Skip to content
Main Navigation Puget Systems Logo
  • Solutions
    • Content Creation
      • Photo Editing
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Adobe Lightroom Classic
        • Adobe Photoshop
        • Stable Diffusion
      • Video Editing & Motion Graphics
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Adobe After Effects
        • Adobe Premiere Pro
        • DaVinci Resolve
        • Foundry Nuke
      • 3D Design & Animation
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Autodesk 3ds Max
        • Autodesk Maya
        • Blender
        • Cinema 4D
        • Houdini
        • ZBrush
      • Real-Time Engines
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Game Development
        • Unity
        • Unreal Engine
        • Virtual Production
      • Rendering
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Keyshot
        • OctaneRender
        • Redshift
        • V-Ray
      • Digital Audio
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Ableton Live
        • FL Studio
        • Pro Tools
    • Engineering
      • Architecture & CAD
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Autodesk AutoCAD
        • Autodesk Inventor
        • Autodesk Revit
        • SOLIDWORKS
      • Visualization
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Enscape
        • Lumion
        • Twinmotion
      • Photogrammetry & GIS
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • ArcGIS Pro
        • Agisoft Metashape
        • Pix4D
        • RealityCapture
    • AI & HPC
      • Recommended Systems For:
      • Data Science
      • Generative AI
      • Large Language Models
      • Machine Learning / AI Dev
      • Scientific Computing
    • More
      • Recommended Systems For:
      • Compact Size
      • Live Streaming
      • NVIDIA RTX Studio
      • Quiet Operation
      • Virtual Reality
    • Business & Enterprise
      We can empower your company
    • Government & Education
      Services tailored for your organization
  • Products
    • Puget Mobile
      Powerful laptop workstations
      • Puget Mobile 16″
    • Puget Workstations
      High-performance desktop PCs
      • AMD Ryzen
        • Ryzen 9000:
        • Small Form Factor
        • Mini Tower
        • Mid Tower
        • Full Tower
      • AMD Threadripper
        • Threadripper 7000:
        • Mid Tower
        • Full Tower
        • Threadripper PRO 7000WX:
        • Full Tower
      • AMD EPYC
        • EPYC 9004:
        • Full Tower
      • Intel Core Ultra
        • Core Ultra Series 2:
        • Small Form Factor
        • Mini Tower
        • Mid Tower
        • Full Tower
      • Intel Xeon
        • Xeon W-2500:
        • Mid Tower
        • Xeon W-3500:
        • Full Tower
    • Custom Computers
    • Puget Rackstations
      Workstations in rackmount chassis
      • AMD Rackstations
        • Ryzen 9000:
        • R132-4U
        • R550-6U 5-Node
        • Threadripper 7000:
        • T121-4U
        • T120-5U
        • Threadripper PRO 7000WX:
        • T141-4U
        • T140-5U (Dual 5090s)
        • EPYC 9004:
        • E140-4U (Quad 4090s)
      • Intel Rackstations
        • Core Ultra Series 2:
        • C132-4U
        • Xeon W-3500:
        • X131-4U
        • X141-5U
    • Custom Rackmount Workstations
    • Puget Servers
      Enterprise-class rackmount servers
      • Rackmount Servers
        • AMD EPYC:
        • E200-1U
        • E120-2U
        • E140-2U
        • E280-4U
        • E281-4U
        • Intel Xeon:
        • X200-1U
        • X240-2U
    • Comino Grando GPU Servers
    • Custom Servers
    • Puget Storage
      Solutions from desktop to datacenter
      • Network-Attached Storage
        • Synology NAS Units:
        • 4-bay DiskStation
        • 8-bay DiskStation
        • 12-bay DiskStation
        • 4-bay RackStation
        • 12-bay FlashStation
      • Software-Defined Storage
        • Datacenter Storage:
        • 12-Bay 2U
        • 24-Bay 2U
        • 36-Bay 4U
    • Recommended Third Party Peripherals
      Curated list of accessories for your workstation
    • Puget Gear
      Quality apparel with Puget Systems branding
  • Publications
    • Articles
    • Blog Posts
    • Case Studies
    • HPC Blog
    • Podcasts
    • Press
    • PugetBench
  • Support
    • Contact Support
    • Support Articles
    • Warranty Details
    • Onsite Services
    • Unboxing
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Our Customers
    • Enterprise
    • Gov & Edu
    • Press Kit
    • Testimonials
    • Careers
  • Talk to an Expert
  • My Account
  1. Home
  2. /
  3. Hardware Articles
  4. /
  5. Building a Value Gaming PC

Building a Value Gaming PC

Posted on October 17, 2003 by Jon Bach
Always look at the date when you read an article. Some of the content in this article is most likely out of date, as it was written on October 17, 2003. For newer information, see our more recent articles.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • Motherboard
  • Video Card
  • Other Items
  • Our System
  • Build Your Own!

Introduction

Building a Value Gaming PC on a tight budget requires some difficult decisions. When budget is not a factor, building a great gaming PC is relatively easy – simply choose the fastest parts available. That’s what we did in our last article, titled Building the Ultimate Gaming PC. If you want the best gaming PC that money can buy, then we encourage you to check out that article. Unfortunately, most of us do not have the luxury of a high budget, so in this article, we will take a look at current technology, and explore what the best choices would be for building a great gaming PC for under $1500.

Motherboard

One of the first choices you need to make in any computer is what motherboard you will be using. This is a very involved decision – not only does it include the decision of what CPU and memory type to use, but it also requires you to take a look at the features of the different motherboard, to see which one will give you the best performance, upgrade path and onboard features you need for the money.

All modern motherboards today use dual channel DDR400 memory, so that aspect of our decision is already made. The fundamental question then is: do we go with AMD or Intel? While Intel has some definite performance benefits and the moment, AMD has always been the brand to turn to when you need the most performance for your dollar. For that reason, when on a tight budget, AMD already holds our preference. To close the deal, however, we need to take a look at the nForce2 chipset. This is the chipset that we recommend for AMD processors, and it has some very attractive features. Not only does it have the now standard USB2.0, firewire, SATA and RAID onboard, but it also has the nearly legendary nForce2 onboard audio system. This onboard audio has shown such great performance that we would recommend it even in demanding gaming situations. Because of this, systems using the nForce2 chipset rarely need a high end sound card for great performance. Since that saves us the cost of buying a good sound card, that makes our choice easy! The great features of the nForce2 motherboard for AMD processors, and the great value of AMD processors in themselves, makes the Asus A7N8X-Deluxe motherboard our choice.

Even once we have the type of CPU and memory to use, we still need to decide what speed of CPU and amount of memory to get. As we outlined in our Ultimate Gaming PC article, the speed of the CPU should not be the primary focus of our budget. The video card should get our attention first, so we will defer the decision on the speed of the processor and amount of memory to later — when we know how much of our budget we have left!

Video Card

The video card is the part of the system we’re going to be relying on the most for great gaming performance, so even when we’re on a tight budget, this is the one area where we should go as high as we can. Because of this, we have chosen the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb card for our Value Gaming PC. While we were able to use this card and stay under our $1500 budget, if your budget is even tighter, we would recommend the ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 128mb card. All around, we’re seeing better performance from the ATI cards, so we would recommend them over the nVidia GeForceFX line.

Other Items

At this point, the only major choices we have left are the CPU speed and amount of memory. We need only to leave us enough budget to wrap up the system with some miscellaneous items – hard drive, case, power supply, and a copy of Windows XP. When using XP, it is a good idea to have at least 512mb of memory, and especially when gaming is in mind, having more than that is always a good idea. For our Value Gaming PC, we will use 1.0GB of memory. That leaves us just enough budget to use an AMD Athlon XP 2500+ processor. Not only is this a great choice due to its 333MHz FSB and 512k cache, but the extra cache onboard makes the CPU core larger – and a larger core means more surface area to dissipate heat, making the processor easier to cool. Knowing the cooling issues that have plagued AMD Athlon XP processors, this is an important benefit!

Our System

So, in the end, we have ourselves a high powered AMD gaming system, ready to take on the most demanding games, and we’re even under budget! In this system, we used:

AMD Athlon XP 2500+ 333FSB 512k CPU
Asus A7N8X-Deluxe Motherboard
1.0GB PC3200 DDR (2x512mb) Ram
40GB Ultra ATA-100 7200 RPM 8MB Hard Drive
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB Video Card
Lite On 16x/40x DVD-Rom
Windows XP Home Operating System
350W Enermax Whisper Power Supply
Lian-Li PC7H+ w/ Window
Vantec T.M.D. CPU Fan Upgrade

Build Your Own!

Of course, if your budget or focus differs from ours, you might come to a completely different conclusion on what configuration is best for you. In the end, the main idea is to intelligently look at each component, know its strengths, and pick the combination that best suits your needs while remaining in the budget you are allowing. If that sounds like too much to take on, we would be happy to help you out! If you’d like to see what we recommend for you, simply do the following:

  1. Register on our website at https://www.pugetsystems.com/register.php. This will allow us to post a recommended configuration and a price quote directly to your account, which is more efficient and gives you far more information than a quote over email alone.
  2. Email us at [email protected], and be sure to tell us what type of system you’re looking for, and what your budget is. With those two pieces of information alone, we can make 90% of our recommendations. Be sure to tell us about any other needs you have (if you need a CDRW, modem, etc) when you send your email.

We have already helped thousands of people to design the best computer systems for them, and we would be happy to do the same for you!

Who is Puget Systems?

Puget Systems builds custom workstations, servers and storage solutions tailored for your work.

We provide:

Extensive performance testing
making you more productive and giving better value for your money

Reliable computers
with fewer crashes means more time working & less time waiting

Support that understands
your complex workflows and can get you back up & running ASAP

A proven track record
as shown by our case studies and customer testimonials

Get Started

Browse Systems

Puget Systems Mobile Laptop Workstation Icon

Mobile

Puget Systems Tower Workstation Icon

Workstations

Puget Systems Rackmount Workstation Icon

Rackstations

Puget Systems Rackmount Server Icon

Servers

Puget Systems Rackmount Storage Icon

Storage

Latest Articles

  • NVIDIA Blackwell GPU GenAI Software Support
  • Reflecting on an Incredible NAB Show 2025
  • Windows 10 End of Life: A Guide to What’s Next
  • Meet the 5-Node 6U Rackstation Built with Game Dev in Mind
  • Now Available: PugetBench for After Effects 1.0!
View All

Post navigation

 Building the Ultimate Gaming PCThe Pitfalls of Building Your Own Computer! 
Puget Systems Logo
Build Your Own PC Site Map FAQ
facebook instagram linkedin rss twitter youtube

Optimized Solutions

  • Adobe Premiere
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Solidworks
  • Autodesk AutoCAD
  • Machine Learning

Workstations

  • Content Creation
  • Engineering
  • Scientific PCs
  • More

Support

  • Online Guides
  • Request Support
  • Remote Help

Publications

  • All News
  • Puget Blog
  • HPC Blog
  • Hardware Articles
  • Case Studies

Policies

  • Warranty & Return
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Delivery Times
  • Accessibility

About Us

  • Testimonials
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter

© Copyright 2025 - Puget Systems, All Rights Reserved.