Challenge: SL PC for under $500

Hi, folks. I've been posting specific machine specs I've been considering purchase of, and lots of people have had very useful things to say, but I'm still uncertain about what's worth buying. I know other people are in the same situation, so let me ask a more open-ended question.

Can you find a desktop PC for sale on the web (including eBay) that is, to your knowledge, good for running SL and under $500 (excluding shipping and handling)?

It would be helpful to post a link to the main page where the configuration you found can be seen and, if there are configurable options, you indicate what options you chose. Please post the price, of course. Would be good to see a bullet-point list of the basic specs, including:

- CPU processor & speed
- Motherboard model
- Memory in GB
- Video card model
- Supports two or more monitors?
- Sound card model
- Hard drive space (spindle speed is nice, too; e.g., 7200 RPM)
- LAN / WiFi models (speed is nice, too; e.g., 10/100 or 11/55)
- Optical drive (e.g., CD/RW + DVD/RW)
- OS included (e.g., XP Home, XP Pro, none)
- Monitor (don't bother, really)
- Keyboard & mouse

If you think there are special benefits or gotchas to be aware of with respect to SL, that'd be helpful to note, too.

If you recently bought a machine that fits this challenge, please, please do tell us about it. What kind of FPS do you get? What sims lag you? Anything else you perceive is helpful.

Thanks to anyone who takes up this challenge. This should be interesting and help a lot of other frustrated SL patrons and hopefuls.

- Lavanya

I hate to say it (mainly because its sad), but a good SL machine will run you 1 grand minimum. Motherboard & CPU alone will run you $300 - 400. Decent graphics card another $150 - $200, 1 gig ram (a must nowadays anyways) another $75 - $100 (depends on brand & speed), case + Powersupply $50 - $150 (depending on power output of teh supply).. all this not including if you want better then onboard sound and/or need a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers.

If you start here you'll get a machine capable of running SL well, and another half gig of RAM will be under $500. You'd be better off with an nVidia GPU, but the Radeon 9600 is no slouch and AMD's memory architecture greatly alleviates the performance hit of integrated graphics. It wouldn't be a great SL machine, but should be a good one.

On the other hand this is a significant step up, and it'd cost you more to upgrade the HP to this level than to start with this... and it is under $1000. Barely.

I must disagree. I built what seems to me to be a perfectly serviceable SL machine for $450 ( including monitor/kb but not s&h) My keys:

Here's the specs and cost - some things were on special, of course

Case/300 w PS/Motherboard (socket 754) - $78
Athlon 64 2800+ $114
keyboard/mouse/speakers $12 (granted they're cheap)
nvidia 6200 (128 MB) $56
512 MB RAM $60
CDRW $20
floppy $9
8- GN ATA/133 HD $55
17"CRT monitor $40 (a/r)

TOTAL $443

My keys:

1) Assemble it yourself. Geting a prebuilt machine with a dedicated graphics card is almost impossible for less than $1000.

2) Run Linux. Yes I'm using the Linux alpha with all its bugs, but it runs nicely. I'm on Ubuntu breezy, BTW.

I don't have a system to submit, although I would just say I bought a refurbished Compaq machine from Compusa's Ebay store, a few years ago, and it did an adequate job of running SL with the addition of a nVidia video card, also purchased off eBay.

This is an EXCELLENT!!!! topic for a thread, I hope a bunch of people try to" win the competion" for best 500 dollar SL system. I know there's bound to be a bunch of folks with limited means who don't necessarily want the best possible SL experience but they don't want it to suck bigtime and they aren't hardware hobbyists who love trying to figure out this stuff themselves.


There should be responses for both those who would build a system, and for those who aren't going to build one. I think you can rest well assured that there are people who, no matter how much you try to convince them that assembling a computer is not that hard, just don't want to bother. These folks could really benefit from some hardcore low budget shopping advice.

Resmods might want to give this thread a five star rating.

Very quick seach on eBay turned up the following...

Intel 3.06Ghz+512MB+80G+CDRW+LAN+Video - $269 +59/shipping
Geforce 6600 256MB DDR AGP 4X....................$129
Additional RAM...................................
.........1024MB 1GB DDR PC2700 333Mhz...........$47

That's in the ball park.

Skill with a screw driver barely required... other than that... 5 mins search.

(I assume a monitor is not needed for this "challenge".)

What Linux, for low price and minimum hassle?

If you have BitTorrent and some time you can download any distro for free. Personally I like SuSE but I hear UBuntu is really good.

whatever you do dont get socket 754 , those are outdated if you plan on upgrading later youll have hard time finding anything thats not s939 / and whatever the p4 is now : p (eh i dont use intel more)

512 ram is not recommended for SL either, its a drag recommend 1024 highly as min.

You save a bundle if you build it yourself , my niese thats 12 years can build a pc , done it with some of my old parts laying around.

Things you can upgrade later is easy, video card, ram , cpu, psu.

I recognize the limitations of going with a 754 motherboard. It was what fit in my budget. Now having done the build, I will just have to upgrade the board and processor together when I get to that point. I should also mention that I did not ebay shop, everything except the drives was retail box. Since I'd never done it before, I wasn't ready to go all OEM.

my pc is custom built only cost me 500 and sl runs like a charm with a little lag

Care to share specs?

I'm running SL on a laptop that cost just a bit over $500, and from what I've heard and been told, SL -should- not be able to run on this system.. Its a Dell Inspiron 2200, CeleronM/370, (1.5ghz), 768mb ram, with Intel 9XX integrated video. The basic machine cost me $447 from the Dell Outlet, and I've added another 512mb ram to the supplied 256mb. Everything I've read says SL won't work with this system, mainly because of the video.. hmmm... Thats funny, because it works just fine, thank you! framerate is tolerable, and unless I'm on a screwed up wifi connection, with lots of packet loss, I'm able to manuever in-world and see things nearly as well as my 'big-iron' machine at home... Though I keep worrying with all of these frequent updates that LL does, that one of them will end this for me...

Tas

Another good site to look for pc parts

http://www.pricewatch.com/

i found the card i needed there , for cheap .... wanted it to be at least 256 mb card.. Smiles .... cuz the 256 mbs are way more expensive then the 128 mbs ... lol ... can shop and review what is best for your money there as well ....

Hope this site helps others too

Zeph

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Sounds like a challenge to take up... but then most of everything's already taken. Lets see now, using Newegg for a guide.

CPU: AMD's are the cheapest so far, and for SL you do not really need 64-bit processing. So we can safely choose a Sempron 2400+, which is Socket A...
Mobo: ...and that limits our choices. I'm going out on the limb here and selecting a Foxconn 748K7AA motherboard. Thankfully, though, it also takes care of the sound (AC97), and LAN (10/100).
RAM: While we can use 400Mhz DDR's, I've known most mobo's are a bit skittish with it with Socket A processors. So we're dropping down a bit when we get a cheap stick of 1Gb memory.
OS: XP Home. Because the Linux client isn't working.
Video: We'll go with an NVidia based card, over AGP... which supports 2 monitors thankfully enough. a 3D Fuzion Geforce 6600.
Drives: We really don't need much for HD space in this case, so a Western Digital WD400BB 40GB 7200 RPM IDE drive will take care of things. I'll also choose a Rosewill CD burner w/DVD reader.
Case: These things don't work by themselves, so we'll need a power supply and case. I'll choose a decent one with a 420W supply, but if you can find a Antec case/power supply for around $25 you're good to go.
Keyboard/Mouse: These you can get for under $25 each at most any computer or office store.
Monitor: Yeah. Like you can get a retail monitor for under $100. That's something else.

TOTAL: $422 from NewEgg, $50 for the rest.

This, of course, is for a Intel/AMD based PC. If we broaden our scope a bit to Macs, the closest you'll get is the $599 Mac Mini.

If you can find a discount parts store, you could go for a Radeon X1300 for about $85. Probably get cheaper parts through them as well (note, DO NOT USE FRY'S ELECTRONICS, you'll fry the system very quickly and you won't have warrenty on the parts that long). I do however trust Kehtron (I bought my current video card there, a 9200 SE for $3 less than the CompUSA had a 7000).
Ram you can get cheap, probably 1 GB for under $100 if you look around (I found one for my laptop somewhere).
Drive Guys has got inexpensive hard drives, got my external there (case + drive), it works great.

Important about the linux client is that it has no sound, no audio streaming and no video streaming. And that it is an alpha version. This might improve in the future though afaik there is no perspective for a feature completion known yet.
I tried the Linux client but without the above noted features I would always prefer the windows client. And no, wine as emulator might work, but I think buying a new machine to run sl with some sort of windows layer is in my eyes no alternative. So I hope that you have a windows version for this new computer at home.
Regards,
Leff

I realise many are on a budget but if you really want to experience second life then you need to have at least the recommended system requirements.
http://secondlife.com/corporate/sysreqs.php

PC Minimum System Recommendations:

* Internet Connection*: Cable or DSL

* Computer Processor: 1.6GHz Pentium 4 or Athlon 2000+ or better

* Computer Memory: 512MB or better

* Video/Graphics Card**:
o nVidia GeForce FX 5600, GeForce 6600, or better
o OR ATI Radeon 9600, X600, or better

EDIT: sure you can build or buy your self a machine for around 500 $ but you will not enjoy the full experience that is second life and you can be fairly sure as time goes on that system will not be able to run SL in future updates.

I tested all the systems at the same spot on our island, for FPS comparisons.

Our spare PC: (About 2 years old, last update was the CPU)

Sempron 2800+ (256K L2 Cache) - $85
Gigabyte 7VAPX Socket A MB - $110
1GB DR333 Ram - $75
FX5500/256MB AGP Video - $65
60GB ATA100 Hardisk - $60
CD Burner, DVD Drive - $65
Case + 400W PSU - $45

Total: $505 (Not a bad system for its day, but it is getting long in the tooth)

It still runs SL reasonably - 17fps

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Wife's system: (Built in Jan 2006)

Sempron 64 3100 (256K L2 cache) - $99
Asrock 754 6100 Chipset MB - $65
1 GB OCZ Value DDR400 - $85
NV6600/256 Video (PCie) - $100
80GB WD SATAII HardDisk - $50
CD Burner, DVD Drive - $55
Case + 400W PSU - $45

Total: $500

Is obviously better than the Spare system, and was not prohibitively expensive - 28fps.

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Your's Truly's PC: (Built March 2006)

AMD 64 x2 3800 (slightly overclocked to 2.4GHz) - $295
Asrock Dual SATAII 939 MB - $65
2GB Skill DDR400 - $160
NV7800GT/256 - $285
120GB WD SATAII HardDrive - $65
CD Burner, DVD Drive - $55
Case + 500W PSU - $55

Total: $985

This one came in under a grand - 60fps.

And would give many Manufacturer's "Gamer" systems a run for their money.

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Combinations I would love to build and test, with emphasis on SL use:

Asrock 775XFire 945PL MB - $75
Intel D805 Dual Core - $128 (533MHz FSB, Should take an easy OC to 3.2GHz)
NV7600GS/256 - $115
1GB Dual Channel DDR2 667 - $75

A combo Price of $400 that should be pretty impressive!

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Asrock 775XFire 945PL MB - $75
Intel D820 Dual Core - $175 (800MHz FSB)
NV7600GT/256 - $170
1GB Dual Channel DDR2 667 - $75

Bit more expensive, but should perform at a commensurately higher level - $500

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And, my Dream Machine:

DFI NF4 SLI Infinity MB - $110
AMD Opteron 170 Dual Core CPU - $396 (Pretty sure it would reach 2.7GHz)
2GB OCZ Platinum DDR400 - $150 after mail in rebate
2x NV7900GT/256 Video Cards - $560
4x WD 250GB SATAII drives in a RAID 0+1 configuration - $360
Good 600W PSU - $85

Total: Approx $1650

So there we go . . . .

How wrong, I just specced a SL capable system for £450. A Sempron ( £30) will run SL just fine, as will a X800GTO ( around £70 ). Ram I agree needs to be 1gig but a case+PSU will be around £40 ( Antec SLK1650B Black Quiet Mini Tower Case - 350W SmartPower PSU ). I could push that spec to around £550 ( upgrade mobo and processor ) and have a VERY capable system not just for SL but for more CPU intensive applications too.

I tried one and gave up in disgust, after countless crashes and unacceptable performance in SL generally. An NV6600GT costs about the same and outperforms it markedly (again, I am specifically referring to SL). The newer 7600GS/GT series would also be a good solution, in that price range. Its not that I dislike ATI, I have just found that SL seems to run a LOT better with NV.

In my experience SL runs just fine with ATI cards ( only one of my systems has a NV card ) however a 6600 ( equiv more or less of a X800 ) is a fair alternative if a bit pricier.

Took a quick dive into newegg:

Leadtek 6600/256 - (in stock) $75

Apollo X800/256 - (in stock) - $214
Powercolor X800/256 - (no stock) - $139

Amen to that Delta. If you are looking for a PC for primiraly SL, NVidia is the way to go just because they have better drivers for Open GL, there cant be any argument with that because its a fact. If it was DirectX that would be a different story but in this case its not. Also why the hell are we even posting in this thread. The person who made the thread hasn't posted anything since it was first made on 03-11-2006 lol.

Good Point, Striker!