What do you think of this gaming rig?

[Justin122]

Motherboard: ASUS M4A785TD-M EVO 785
CPU: x2 550 AMD
RAM: 2GB Kingston
HDD: 500GB Western Digital
CD/DVD Drive: DVD Re-writeable
Graphic Card: ATI Radeon HD 4850
Case: Coolermaster Inc. 450 Watt PSU

I need to be able to run Crysis and Call of Duty 5 on high settings.

I have been studying this for two weeks and I just want to buy it now. Please give me honest advice.

Budget: £400-450 if neccessary.

Thanks in advance.

Justin
Motherboard: ASUS M4A785TD-M EVO 785
CPU: x2 550 AMD
RAM: 2GB Kingston
HDD: 500GB Western Digital
CD/DVD Drive: DVD Re-writeable
Graphic Card: ATI Radeon HD 4850
Case: Coolermaster Inc. 450 Watt PSU

I need to be able to run Crysis and Call of Duty 5 on high settings.

I have been studying this for two weeks and I just want to buy it now. Please give me honest advice.

Budget: £400-450 if neccessary.

Thanks in advance.

Justin

[Jester]

kingston isn't the most reliable brand of ram. I would look at crucial, corsair, or gskill. gskill is probably the cheapest of the 3

[David M]

A 450 watt PSU is the bare minimum for the 4850 graphics card. You dont want to shave things that close...its puts unnecessary strain on any component when it is running at near 100% capacity causing a shortened life.

If you are talking Crysis on high settings with a high resolution monitor, I would get a Nvidia GTX 295 graphics card....given what you are asking to run on high settings. A 450 watt PSU will not work with that card. You will want a 650 watt minumum PSU with a 6 pin and 8 pin graphics card power connector. I would be inclined to go with a 800 watt minimum PSU so you have some room to play with plus what I just mentioned about a shortened life.

I'm just thinking that you would be happier with a faster graphics card. Your graphics card makes the greatest difference out of everything for a gaming computer.

Look at the difference between the 4850 and the 295 here...
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/g...1200,1344.html


EDIT: Consider getting a new Radeon 5870. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...n=5870&x=0&y=0

[Masaki 7-11]

Originally Posted by Jester kingston isn't the most reliable brand of ram. I would look at crucial, corsair, or gskill. gskill is probably the cheapest of the 3

Nothing wrong with Kingston ram. I use them for over 50% of my builds and have used them since DDR1 in both desktops and laptops, I've used over 100 ram modules from Kingston and haven't had any of them fail.

[Jester]

You have your experience. I have mine. Every kingston module I have ever purchased has not lasted more than 6 months under optimal conditions not including the 3 DOA.

[glc]

I've had mixed luck with Kingston in the past, but reports on their newer ram are fine. The last Kingston failure I had was with DDR1-400.

If you need to run Crysis on high settings, you will blow at least half your budget on the video card. Temper your expectations. The 4850 is the strongest card in its price range.

[Khalil]

Out of the over 10,000 systems I have built and sold and over 5000 systems I have upgraded more than 90% I used Kingston memory, they are a very solid company with exceptional RMA service. Every piece of hardware on the market can fail, I have bought bad Corsair memory in the past, so what? They are still excellent overall.

Not even a GTX295 can run Crysis at full without video lag.

[barch 88]

While I hate to take this thread off track even more, how is Gskill and OCZ Ram compared to brands like Corsair? I've always used Corsair in the past (XMS Series mainly). I'm too in the process of building a new rig, and I'm trying to decide which brand to go with. I hear good things about both OCZ and Gskill.

[glc]

They are both good brands, but use configurators and compatibility lists to make sure the specific model of ram will work in your motherboard. Asus publishes a "QVL" for all their motherboards. Yes, ram that is not in the QVL may work fine, but if you want to make absolutely sure, use the QVL. I generally use Corsair myself, but there's plenty of other good brands out there, and I will only use lifetime guarantee ram.

Now, if I am dealing with a name brand machine (HP, Dell, etc.) and want to upgrade the ram, I generally will use the configurator at Crucial and buy the ram direct from that - it is GUARANTEED compatible that way, no mistakes.