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OP, when you get down to it, price determines everything. The problem is sorting through all the models available at each price level, as companies have old models that are still great, and then release new models, that are low by today's standards, but comparable to those old models, making it extremely hard to find what's the best deal.
I, given the prices, as well as having just built my own budget PC this week, gave you a list of what to get. I had a tight budget of $425 on my credit card total, and after doing a bit more research realize I could've saved a lot more money. SC2 is a cpu limited game, however, assuming you're CPU isn't borderline capable to play the game, when you start upping the graphics settings it's all about the GPU. You're CPU determines your minimum frame rate, and your average frame rate will drop with weaker GPUS and higher resolutions/graphics settings.
The PC I made for you can play SC2 at High, but probably not better because it is GPU limited. My PC that I built, can play SC2 on everything at Extreme, and the only difference between my $425 build and the $239 build I have here, is the GPU - everything else is the exact same, with the exact same performance. If you wish to spend more money, and $239 gives you lots of extra room and you feel like you want to spend more than that, seeing as how you were okay with a $500 setup in your first post, than I recommend you get the Antec Earthwatts 380D PSU and 4850 1GB GPU. I bought the GTX 460 GPU, which I now know is way more power than necessary for ultra settings, and a 430D Earthwatts to handle the 460 as well as give me huge wiggle room for overclocking, tinkering, and paranoia, as the 380D would even be okay with doing all that. I am also getting an extra 2GB of RAM (my aunt bought it for my birthday, not me) for a total of 4, but bear in mind that you should simply run W7 32bit instead of 64 bit and keep the 2GB, and also that I really don't need 4GB, I simply asked my aunt for it for my birthday as 2GB is enough, but you will literally be using over 90% memory when running SC2 on 64bit.
I would recommend you use 32bit W7 (if you don't know how to pirate it, you can PM me and ask and I can help you as I think it's against the rules here, and if it isn't, I dont feel like its a good thing to discuss on these forums publicly). I recommend you buy the setup I made for you, but if you want to splurge, get the 380 earthwatts and the 4850. And, you should have your brother on his own learn and buy a 2GB ram to appreciate it, when he wants to, although it's completely unnecessary, but would give more room for more programs when playing IF you decide to go for 64bit one day, but theres no reason to.
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@Belial88
I know how to pirate stuff, but my brother is kind of a "goody-goody," and he wouldn't want to pirate something that expensive. So I'm going with what I had at the time of your post, but with the 4670 combo and X3 450 combo. He can afford another 5, but not another 20. I'll stay with the Newegg case, If just to make things easier. Thanks for all your input. Gonna update the main post now.
EDIT: Hmmm. I'm just gonna check what the price would be if I put in the 4830 or maybe I can find a combo for it... Lemme see.
EDIT 2: I think I'll go with the 4830 you mentioned, but with this PSU. Re-updating. What do you think?
EDIT 3: I turns out the current build has the same subtotal (probably because PSU is $30), but with 90 cents more shipping, and $10 less MIR. My brother can still afford that, so that is what seems good for now.
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Now, I know I wrote a lot of stuff,but I don't know too much about PSU's. To be honest, what I do know a lot about, is budget computers. And so with PSU's, I know how to calculate 'true' power wattage via 12v rails, and I know what efficiency is. Unfortunately, like so many PC components, the market is so competitive that everyone rates their shit differently that in order to really know the quality of something, and how it compares to others, is to be familiar with the product itself.
With that said, that PSU looks okay, the 12v rails have a lot on them, and it's at least 70% efficienct (which isnt that great, but whatever). So I did a search, because with PSU's what I seem to find is true is that 'if it looks cheap, its probably a bad buy":
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Cooler-Master-Elite-Power-460-W-Power-Supply-Review/1005/9
That's the conclusion page, but the PSU you selected isn't that good. I've also heard people say Cooler Master PSUs can be great, but their cheap ones are horrid.
Now the problem with asking for help about a PSU, is that EVERYONE is going to tell you "dood spend $50 and just get an Extreme-Awesome-Corsair 700W and be safe". And they have a point - if you're PSU fails, you are likely to destroy everything in your computer, making saving $5 really a waste of $400, and a lot of time. With that said, we are building a budget PC, and yea, we are trying to shave corners here. With a budget PC, you can also shave a bit of the power requirements because you may only be getting a single HDD, you aren't getting liquid cooling, there's no high power GPU, your MB is microATX, you have no CD drive, et cetera.
After saying all that, all I can really say is the Antec Earthwatts 380D is what I'd recommend for a 'low' power solution. It's very cheap, and very recommended. It's hard to find a PSU for under $50 because on every forum and website they will say "lawl, dont skimp on PSU, your going to die!". Maybe they are true, maybe not. Either way, all I can say is the Antec Earthwatts 380D is the cheapest PSU I know of that will work.
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As for everything else you said, I'm glad you liked my analysis and even went with some of the choices.
I'd recommend that, in order to stick within budget, you order the case from Wal-Mart and then use the extra $5 to get that PSU. I see what you mean about keeping things simple, but trust me, Wal-Mart makes it very easy to buy things from them. And at our budget range, $5 is enough to change a decision.
If you really insist that the 380D Earthwatts is too expensive, you should listen to other TL members, IF they even can say any other PSUs that would be worthwhile. Either I simply don't know enough about PSU's, or it's very true that cheap PSU's are just that bad. I'm leaning toward the latter, but maybe there is a good cheap PSU out there. I doubt it though ;/
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FYI you don't add +12V rails to get total +12V capacity. They usually list a total +12V capacity somewhere. If the label doesn't say anything about total +12V capacity in the table or elsewhere, the seller is probably making the numbers up anyway and is pulling a fast one on you.
Based on the hardwaresecrets review, there are definitely much worse units than the CM Elite Power 460W. It's an old design that's very cost cut, but the performance was actually not that bad other than the ripple at high load and the fact that it actually couldn't run over 420W. High ripple just causes other parts of the computer to fail prematurely. Components are okay, there are worse than Teapo caps, and it actually had MOVs to protect some against voltage spikes in the line. You wouldn't be using over 300W anyway with the parts you have listed, so I think it'd be fine in general if you pretend it's like a 350W unit and never load it up more than that. The label says +3V, +5V, +12V (i.e. pretty much everything) should not exceed 377.9W, so take that what you will. There's no OCP though, so tell your computer not to develop a short somewhere, lol.
When people say most CM PSUs are bad, they're referring to things like units not being able to deliver the wattage on the label (like this one) and ripple or voltages going out of ATX spec (like this one). Definitely not cool. But I don't think you're setting yourself up for a catastrophic failure that takes out the rest of your computer or anything like that--though stuff happens and that's always a small possibility. People don't mean that it's bad like this.
But you can get something more trustworthy and better for $10-15 more for sure. Or if you're fine with the MIR, the Corsair CX430 should be significantly better (though not amazing) for $45 - $20.
If you really want to skimp somewhere, I'd suggest you just not use a case at all. Tell your brother that you spent all the money on improving performance. You can run computers with all the parts sitting on a table or in a cardboard box. In fact, a very cheap case with bad ventilation may be just trapping all the heat inside anyway.
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http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
You know what, I'm totally sorry the 4670 is worse than the GT 430. You should stick with the GPU+PSU combo, I have no idea how i read that wrong, I was looking over it again today and realized the 4670 is on the bottom, not on top. Sorry about that! Goes to show that you should look everything up yourself, don't just listen to people (although they can show you what you should look up).
Anyways just go with that GPU+PSU combo you selected for budget, or with the 4830+Antec for a bit more. It is quite a big jump in performance, but the GT 430 will be able to play SC2 on high, with a couple settings set lower (3d portraits, or textures, or shading). The 4830 will be able to play everything High, maybe some on Ultra.
In the end, if you can play on Medium then the game will look like a million bucks. You're brother can always buy a GTX-460 in the future, right now it's about $90 but will be around $40-70 in a year so that'll be really awesome for him.
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EPT
