Budget PC’s — Bulding A DirectX 11 Compatible Machine For Under R7K

With the New Year being ushered in slowly, but surely, we are seeing the slow-release of Direct X 11. It is time to revise the budget PC we built last time. The PC will still last, so do not fear if you bought those parts. This time round, I thought that we could build a DX11 PC.

CPU and Motherboard

The brains and brawn of any PC — if you get really bad parts, then you are doomed forever (or at least till the next upgrade). Nowadays DDR2 is still cheaper but since we are going for something a bit better, that can last you a bit longer.

For this PC we will be going with DDR3. So, now comes the part where we pick our brain (in real life you can’t do this), and so begins the battle of ages. Do we go AMD or Intel?

Thing is we are looking for something which has a high enough processing power, yet does not break the budget. I have come across the AMD AM3 Phenom II x2 545 3 GHz which, although dual core, is highly suited for this work. Dual core vs. Quad core is another battle.

The motherboard is the skeleton which will hold everything together. Always remember that spending a bit here for reliance is always better since you can always slot a new CPU in later on. I always find a reliable brand and something that supports what you envision your PC to hold inside it. In our case we want something that holds an AM3 CPU slot and support for DDR3 memory. Also you can keep in mind that you may want to get some nice trinkets in but nothing that will raise the price astronomically. I have been directed to the ASUS M4A785TD-M Evo.

What would draw me to this motherboard? Well obviously it supports all our products and more importantly, it has room for upgrading. Furthermore it has a built in HD 4200 which is pretty neat even, though we are getting an external card. The eSata ports do not hurt and it just looks so pretty.

RAM and Storage

First we deal with the easy bit, the hard drive. I would recommend if you have the cash to get a 1TB but if you are cash strapped then you can go with a 500GB.

The real focus in this section is actually the RAM. DDR2 is cheaper obviously which would make things more budget but less a beast. Well going with DDR2 we can get more memory which is nice but not really helping seeing as around 2 or 4 gigs is more than enough for gaming.

GPU

Since this is our beast for gaming we only want one thing, and that is — kick-ass power. In this area I honestly feel ATI’s new 5000 series is the ultimate in the gaming genre. With our budget in mind I have opted to use a 5ATI 5770 which is a monster in its own right. If done right you can OverClock this baby to beat a 4890. Since we are on a budget do not expect to game on extremely high resolutions as this is where the 5770 lacks the bandwidth. It has 128 bit which really sucks but it holds its own till around 600 pixels which is pretty intense.

Last bits and pieces

For the final pieces of this PC, the PSU is a Coolermaster 650W which has enough power to power up our little beast. Obviously for the case we are not going anything to fancy so we will go with the same on as we went last time. The last elements I hope you kept the following elements from your old pc: your keyboard, your mouse, your screen and most importantly your OS.

It would be really nice if you got your hands on a copy of Windows 7 as it is highly optimized for Direct X 11. If you go with XP, you will not benefit as much. Vista sucks, by the way.

Finally, I put our little beast into this neat looking Huntkey. It is cheap, but looks nice. Also, it is not like we need a case with a PSU, seeing as we are getting a separate PSU which really powers this thing.

Parts

COOLERMASTER REAL POWER PRO 650W PSU – R1, 164.00

Club 3D ATI HD 5770 – R1, 550.00

Kingston HyperX DDR3 (2 x 1GB) – R819.00

Huntkey H402 – R221.96

AMD Phenom II x2 545 – R955.00

ASUS M4A785TD-M Evo – R1219.00

Samsung DVD Writer – R211.20

Western Digital Caviar Green 500GB – R580.92

Total amount spent (Exc shipping) – R6721.08