DC Universe is a scant four months from release and after my incursion into City of Heroes (which was good in its' own right) I know that I am compelled to delve into DCU.

And then Star Wars: The Old Republic is coming next year.

I'm not a tech junkie at all anymore - I lost my taste for the art, so I am in need of assistance.

Ladies and Gentlemen, what's the best way to go here? I need something fast, efficient and cheap that will let me run these fantastic games. I will force my brother, more familiar with these arts, to construct what is necessary as I imagine going for a fully packaged deck isn't the best idea. So please, enlighten me.

And I'll totally quest with you on both of these titles.

The recommended system requirements aren't really out for these games yet. But, by all accounts, the games will be tailored for an average gaming machine. Which means, if you're gutting your current machine (just purchasing the board, processor, graphics card, and ram, for the most part) then it'll be in $500-$600 land, maybe cheaper.

None of these games are going to be resource powerhouses, in any event. And you can build a $550 machine that can play Crysis decently. You just need to know how to price parts and put the machine together.

However, it'd be the most helpful if you could describe your situation. For instance, do you need to build an entire PC from scratch? Or do you already have one that can be utilized? What are it's specs.? What is your upper spending bracket. What do you mean by "cheap"? Do you live in the US? Etc. All of these things will drastically alter what you can make and how much it'd cost.

AMD Athlon 64 Processor, 2800+
1.8 GHz, 512 MB of RAM

Video cards, I can't recall exactly. I know there are two in there with an accelerator card and one is an ATI Radeon 9550/ x1050
256 MB of approximate memory

SoundMAX Digital Audio card

I know I will need to get a new hard drive. My 80 gigs is already bursting as is.

If I could do this in under $400 that would be amazing. I'd be hoping for something cheaper than just buying a PS3 but if it's that or the PC I've gotta upgrade this.

Livin in the USA, all up in Pittsburgh.

Being in the US means you can use the ever-cheap NewEgg.

So, basically you need everything except a case, mouse, keyboard, and monitor? Meaning, motherboard, CPU, Ram, GPU, HDD, DVD, Power Supply. And you don't need anything insane.

Alright, the cheapest I could get it is $512.91, including base shipping (which means 3-5 days UPS Ground) If you range it up to ~$620 you could have a much different machine.

CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 250 $62.00 (3 Year Warranty) For $100 you could get it in Quad core
MBD: MSI 785GTM-E45 $69.99 + $2.99 (1 Year Warranty) For $80 you could get the same board that does crossfire and has a 16GB cap.
RAM: Kingston HyperX 2GB DDR2 1066MHz $50.99 (Lifetime Warranty) Could get two sticks, not just one for 4GB total (Would require a 64-bit OS)
GPU: XFX Radeon HD 5770 1GB $169.99 (Lifetime Warranty) Could get a 5850 or an EVGA card.
PWR: Antec Neo Power 500 500W $69.99 + $5.99 (5 Year Warranty)
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Green 500GB 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb $54.99 Could get as 1TB drive for $80.
DVD: Asus DVD±RW $23.99 + $1.99

It should be able to run most everything pretty well. The card's benchmarks in current FPS' at 1680x1050 are 20-30 fps with AA and AF on. With them off it gets the same rating in Crysis. For a sub $200 card, that's pretty good.

To note, if you don't need a DVD burner ... this setup would only be $486.93

If you want to go nVidia, it'd be about $100 more or so. (Keep in mind, a lot of games use nVidia exclusive features, such as PhysX, 3DVision, and Cuda)

Thank you senor~

Been scarce as of late because my PC has been super screwed.

Are these specs still accurate or is there a better package available at this point? I've got until December 20th, they say these days, to get it together and I dare say I'll have the means to do it.

Nope. I'd have to put a new one together. Let me reread the thread so I know what the hell is going on.

Alright, this does end up costing a little bit more, but sets up up better (the main issue is the motherboard cost) I can adjust it if you want the bottom line lower.

MB : Asus M5A99X EVO $144.99 3-Year http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131754
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE $119.99 3-Year http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819103808
RAM: Corsair XMS3 4GB DDR3 1600 $26.99 Lifetime http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820145328
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 460 SC EE $199.99 Lifetime http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814130568
PSU: Antec BP550 Plus Modular 80+C $54.99 3-Year http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817371016
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black 750GB 64MB 6.0Gb/s $54.99 5-Year http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136794
DVD: Asus Burner $18.99 1-Year (second year is $5.99) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827135204

That gets a total of $620.93, not including shipping or tax.

If you want to go lower ... it might come down to the $550 range. If you want to go a little higher it'd be in the $750 range (6 CPU and a GTX560 and a board that can do 16x dual SLI instead of 8x)

With the board, I'm only allocating one stick of RAM, it supports 4. That'd max you out at 16GB for now. The board actually supports 32GB total, but 8GB sticks of RAM are very expensive, it's definitely something to look at in a few years.

The CPU socket supports AM3+ ... that means the board supports the AMD processors coming out later this year. Which also means in a couple years upgrading would be easier.

The board also supports crossfire and sli. So if you wanted to get an additional GTX460 (or 560) it wouldn't be a big deal.

The power supply I chose will support the system upwards of a six core phenom II and a GTX560 with 16GB of RAM. If you did something like, get a second video card, you'd need something in the 800W range.

Anyway, let me know if this is cool, or up or down. This setup right here will play something like Crysis 2 at 30fps or so using the highest settings. (As reference) You'd be pretty set for games (this has more to do with the GPU than anything else)

That hard drive deal ended before I could act. Looking for a replacement but I'm really kicking myself in the ass for not jumping on that when I could.

The flood in Thailand jacked HDD prices up through the sky. A drive that was $100-$120 USD just a couple months ago is now $250 because of those floods.

Also, if you're building NOW ... we should build a new parts list as it's been several weeks and prices have changed.

Finally got everything working and about to test some games out. Everyone who's gotten a look at what I got was impressed, but I didn't realize just how far I'd gone until I saw the video card. The one the size of my arm.

Unbelievably psyched to get something started.

And of course.

SWTOR.

Thanks again Crono. All the props I have go to you.

Glad I could help. POST SCREENSHOTS YO!