$430 SWTOR Sith Budget Gaming Build - December, 2011

Our PC builds have been getting progressively better in spite of the recent announcement that Hard Drives will remain expensive; this build is spec'd out to steamroll the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO at an impressive build price of $430. With its 6850 and 8GB of memory (and a reasonable 3.2GHz X3), this system can effortlessly handle SWTOR, will handle Skyrim on very high or ultra quite capably (granted, these graphics mods change that), and can even play Battlefield 3 without too many problems -- you'll probably be running BF3 on high or a hybrid of medium/high.

In the end, though, this build was made to duel with our alternative, the $717 SWTOR Jedi Build -- and an epic duel it shall be! If you've got the extra money to spend on a gaming rig or are a fan of the light side, we suggest you go check that system out immediately. If you're on a strict budget or are Vader's #1 fan, stay right where you are (though the case for the Jedi build is quite attractive... damn it, Yoda, stay back!).

So how did we get this thing down to $430? Here's your chart:

Optional Add-ons (pick and choose as budget allows)

Video Card:

We combined this SAPPHIRE 6850 1GB video card with 8GB of RAM (combo found here), but amazingly, it still comes with a free copy of DiRT 3 (just pretend it's a Tie Fighter simulator) and a $25 rebate.

Sapphire is up there with our most-trusted AMD manufacturers, right next to XFX and ASUS. This card has a 256-bit memory interface, so it's certainly wide enough to allow optimal performance at a very affordable price. The core clock is respectable, clocking in at 775MHz (with OC options, if you feel confident that you're cooling sufficiently), and the memory is absolutely more than enough for any of the games we mentioned above, marked at 1GB.

CPU:

In a similar effort to keep cost down, we combo'd this triple-core AMD X3 (3.2GHz) with the amazing power supply we talk about below (combo found here). Considering SWTOR's minimalistic requirements, this CPU will blow the game out of the water. If you stumble across an extra $40 or so, it's probably worth getting the quad-core variant, but the X3 is still a very high performing gaming CPU -- remember, many games don't even utilize quad-cores fully yet, so you're not missing out on much.

Don't forget to enter this promo code for an additional $10 off: EMCJHKJ32.

Memory:

As mentioned above, this 8GB of Sector 5 memory comes in at an extremely affordable $30 after rebate, even less with the combo deal discussed above. You get 8GB of 1333 memory (the motherboard can support 1600 OC, so if you want to up the voltage to get more speed, you certainly could try that -- just get the right cooling), a decent heatsink, and the Patriot brand name.

Memory always impresses us with its perpetually decreasing price, and with hard drive prices being so high, now's the time to take advantage of that to balance The Force, so to speak.

Motherboard:

ASRock has become our go-to brand for budget-build motherboards: they're one of the most reliable, most effective budget branded gaming equipment out there (and make some pretty nice mid-range boards, as well). The ASRock M3A770DE board comes in at a cool $60, and while you sacrifice looks and upgradability, the board and system will still last you for several years (easily, at that). If you do have $30 more to spend, we're huge fans of this ASRock Extreme3 board.

The board is capable of supporting up to 16GB of memory, natively supports 1333MHz, and will allow overclocking up to 1600MHz. If you feel the need to upgrade your memory (perhaps for compiling or memory-intensive tasks), it's definitely an option. You get 2xPCI-e x16 slots (dual mode is only x16/x4), so that gives some expansion card options -- maybe a sound card or future SSD. Don't expect to SLI/CrossFire with this build, though, it's really not made for it. The Extreme3 could handle it, though.

Power Supply:

We briefly talked about the awesome power supply above, well, here it is! For ~$60 (with an extra $21 discount for the combo), this PSU supplies 600W at a reasonable 80% efficiency; you'll be set for several years with Cooler Master, and 600W is more than enough for this build plus some add-ons. If you do think about SLI/Crossfire with the Extreme3 board, please comment below so we can ensure you have enough power.

Hard Drive:

We keep mentioning this in every build, but it's important for everyone to know: the flooding in Thailand has artificially inflated hard drive prices, and will continue to do so for the next 6+ months. That said, Newegg has this reasonably-priced 300GB 7200MB drive for $60. Of course, four months ago you could have gotten a 500GB 7200RPM 32MB cache drive for the same price, but times have changed. This drive only has 8MB of cache, but several benchmarks have proven that many drives do not utilize more than 8MB to 16MB of cache when gaming, so it's nothing to worry about!

300GB will be plenty to start you with; consider adding on an extra 750GB or 500GB in a year when prices calm down.

Optical Drive:

Pretty simple stuff, this Lite-On drive provides the following speeds for your physical media:

24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM

Case:

XION's Xon-CBX01 case looks like The Sith Lord himself -- granted, you could take a hammer and a can of purple spray paint to it if you wanted it to look like Palpatine, but Vader's way cooler. This red/black Sith-like case fits our theme beautifully and still performs excellently. You'll be able to fit everything in here with relative comfort and get free shipping and a $20 rebate.

*** This fan is currently $0 after rebate -- it's $13 with an equally-priced rebate, so jump on it and throw it in the top of your case! Even if you miss the rebate, you should still get the fan -- it'll greatly improve your cooling. We always suggest an extra fan, the price increase is negligible but the boost is noticeable.

If you want to customize or tweak this build even further, feel free to post in the comments below or post on our forums! We love helping you guys out. Remember, build safe and enjoy the process -- please post pictures of your builds once you're done, we love sharing them on our facebook page. Enjoy SWTOR!

Remember to check out the Jedi-themed build here!