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At least once a year we put down our Extreme Edition processors, dual-GPU graphics cards, 2560x1600 LCD’s, and RAID configurations to build something a little more realistic, something all of us can enjoy, a budget gaming system… Every time this is done we end up in amazement, as the term “budget gaming system” is something we often find a little scary. However, when you sit down, take your time, and look at all the options, it appears that there are almost always ways of getting high-end like performance for a fraction of the price.  Late last year we spent $900 US on the entire system, which got us the Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 processor, Radeon HD 4850 graphics card, 4GB DDR2 memory, 640GB hard drive, 22” LCD, along with a decent case and power supply. Although the E7200 was not the world’s most powerful processor, clocked at just 2.53GHz, boosting this frequency by another 1000MHz proved to be relatively easy. This time we are taking a similar approach, though we will be using a better more up to date processor that surprisingly costs even less. The new AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition is the candidate, and with a default clock speed of 3.10GHz it has plenty of guts. Although this processor was just released earlier in the week, availability already seems quite good, though with pricing already at just $110 US, this could all change very quickly. Complementing the Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition processor is our favorite budget graphics card, the Radeon HD 4770, which costs a staggering $100 US making it the cheapest graphics card we have ever featured in a budget gaming article. Although in the past there have been many graphics cards that were cheaper than $100 US, none of them came close to deserving the title “gaming graphics card”. So we have an amazingly cheap processor and graphics card combo that should deliver enough grunt to play many of the latest games in all their glory. The question now is what else will we throw into this system to make it work? The focus point of this article is going to be the Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition / Radeon HD 4770 combination, but we are still going to build a full system designed for gaming purposes. However, because both the processor and graphics card are very efficient generating such a small amount of heat, it has been decided that we would also build the smallest gaming system possible. If there is one thing I hate about high-end gaming systems it’s the size and weight that makes having to move it a job itself. Therefore, we feel that if this budget system not only provides gamers with an affordable/good value alternative but also a portable gaming solution, it essentially kills two birds with the one stone. Having spent quite a bit of time lately gaming at different locations, I am quickly getting over lugging my heavy system around, and would happily sacrifice some performance for better portability. |
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