Inexpensive quad core PC's vs more expensive dual and tri gaming pc's?

I'm looking to get a fairly inexpensive pc for gaming and general use.

I'm looking pretty hard at this PC

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/HP+-+Pavilion+Desktop+/+AMD+Athlon%26%23153%3B+II+Processor+/+4GB+Memory+/+750GB+Hard+Drive/9964106.p?id=1218202473164&skuId=9964106

This is not a gaming PC per say. But this model is $529. They also have the same pc pretty much with a 1 terabyte drive and 6 gb's of memory for $40 more. I don't really need 750 gb nevermind 1 terabye and the memory i can always upgrade later so I'd like to keep costs down.

I used to build my own gaming rigs but i don't really feel like going through the process of buying all the drives and putting it together. Prices are fairly cheap these days where if i can get a decent namebrand pc and throw in the extra stuff i need better graphcis card etc I'll be happy.

I'm looking for longevity here in gaming. Right now i want to run starcraft 2 but i'd like this PC to keep up for a while, for a budget price.

That's why i'm debating quad or going with a dual core or tri core like the Ahtlon Phenom's which are more geared towards gaming with the l3 cache.

The quad core 630 is getting really good reviews in the budget category and is holding its own in a lot of categories across the board. It's strength appears ot be video and sound encoding btu it does pretty well in gaming as well even though its not specifically designed for it.

Check out this article for reference. It holds its own against more specifically designed gaming cpu's

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2836

Is it worth it to get a quad core even though i'm sacrificing the l3 cache for gaming in the future? I can throw a $100-$150 graphics card off new egg in for basically the same price of what i would be paying for a nice dual or tri core gaming pc.

Right now most games are still only using the two cores. So the additional features in the Phenom model make a difference, but in the future wont having a quad trump that?

Also i've been pricing AMD vs Intel and price vs performance for gaming it seems like you can get by much cheaper by going AMD. But chime in if i'm wrong here. I don't really want to spend for an i7 right now. I've looked at a bunch of core duo pc's and i3 and i5 pc's but they seem overpriced vs the performance you are getting.

If you want quad gaming, get a Phenom II, otherwise get an Athlon II. The lack of L3 will imapct performance, so Athlon's are not for gaming. As for the linked PC, store PC's have poor quality cases and even poorer PSU's, so if you want a PC that will last for a while build a new PC. Games do use quad - Crysis, Dragon Age, Mafia II (when its released) etc, and the extra cores will be used by 7 if games don't, so its smooth all over.

The you are saying get a phenom II quad? The price goes up significantly when i do that though. Keep in mind i'm buying everything including drives etc..

Very few games benefit from the L3 cache (Far Cry 2 comes to mind) and even still the titles are more GPU bound than anything. Athlon II x4s are good chips for the money. I have a 2.8 GHz Athlon II x4 630 in one system and a 2.8 GHz Phenom II x4 925 in another. The performance is fairly similar. If gaming is your primary focus then you will be fine with the Athlon II x4. It's cheap and a great power/price ratio.

If you're wanting a pre-built, the new Dell XPS 7100s are a good buy if you want to go AMD. They start at $499 for a quad core Athlon II and 3 GB DDR3. $680 will get you an Athlon II x4 630, 3 GB DDR3-1333, and a Radeon 5770. While I'd recommend at least 4 GB of RAM, 3 GB would still do you fine, and you'd have a ready to go gaming capable system.

The you are saying get a phenom II quad? The price goes up significantly when i do that though. Keep in mind i'm buying everything including drives etc..

piercetruth34

In terms of future games, yes.

[QUOTE="piercetruth34"]

The you are saying get a phenom II quad? The price goes up significantly when i do that though. Keep in mind i'm buying everything including drives etc..

desertpython

In terms of future games, yes.

'

The problem here is I start building a phenom II x4 955 black edition, we are basically getting close to the price points of building an i7 pc.

I'm trying to get a quad core pc that will last me here for about $500 that is upgradeable that will last me a while and will give me good performance in gaming if i tweak it a bit IE adding more memory and a graphics card etc.....

I'm not really looking to get the best otu right now and dropping a lot of money.

I'm trying to get the best price performance and upgradeability, longevity option i can for about 500 bucks.

The x4 955 is far from the best, and games need CPU + GPU + RAM. An Athlon is not enough. As for $500, its not possible to get a decent gaming PC that will last for a while without upgrades at that price unless you have some of the parts.

If you look at the phenom II quads that aren't designed for gaming IE the 810 and 830 models they dont get any more performance boosts in gaming over the athlon 2 quad i showed you. The 630 is pretty sweet in comparison for the price. At least that is my understanding unless I'm wrong here.

You have to get the high end phenom's and black editions. Even the tri cores really see a bump in gaming performance. Thats my conundrum. Because the base quad core cpu is the same price basically less expensive then black edition dual and tri core phenoms which are more designed for games.

What the Athlon II 630 basically is is a vanilla quad core cpu in regards to gaming, for cheap but the performance is actually pretty good in comparison. And it's a quad core.

The advantage of getting a phenom II quad black edition is you are a sytem designed for games because of the l3 cache.... But the price goes up considerably.

I'm basically running an old core duo 1.8 ghz here that can barely run Wow, so anything is going to be a drastic improvement.

The 810's are slow because the architecture is outdated. The problem with the Athlon's is the cache, it affects every modern game. I have a Phenom X4 965 in my gaming system while my video encoding system has a 635. 6MB of cache gone means the memory controllers in the Athlons have to access main memory more often which is slow compared to memory held in cache.

how does the 635 run as a game machine though? Does it run everything pretty well? It's obviously not a gaming rig like your other system, but would i be pleased with it if i use it for games adn throw a nice graphics card in it?

I know people with Athlon II's in their gaming machines. They perform quite well, especially given the price. If I didn't have the money to spend on my Phenom II, I wouldn't have had a problem getting an Athlon II instead. They have enough horsepower to play current games very well in concert with a strong GPU.

acutally i just found this system. For the price this looks pretty good. I'm not realy going to build it i dont think. id have to buy drives and everything and it's not really worth it to me.

This looks nice for the price no?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883241023

edit:I'm noticing it's DDR2 where the other pc is DDR3 though. There is a trade off either way?

I'll put another good word in for the Athlon IIs. I've built a few rigs with these, and they can handle games very well. Crysis, Supreme Commander, source games, all run just fine on an athlon II rig. By just fine, I mean very high settings and going strong. The GPU is the largest factor. An Athlon II quad will do you just fine.

acutally i just found this system. For the price this looks pretty good. I'm not realy going to build it i dont think. id have to buy drives and everything and it's not really worth it to me.

This looks nice for the price no?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883241023

edit:I'm noticing it's DDR2 though where the other pc is DDR3 though. There is a trade off either way?

piercetruth34

As a media center machine and playing old games yeah, it's not bad, but I wouldn't try playing anything current with that thing. the HD 4350 will hold that back quite a lot.

[QUOTE="piercetruth34"]

acutally i just found this system. For the price this looks pretty good. I'm not realy going to build it i dont think. id have to buy drives and everything and it's not really worth it to me.

This looks nice for the price no?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883241023

edit:I'm noticing it's DDR2 though where the other pc is DDR3 though. There is a trade off either way?

Sparticus247

As a media center machine and playing old games yeah, it's not bad, but I wouldn't try playing anything current with that thing. the HD 4350 will hold that back quite a lot.

I'm going to put a different graphics card in either one thats the thing. I'm looking for a cheap prebuilt PC that will last me a while and i can play games on well if I add a nice graphics card.

It seems like in my price range, there is a tradeoff either way though. I'm either sacrificing the l3 cache or DD2 vs DD3 etc..... Unless i go higher end. Which i'm not spending close to a $1000 here. I want a pc for around $500 and enough money to get a pretty nice graphics card for gaming.

[QUOTE="Sparticus247"]

[QUOTE="piercetruth34"]

acutally i just found this system. For the price this looks pretty good. I'm not realy going to build it i dont think. id have to buy drives and everything and it's not really worth it to me.

This looks nice for the price no?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883241023

edit:I'm noticing it's DDR2 though where the other pc is DDR3 though. There is a trade off either way?

piercetruth34

As a media center machine and playing old games yeah, it's not bad, but I wouldn't try playing anything current with that thing. the HD 4350 will hold that back quite a lot.

I'm going to put a different graphics card in either one thats the thing. I'm looking for a cheap prebuilt PC that will last me a while and i can play games on well if I add a nice graphics card.

It seems like in my price range, there is a tradeoff either way though. I'm either sacrificing the l3 cache or DD2 vs DD3 etc..... Unless i go higher end. Which i'm not spending close to a $1000 here. I want a pc for around $500 and enough money to get a pretty nice graphics card for gaming.

Perfectly understandable. Also yeah, forgot about the part of you throwing in 100-150 for a new gpu.

[QUOTE="piercetruth34"]

[QUOTE="Sparticus247"]

As a media center machine and playing old games yeah, it's not bad, but I wouldn't try playing anything current with that thing. the HD 4350 will hold that back quite a lot.

Sparticus247

I'm going to put a different graphics card in either one thats the thing. I'm looking for a cheap prebuilt PC that will last me a while and i can play games on well if I add a nice graphics card.

It seems like in my price range, there is a tradeoff either way though. I'm either sacrificing the l3 cache or DD2 vs DD3 etc..... Unless i go higher end. Which i'm not spending close to a $1000 here. I want a pc for around $500 and enough money to get a pretty nice graphics card for gaming.

Perfectly understandable. Also yeah, forgot about the part of you throwing in 100-150 for a new gpu.

Or I can just get this. I don't know anythign about this brand ZT infinity? $650 and this looks like it has everything. Compared to that HP i first posted I'm not sure. I don't know what each one has as far as ports and what not. It's a smaller HD but who cares i can just pop another in later on.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883241028

Edit: I don't know for now. Sry was just doing my researching online. I'm split for now on the 1st machine i posted and putting a graphics card in it or this. There is give and take either way. The first pc I'm noticing has built in wifi and a bunch of other stuff as far as ports. And it's HP so you know the support sucks and what you get lol. ZT infinity i have no idea about but i'm getting a better processor and graphics card although i get to choose my graphics in the other one for the same price.

Either way it looks like i should be able to get something pretty sweet for under $700. Thanks for the help. You answered my original question at least. I think i'm definately going to get a quad core AMD chip either the athlon or something nicer.

[QUOTE="Sparticus247"]

[QUOTE="piercetruth34"]

I'm going to put a different graphics card in either one thats the thing. I'm looking for a cheap prebuilt PC that will last me a while and i can play games on well if I add a nice graphics card.

It seems like in my price range, there is a tradeoff either way though. I'm either sacrificing the l3 cache or DD2 vs DD3 etc..... Unless i go higher end. Which i'm not spending close to a $1000 here. I want a pc for around $500 and enough money to get a pretty nice graphics card for gaming.

piercetruth34

Perfectly understandable. Also yeah, forgot about the part of you throwing in 100-150 for a new gpu.

Or I can just get this. I don't know anythign about this brand ZT infinity? $650 and this looks like it has everything. Compared to that HP i first posted I'm not sure. I don't know what each one has as far as ports and what not. It's a smaller HD but who cares i can just pop another in later on.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883241028

Edit: I don't know for now. Sry was just doing my researching online. I'm split for now on the 1st machine i posted and putting a graphics card in it or this. There is give and take either way. The first pc I'm noticing has built in wifi and a bunch of other stuff as far as ports. And it's HP so you know the support sucks and what you get lol. ZT infinity i have no idea about but i'm getting a better processor and graphics card although i get to choose my graphics in the other one for the same price.

Either way it looks like i should be able to get something pretty sweet for under $700. Thanks for the help. You answered my original question at least. I think i'm definately going to get a quad core AMD chip either the athlon or something nicer.

What if we could get you a decent setup under $700 for a build it yourself thing? If so, would you need the OS to go with it, or would you have an OS available? Because I may be able to squeeze in an HD 5850 within that $700 price range with an Athlon II setup. This may have to be without OS though. If you can reuse other parts too that would make it easier.

I know you said you you were thinking of not building this one as prebuilts are easier and instant gratification deals (which is a very good point), but If we can save you money I'd like to help

i don't have windows 7 that's the thing. i forgot about that. I have vista on this pc. I hear you. I used to do that. I'm just not sure if it is worth the headache and if i really would be saving much money at all.

I agree though id be able to choose exactly what i want.

i'm growing lazy i know it sucks. But the security and ease of just buying it from a store or even newegg or tiger direct. Having a warrenty and not having to fuss with anything sounds good to me.

i don't have windows 7 that's the thing. i forgot about that. I have vista on this pc. I hear you. I used to do that. I'm just not sure if it is worth the headache and if i really would be saving much money at all.

I agree though id be able to choose exactly what i want.

i'm growing lazy i know it sucks. But the security and ease of just buying it from a store or even newegg or tiger direct. Having a warrenty and not having to fuss with anything sounds good to me.

piercetruth34

Yeah, it does sound good, and having a tech support can be nice to fall back on as well as being up and running as soon as the box is opened. Just remember that you will have to replace the PSU to get a nice card as well...that's the big downfall of some these prebuilts that are a nice setup, besides their GPUs.

Here was my go at a part by part build however.

Optical Drive

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136180

HDD-500gig

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152181

HD-5850 and Win7 64 Home Premium

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.437534.14-102-884

AthlonII X4 635 Propus-2.9ghz

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103702

Antec 22 Case/Antec Neo 550w PSU

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.451450

4gb DDR3 and MSI Mobo

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.454479

Total=758.42

Didn't quite get under the $700 mark, the OS put me over :(. This is better than the last PC that you were looking at though, this GPU destroys it, and you won't find it for $100-$150 add on you would get later. The CPU isn't as good as the prebuilt one, but since games are very reliant on the video card, this would be the better go.

If you went with this GPU/CPU deal instead

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.442723

it would bring the total down to $631.41 and still would get a better card.

or upgrade to the Phenom II x4 940

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.442704

for $667.91

I hope this helps at all. Didn't mean to make it compicated, just trying to save you money.

Sparticus247

[QUOTE="Sparticus247"]smc91352

wait what? a 430W PSU running a 5850 system?

yupsmc91352

I like to leave at least some head room. What's the total wattage used, around 403W? I'd be worried about cutting it that close. I know the the 12 volt rails and the amperage are what really matters for the card, but still, cutting it too close always scares me :o

wouldnt it just be cheaper to get this

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/HP+-+Pavilion+Desktop+/+AMD+Athlon%26%23153%3B+II+Processor+/+4GB+Memory+/+750GB+Hard+Drive/9964106.p?id=1218202473164&skuId=9964106

or this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883241028

and just change the powersupply adding a graphics card etc...... I'm assuming putting a different power supply on a system like that isn't going to damage it IE the motherboard etc. Will it void my warranty etc?

edit:sry that first link won't hyperlink correctly for some reason.

wouldnt it just be cheaper to get this

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/HP+-+Pavilion+Desktop+/+AMD+Athlon%26%23153%3B+II+Processor+/+4GB+Memory+/+750GB+Hard+Drive/9964106.p?id=1218202473164&skuId=9964106

or this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883241028

and just change the powersupply adding a graphics card etc...... I'm assuming putting a different power supply on a system like that isn't going to damage it IE the motherboard etc. Will it void my warranty etc?

edit:sry that first link won't hyperlink correctly for some reason.

piercetruth34

You could do that, and it would be pretty simple and easy to do. The problem is that it wouldn't be cheaper. The 5850 is $289-$300 by itself, and if you get another PSU then you are adding another....say $40 ish. So the price just jumped up above those two part by part builds.

The advantage though is that you get the warranty/customer care of the prebuilts as well as quick pick up and go. So it all comes down to preferance really.