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The latency graph suggested that those that do only gaming based on fluid screen motion and also picky about the slightest bit of gaming latency but still on a budget and doing a new build (new motherboard) should be looking at a chip like a lower priced i5. Not the i3, in my book. I say don't waste...

I went for cheap, cheap! :D 8gb of Crucial RAM--$35 shipped ASUS M5A78L-M LX PLUS (open box)--$39.99 shipped Total cost: $75.98. Ha! I know I cheaped out on the mobo and I am taking a risk with an open box part, but I'm feeling lucky, punk. Kudos! for keeping more money at home, and thus keeping mo...

I love when people ask for advice, are provided hard evidence, but already have their mind made up so ignore said evidence. Here is a better comparison, i3-2120 vs FX-6100: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-fx-8120-6100-4100_6.html#sect0 Bulldozer is just a bad architecture for gamin...

If you want to say the FX has '6 cores' because of the BD architecture you might as well say the i3 has '4 cores' because of Hyperthreading. The core count, especially with the way AMD counts BD cores, aren't comparable. There's a reason people say Intels are better for gaming, it's because they ar...

The 128GB or so size drives that have recently dropped into the previous price slot of the 64GB drives, about $85-$100, will *again* drop down a price slot. I'm guessing down into $65-$80. When, though. I'm thinking sooner, rather than later. Like in a few months, after Christmas, Jan or Feb at the ...

Actually, here's another a but higher wattage and efficiency:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/620w-seasonic-bronze-s12ii-620-87-eff-80-plus-bronze-quiet-fan-atx-psu

One way to figure out your wattage need is to use a psu calculator.

I forgot about your significant VAT! (which is actually a good tax method in economic terms, but...)

anyway:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/520w-seasonic-bronze-s12ii-520-85-eff-80-plus-bronze-eps-12v-quiet-fan-atx-v23-psu

:-) You certainly won't save $ overall paying $40 more for a PSU! That's not what I was thinking of. I was thinking about $15 difference, which will take a few years to break even (about 3 for my scenario of 140 watts/10hrs day). But that's not the whole picture, yet.... (my bad to say "gold&qu...

What DPete said. That's actually what I did, pretty close. Reused a Phenom II dual core. Later, picked up a x6 on a very nice sale price. But the more important fact even than 6 cores vs 2 for me was the 8GB of cheap ddr3 ram, since I multitask very heavily. Cost? It was low for me, since I reused m...

If you go raid0 (cause you really want for instance), just be sure to have regular (automatic is good) backups going on, to save a lot of time someday, just in case. I think that power supply (PSU) is less reliable than I'd want on such a generous budget. To select I'd look at very-highly-user-rated...

Definitely not. Pretty much all 256GB SSDs have considerably higher performance than their 128GB equivalents simply because they have more chips working in parallel. The RAID option therefore won't offer any performance advantage (and will often be slower), won't cost much less, and will generally ...

Agreed that everyone has different needs for their computer. ... However this is DDR2 that we're talking about where the cheapest 2 x 2GB kits are $50. ....I don't support buying more RAM than you'll ever use. Periodically checking windows resource monitor to see how much RAM you're currently using...

Here's a great new starting point if you see this thread on 8/16 am (until 09:59AM PT, or about Noon Central time): Newegg combo (today only) http://www.newegg.com/Special/ShellShocker.aspx?nm_mc=EMC-SD082012&cm_mmc=EMC-SD082012-_-SD081612-_-item-_-combo 1x Rosewill FUTURE Gaming ATX Mid Tower C...

The money I spent upping my Win7 system from 4GB to 8GB was by far, far and away, the best upgrade I did, better than going from 2 to 6 cores. Some people wouldn't even notice the difference. For me, the difference is dramatic, and I'm not using any serious memory hogs. But that's just me. Everyone ...

One last thought! Do the check to see if the motherboard can support that RAM amount before you buy. Of course, also consider that the timings will be set to be the same as the slowest sticks still on board (but actually, that's a lot less significant than just having more RAM). It can, up to 8GB h...

One last thought! Do the check to see if the motherboard can support that RAM amount before you buy. Of course, also consider that the timings will be set to be the same as the slowest sticks still on board (but actually, that's a lot less significant than just having more RAM).

One more thought: I've got USB3.0, but haven't even used it. Why not? Because the external hard drive I bought a month ago was on sale for $80 for 1.5TB with USB 2, and it just doesn't matter that the new drive is USB 2, because the backup software is compressing anyway and can't use much more speed...

And if you've filled all four slots with 1GB sticks, you will be looking at ending up with either 6GB most likely. Even for $50, it is still a very good upgrade for Windows7 if you plan to keep that motherboard at least another year.

I am totally about how I can get a nice upgrade for under $100, and do it several times a year. One thing really stands out to me looking at your system: Not taking full advantage of how Windows can fill up more Ram with cached (preloaded) stuff that you use a lot. I run 8GB and it was one of the be...

180 quid seems like a good price! Eventually we should think about trying to configure a kinda in-between box, using less expensive motherboard/processor and case/psu than the TR econobox, but able to achieve the same framerates almost all the time. That would not be too hard, and some would find it...

More: while I posted the OP above because of the great combo sale it had, really a better goal, and very doable is to build a gaming system that will be very close to the TR in terms of framerates for a lot less money. It's great that some people want nice cases, or a psu, like me, that is extremely...

Basically, I think we should make an effort to show newbies how to build as good or better than the TR configuration for the same or less money. The way the Econobox in the guide is configured is okay if $100 means little to you. But for some people, $100 is actually a lot. So, for instance, build a...

Suppose though you want your "econobox" to be more "econo", and the sale has ended.... After the sale ends: Downgrade some components down to the TR econobox choices: http://techreport.com/articles.x/23204/2 Cheaper: Downgrade the HD6850 down to the TR recommended HD7770 Downgrad...

Even after today's sale ends, this Newegg combo will be much better than TR's econobox configuration. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1018125&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL080912&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL080912-_-EMC-080912-Index-_-Combo-_-Combo1018125-LM0A Why? SSD, 8GB, thos...

So, the deal is, he's running software that actually puts that processor to full use, not just for a moment. It feels like full utilization, like you'd get on a faster machine analyzing chess positions, folding, etc.

I still use a Gateway laptop from the late 90s on almost a daily basis for checking email/IM and streaming Pandora to my home theater system (via its built-in optical output!). It's a Pentium III 700MHz...the AIR app only uses about 10-20% of the CPU. But attempting to use any kind of Flash on a we...