Challenge: SL PC for under $500

Sorry. Belated posting. A couple of months ago, I did finally get a PC for about $550 that is more than sufficient for running SL. Here's a summary of the specs, including upgrades I chose:

- Base system: http://www.directron.com/sysax568.html
- Name: Directron BudgetMaster A568 Desktop PC System Powered by AMD Athlon 64 3200+
- Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Socket 939 2.0GHz
- Memory: Single DDR400 1GB
- Video: eVGA GeForce 7300 GS 256 MB PCI Express
- Motherboard: Biostar 6100-M9 Socket 939 MicroATX motherboard with nVidia 6100 chipset and GPU, SATA, PCI-E, LAN, VGA, Audio
- Sound: Onboard AC97 sound
- Network: Onboard 10/100 ethernet
- Storage: Western Digital Caviar SE SATA 80GB hard drive, 7200 RPM, 8MB cache
- Optical Drive: Samsung Dual Layer 16X DVD Burner
- Power: 380W power supply

Since I've been using it for a bit, it's worth giving some insights on the result. First, to all those who told me how much better 64 bit is, I don't buy it. I would have been much better off with a dual core, 32-bit machine for about the same price. 64 bit has no significant benefit for SL yet, that I can tell.

Next, consider the 1 GB of RAM. Since I'm a designer and a bit of a power user, I find it's not enough, but let's be honest. I can run 2 copies of SL or one copy plus Outlook plus a few other programs, or SL plus PhotoShop. I just can't reliably run SL, PhotoShop, and Outlook without soon running out of real memory. I will upgrade to 2 GB soon.

I know the GeForce 7300 is considered a low end video card, but I'm satisfied with it. If I were a competitive gamer, I might not, but it performs quite well for my needs. I typically get 10 - 30 FPS at prim-heavy and busy sims, which is fine. I most often keep my draw distance at 256m, but sometimes extend it to 512m when I want a broader view of an area. That taxes the 256 MB of video memory in a prim-heavy area.

Bottom line for me is that this is a good machine for SL. Someone who's just here to play around, build, or whatever will find this more than satisfactory. Beef it up to 2GB if you need to do heavy graphics work or lots of other things outside of SL. And make better use of your money with a 32 bit system instead of 64 bit.

Thanks to everyone who has responded to my challenge so far. It all helped a lot in my decision making.


- Lavanya Hartnell

Actually, I have found that Pentium 3-based systems, such as mine, have the ability to run SL damn near perfect (When the client isn't f'ed up).

MB: Soyo SY-7VCA-E, Socket 370 P-III Coppermine 933MHZ, safely O/C's at 1066MHZ.
RAM: 768MB PC133 RAM.
HD: Maxtor 60GB.
Video: Radeon 9000, 128MB AGP 4X (Oddly, it ran SL better on the GeForce 3 Ti 400 I had in it, which was only a 2X).
Sound: Creative Sound Blaster PCI 512.
Network: Generic 10/100 card.

I had acquired this computer from my mother, who had originally bought it built from scratch, for $250. New.

And this computer benches with AMD 64's on the graphics? Why? No clue, but they're usuallly a dime a dozen on eBay

I agree. ATI's are better for DirectX applications and Nvidias are better for OPenGL. I originally bult my pc to play Counterstrike Source, which is DirectX platform, and I bought an ATI 9600XT for it. Now, playing SL, I wished I had bought an Nvidia. The ATI still works fine (for a $95 board), but an Nvidia would work better.

BTW, if you know anything about building a PC, go to Pricewatch.com for all of your parts. I bought a nice Asus motherboard matched with an AMD Athlon 3200 XP for $160 and it runs SL just fine.....sure, i wish now I had something bigger now, but the board is 2 years old now ...hmmmm upgrade?

I buld my PCs for less then $500 all of the time...no sweat. (and yes the $95 ATI board that I use was purchased through pricewatch.com while the retail stores were selling it for $150)

If you're looking for a dual processor then you'll start paying the bigger bucks...try $300-400 range.

You're behind the times. You want 7950s (SLI-on-a-card) for Quad SLI action.

That's what a Pentium D 805 sells for at Newegg right now. Not the very fastest CPU (unless you overclock it anyway), but it's really hard to beat for the price. Bringing in a Windows PC for SL at $500 using one would be close (you'd have to lowball the RAM and video), but $600 would be easy.

Most people already have the basics Box, power supply, hard drive.....the only thngs needing upgrade is Motherboard/chip, graphics card, and RAM(depending on motherboard type)

Youcan get a sweeeet motherboard and chip for $350, a very decent graphics card for $150 and Ram is around $50 for 1/2 gig

Now that system would be overkill for what SL requires, but it would handle many years of software.

I actually built myself a new computer using the Pentium D 805 a few weeks ago. I was about $450 out of pocket, but I figured it would have been about a $700 computer if I had actually gone out and bought everything. (I had a hard drive, DVD writer, case, and a copy of Windows XP on hand already.) But I went for 2GB of RAM; if you just want to run SL and not multitask Photoshop with it, 1GB will do. I also paid a bit extra to get a silent NVidia 7600 card (ASUS makes them; they have BIG heat sinks), rather than one with a noisy fan. Without those goodies, I could bring in the whole thing for $600 with new parts.

If you can carry parts over from an existing computer, you can keep costs down. What you will probably have to buy new includes the motherboard, CPU, video card (your old system won't have a PCI Express card, and your existing video card is out of date anyway), and RAM (because your old memory probably isn't the right kind for the new motherboard).