What's the cheapest Civ 4 Desktop I can buy ?

[Siggy19]

I have an oldish desktop that needs upgrading or replacing for me to be able to run Civ 4 at all.

Since I would need to upgrade the CPU, Ram and Graphics, it's likely that it would be cheapest for me to simply get a replacement without a monitor. I have a 200GB IDE hard drive, but it may be easier to replace this than to get a new machine without a hard drive.

Any ideas as to which are the cheapest FULLY Civ 4 compatible desktops that will give me good performance ?

 

[Pyrion]

Only thing I can say on the subject aside from linking to Newegg is that if you buy cheap, you'll only get what you're willing to pay for.

In other words, don't cut corners to save pennies.

 

[RedRum4Fun]

go to newegg and throw together a mainboard with onboard sound AMD or Intel... but focus on like a 2gz range to save a few bucks..and get a cheap PENNY knock off of a newer video card w/128mb min, 1gb of PC Whatever your mainboard supports and use your case, hd, cd-rom..etc..and your on your way. Give me a budget and I can spec some stuff out for you and shoot you a list..always glad to help someone avoid paying to much

 

[Siggy19]

Only thing I can say on the subject ... is that if you buy cheap, you'll only get what you're willing to pay for.

Which is why I was asking for the _cheapest_ option.

I normally use my desktop for absolutely nothing since I have a 20 month old daughter, a (somewhat older) wife and a job working with computers all day. Heck, I don't even have broadband access from home (since I live in BF Nowhere).

Ideally I would prefer to get a laptop so that I can cart it down the mountain to my mother-in-law's cable modem to download patches etc. However, I really cannot justify spending $1,500 or more on a laptop solely used for playing a $50 game.

Thus, I am hoping to upgrade or replace the desktop.

 

[ziffus]

What are your current system specs?

Surprisingly, Civ4 plays reasonably on this machine (1900XP, 512 pc2100, and a radeon 9700pro). I'm sure you could throw something together for around the $300 range (cpu/ram/video).

 

[a5ehren]

Here's some keys:
Any sort of modern processor - if you can meet the recommended processor (1.8GHz), you're fine
As much ram as you can afford - especially with the memory leaks...anything less than 512MB isn't worth your time - 1GB would be ideal
Not-integrated graphics - I'll extend this to the ATi X300 - it isn't very good. Minimum would be a 6200 or X600.
The rest is up to you...

 

[Siggy19]

According to Word's System spec thingy (I haven't opened the box for a while !), I have;

x86 Family 6 Model 4 Stepping 2 AMD
907 MHz
112 MB RAM

and I know that I have a no-name crappy video card if it isn't onboard.

Thus I know I'm going to have the replace the Motherboard, buy a new Graphics card, and may as well replace the memory since I can probably get 2x512MB relatively cheap rather than faffing around mixing and matching simms.

I have a 200GB IDE hard drive, but will probably also need to replace my old sound card which does work with XP anyway.

I have XP and a 19 inch monitor.

Having seen monitor-less new machines for under $500, I wasn't sure that the upgrade route was actually worthwhile, however, although I suspect that those machines will need a better Graphics card installed.

 

[Commander Bello]

You should ask to get a used Firaxis desktop, as on their machines not graphic bugs ever appeared.

 

[ainwood]

Moderator Action: Moved to Computer Talk - these questions are quite common there, and you'll hopefully get a good response. You might want to look there for similar threads as well.

 

[Pyrion]

So it's an Athlon Thunderbird 900MHz, 112megs of RAM undoubtedly because the rest is being taken up by onboard video.

My personal recommendation would be to get an AMD64 Venice, at least 3000+, go for about a gig of PC3200 RAM, and a GeForce 6600GT video card.

Motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813152049

I have the BFG variant of this board. The only real difference between the two is they put a BFG-branded aluminum heatsink and fan on the nForce4 northbridge.

CPU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103537

RAM:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820227039

I picked OCZ mainly out of personal preference: I have OCZ memory in my rig and this board loves it.

Video card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814145098

$443.

Tack on another $80 or so if your power supply isn't up to snuff. For nForce4 boards you'd want something that can do at least 15A on the +12V rail.