Cost for a gaming rig (D3)

The Game Room
1

The purchase monkey has climbed on my back, as I read about people getting loot, running bosses, and forming groups. I absolutely do not need to start playin D3, but fighting the inevitable is just going to give me an ulcer, right?

There’s absolutely no way my current computer is going to do the trick - it barely runs TF2. So aside from a monitor, can someone point to a) a complete rig on newegg or some other site that will adequately (medium to high graphics) run D3 and/or b) list the parts it would take to build my own?

I have a copy of Windows 7 I can install on my own, so that should help the cost…

2

$600~ is about the least you need to spend to play Diablo 3 by my definition of well, which is essentially max settings without frame drop.

I’d get something like this: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/7FGF because I believe in overclocking to stretch low budgets to higher performance levels and quadcores. If you didn’t share by belief or wanted more down-the-road upgradablity, then something like this: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/8laC is probably better. Optical drive? More like optional drive.

Neither of these are particularly impressive computers by today’s standards, but then you’re looking at the $1000 - $2000 range. If you’re interested in more than Diablo 3 in the coming years, the $1000 range is probably the place to be.

What is your current system though? TF2 is probably a more demanding game than Diablo 3. Diablo 3 is an extremely underwhelming game from a technical perspective.

3

Really? That’s surprising. I don’t have the stats at work - I’ll get them when I get home. Thanks for the suggestions.

Also - are there any parts to salvage from my current computer (let’s assume it’s underwhelming for D3)?

4

Hard to tell without knowing what sort of components you have. Probably the CD/DVD but that’s a big $20 savings. Potentially the power supply if you have something better than stock.

Here is TechReport’s most recent system guide. I haven’t looked into D3 so I don’t know its specs but this might give you a starting point. Even the Econobox there would handle TF2 though (spoken from someone who was previously playing it with a worse processor and graphic card than shown there).

5

One question. What is the max resolution of your monitor? No need for a graphics card pumping out 2560 x 1600 at 60 fps if your monitor can’t handle it.

6

I’ll check that out as well. Thanks.

7

Looking at the D3 specs page, the Econobox in that article will meet or exceed the Recommended Specs. The processor exceeds it, the video card hits it. I don’t think you’ll be able to full-on max every setting but you should be able to play with medium+ settings and set some stuff higher still.

8

Just doing a little comparison between that econobox and Palooka’s two builds, and going with the cheaper option of the three (where available - some of the econobox’s items are no longer available), I can whittle that down to $511. Are these compatible?



Component	Item							Source		Price
Processor	AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor	Palooka1	$ 110
Motherboard	Asus P8H67-V						TechReport	$  85
Memory		Crucial 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1333				TechReport	$  28
Graphics	HIS Radeon HD 6850 1GB					TechReport	$ 145
Storage 	Samsung Spinpoint F3 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM			Palooka1 & 2	$  70
Enclosure	Thermaltake VL80001W2Z ATX Mid Tower Case		Palooka1 & 2	$  28
Power supply	Antec EarthWatts Green 380W				TechReport	$  45

Total                                                                                   $ 511

Though there’s probably no reason not to upgrade to 8GB memory for just $17.

9

Treat the CPU and motherboard as a package. You can’t just freely mix-and-match them.

10

Gotcha - thanks.

11

Blizzard games are always shipped using older, less demanding, engines. I’m not sure if they do that by design (to ensure the most consumers can run them) or simply due to having a really, really long dev cycle and finishing the engine first, but it was true even as far back as the original Starcraft.

12

My current computer:

Processor: AMD Athlon II X2 240 Dual Core
Motherboard: how do I check that (or do I need to?)
Memory: 3 GB
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430
Monitor: 1366x768 VGA

13

Is 380 Watts enough for the machine on post 8?

14

Moved to the Game Room.

15

It’s both, but I think the real root cause the former; Blizzard realizes that approximately one jillion people want to play their games and that, believe it or not, many of them don’t want to pay $600 to do it. Therefore, they use their long dev cycle for optimizations, rather than to load as much crap onto the engine as they can.

16

380w isn’t enough for an overclocked X4 955 with a GTX 560. 380w is enough for a stock i3-2120 with an HD6850, though it doesn’t leave room for more powerful components down the road.

17

Probably a bit of both, but it’s worked very, very well for them. World of Warcraft is their most profitable game by, well, a lot, and it’ll almost run on a toaster.

18

So digging around it looks like my video card is the only thing holding me back. Unfortunately, I believe it’s integrated. Can I still install another card though?

19

Usually, yes. I did this for a machine I bought for my parents.

Check how much space there is and what type of expansion slots are available, though. Some of the off the shelf rigs don’t have a ton of space inside.

20

Yes, if you have a PCIe slot on your motherboard and a PSU capable of handling a beefier card.

It’s very likely that you meet the first criteria. I don’t know about the second. We can find out pretty easily if you know the exact model of your computer or you can just open up your case and see what the PSU says on its chart. (It’d look something like this)