gaming under 200$

[hammad1029]

Hey there,

So, a shop offered this used dell pc to me for 200$

a dell case

dell motherboard 

i7 quad core first gen(950 or so i think)

8 gb ddr3 ram

250 gb hdd(i dont want a ssd)

a radeon 6950

a 550 watt psu

all that for 200$ and he said that he would bump up the harddrive to 500 gigs and would give me a sapphire toxic r9 270x instead of the radeon 6950 for 290$(90$ more than the previous price)

so my question is should i get any of these? if yes which one and why? if no, why?

[Herman Mcpootis]

sounds like a good deal. check to see if the psu is good quality, then get the 270x and 500gb hdd for dx 12 support and more storage.

[rn8686]

I would say its a good deal. It may not be that powerful, but its a good base to start on, for very little too. Just check that the PSU is decent and isnt a firecracker.  

[Aereldor]

See if you can find out what model the power supply is, and tell us. That will make it easier to judge whether it's a solid piece of equipment or a time bomb on its very last ticks.

 

Could they sell you the PC without either of the video cards so you can save up another $20? I've seen 7970s go for about $120 on eBay. Here's one now-
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HIS-7970-AMD-Radeon-HD7970-3GB-384-Bit-GDDR5-H797F3G2M-PCI-Express-3-Video-Card-/302094264617?hash=item465638a929:g:yqwAAOSw9IpXxc8V
 

I'm fairly certain it'll beat an R9 270x, as a 7970 is the same silicon as an R9 280x- a significantly faster card than the R9 270x.

 

Also, check on the motherboard's chipset. All 1st generation Core chips allow for base-clock overclocking, but I don't know whether it's supported on all chipsets.

[hammad1029]

2 hours ago, herman mcpootis said:

sounds like a good deal. check to see if the psu is good quality, then get the 270x and 500gb hdd for dx 12 support and more storage.

Actually the thing is that the 270x is brand new while eveverything else including the radeos 6950 isnt. That makes me wonder if its too good to be true, the price is too low for what theyre offering

[Aereldor]

Speaking of better value, here's an R9 280x going for $75. Bidding closes in 15 minutes. 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/XFX-AMD-R9-280X-TDFD-3-GB-GDDR5-SDRAM-PCI-Express-3-0-x16-Video-Card/311710148889?_trksid=p2047675.c100623.m-1&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D38530%26meid%3D9176b5c060594ffa83c61441e942df25%26pid%3D100623%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D6%26mehot%3Des%26sd%3D302094264617

[Quaker]

2 hours ago, hammad1029 said:

i7 quad core first gen(950 or so i think)

8 gb ddr3 ram

250 gb hdd(i dont want a ssd)

a radeon 6950

a 550 watt psu

all that for 200$ and he said that he would bump up the harddrive to 500 gigs and would give me a sapphire toxic r9 270x instead of the radeon 6950 for 290$(90$ more than the previous price)

so my question is should i get any of these? if yes which one and why? if no, why?

I'd go for the R7 270x, mostly because I'd be cautious about using an HD6950 with a 500watt power supply. The 270X would work at least as well as the HD6950 (if not better), but require less power.

 

I'd be curious to know why you "don't want an SSD" - trust me, once you go SSD, you never (want to) go back.

 

In any case, the i7-950 should still be pretty good with most games. For $200 it's a good base to start upgrading from, if nothing else.

 

The power supply may or may not be a bit "shady", but it should last for a while, and, again, is a good starting point.

[Streetguru]

1 hour ago, Quaker said:

once you go SSD, you never (want to) go back.

Think I've gone back twice now....rather have 2tbs of more storage rather than a 240gb SSD


 

 

4 hours ago, hammad1029 said:

 

Assuming it's all fine, for $290 it's not too bad, your only other option for new hardware is an APU rig that won't be half as powerful

[hammad1029]

16 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

Think I've gone back twice now....rather have 2tbs of more storage rather than a 240gb SSD


 

 

Assuming it's all fine, for $290 it's not too bad, your only other option for new hardware is an APU rig that won't be half as powerful

keep in mind, gaming isnt what i only wanna do. i also wanna run linux vms(ubuntu and kali)

[Streetguru]

6 minutes ago, hammad1029 said:

keep in mind, gaming isnt what i only wanna do. i also wanna run linux vms(ubuntu and kali)

You can do that with anything really, might need more RAM depending on what you want to do

[hammad1029]

2 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

You can do that with anything really, might need more RAM depending on what you want to do

your right, ill go with the r9 270x build

 

1 hour ago, Quaker said:

I'd go for the R7 270x, mostly because I'd be cautious about using an HD6950 with a 500watt power supply. The 270X would work at least as well as the HD6950 (if not better), but require less power.

 

I'd be curious to know why you "don't want an SSD" - trust me, once you go SSD, you never (want to) go back.

 

In any case, the i7-950 should still be pretty good with most games. For $200 it's a good base to start upgrading from, if nothing else.

 

The power supply may or may not be a bit "shady", but it should last for a while, and, again, is a good starting point.

ive never used an ssd before so im pretty much used to the so called "slow speeds" of an hdd and id wait 10-20secs more for my pc to boot or my files to transfer rather than spend the same amount and get 1/4 of the storage 

[Quaker]

2 hours ago, hammad1029 said:

I've never used an ssd before so im pretty much used to the so called "slow speeds" of an HDD and id wait 10-20secs more for my pc to boot or my files to transfer rather than spend the same amount and get 1/4 of the storage 

Well, to some extent, it also involves how much storage you actually need. Take a look at how much storage you actually use, and how much more stuff you are apt to add. What's the real point of having 1 or 2TB of HDD space and only using 200Gig of it. A 500Gig SSD is not that much more expensive than a 1TB HDD, and the prices are coming down all the time - and even a "slow" cheap SSD is much faster than a hard drive. (Not that I'm saying any of this applies in your case.)

 

[hammad1029]

15 hours ago, Quaker said:

Well, to some extent, it also involves how much storage you actually need. Take a look at how much storage you actually use, and how much more stuff you are apt to add. What's the real point of having 1 or 2TB of HDD space and only using 200Gig of it. A 500Gig SSD is not that much more expensive than a 1TB HDD, and the prices are coming down all the time - and even a "slow" cheap SSD is much faster than a hard drive. (Not that I'm saying any of this applies in your case.)

 

getting a 500 gig harddrive would give me the option to invest in other things like peripherals or monitor(s)