction of more powerful hardware components like the GeForce 8800 GT, you can upgrade to an awfully powerful system for about $500, and if you’ve already got an AM2 motherboard and/or DDR2 memory, you can spend even less on your upgrade.
For right around $500, we upgraded to an Athlon 64 X2 4000+ system with GeForce 8800 GT 512MB graphics. On top of that, we added 2GB of OCZ Platinum RAM, and a Gigabyte AMD-690 micro-ATX motherboard. Now it’s true, the size of the micro-ATX motherboard we used limits your expansion options, but nowadays few enthusiasts use more than 2 PCI slots. Honestly the lack of voltage options in BIOS upset us a little more than the expansion capability of the Gigabyte motherboard.
If these are huge issues to you, we highly suggest you opt for the MSI AMD-690 motherboard we outlined on page 3, the K9AG Neo2-Digital. The main reason we didn’t list it as our primary motherboard of choice is because we haven’t tested it ourselves firsthand, but we know from experience that MSI makes good motherboards.
The bottom line is that PC gaming isn’t as expensive as it has been hyped up to be. To help fund your upgrade, you can even sell your old hardware on sites like eBay/craigslist and for sale/trade forums like our own FiringSquad forums and those of a myriad of other hardware websites. Simply list your old components on sites like these to help subsidize your upgrade and save even more money.
If you are starting completely from scratch, and have to build a system from the ground up, you’d probably need to spend another $200-$300 for the OS, hard drive, case, power supply, and optical drive. While $800 is a lot of money, it’s still far from the $1,500-$2,000+ a lot of PC gaming naysayers would have you believe.
The next time someone tells you that PC gaming is “too expensive”, send them a link to this article. With all the doom and gloom around PC gaming and how industry experts are so sure PC gaming is dead or dying, we PC gamers need to stick together and kill some of these misconceptions about our hobby once and for all.