Need Help Building My Computer.

Discussion in 'Gaming' started by .infinite, Jan 21, 2009.

  1. .infinite

    .infinite Senior Member

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    Eh, my eMachines (Though not much of it is eMachines anymore) doesn't do too well as far as decent gaming goes. So I'm looking for parts to get this rig up and running on the gaming scene. Currently running Windows XP (Home edition).

    I'm mainly looking into being able to run the following:
    Far Cry 2
    Fallout 3
    Left 4 Dead
    Call of Duty 4


    It probably is unrealistic to expect high settings and a playable framerate all while not breaking bank.
    But that is what I'm shooting for :P Btw I'm not a hardware guy and am nowhere near knowledgeable about components working together or anything like that (software guys ftw =P).


    I was looking at this for my video card:
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814130339

    Anyone know if that is good or not? Reviews look good.

    I would still need a good CPU and a motherboard that can hold all this and however much RAM I can put on the board. Any recommendations?

    System Requirements:
    Far Cry 2
    Minimum requirements
    Hard Drive Space : 3.5 GB
    Processor : Pentium 4 3.2 Ghz, Pentium D 2.66 Ghz, AMD Athlon 64 3500+ or better
    RAM : 1 GB
    Video Card : NVIDIA® 6800 or ATI®X1650 or better Shader Model 3 required 256 Mb of graphic memory

    Recommended
    Hard Drive Space : 3.5 GB
    Processor : Intel® Core 2 Duo Family, AMD®64 X2 5200+, AMD® Phenom or better
    RAM : 2 GB
    Video Card : NVIDIA® 8600 GTS or better, ATI®X1900 or better 512 Mb of graphic memory


    Fallout 3
    Minimum System Requirements
    Operating System : XP/Vista
    Processor : 2.4ghz processor/ X6800 or x850
    RAM : 1GB RAM for XP, 2GB for Vista
    Video Card : Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 256MB RAM (NVIDIA 6800 or better/ATI X850 or better)

    Recommended System Requirements
    Processor : Intel Core 2 Duo processor
    RAM : 2 GB System RAM
    Video Card : Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 512MB RAM (NVIDIA 8800 series, ATI 3800 series)


    Left 4 Dead
    Minimum System Requirements
    Disk Drive : DVD Rom Drive
    DirectX : 9.0c
    Hard Drive Space : 7.5 GB Free
    Operating System : Windows XP/Vista/Vista 64
    Processor : Pentium 4 @ 3 GHz
    RAM : 1 GB for XP/ 2 GB for Vista
    Video Card : 128 MB (ATI Radeon 9600, Pixel Shader 2.0 Support)

    Recommended System Requirements
    Disk Drive : DVD Rom Drive
    DirectX : 9.0c or 10
    Hard Drive Space : 7.5 GB Free
    Operating System : Windows XP/Vista/Vista 64
    Processor : Intel Core 2 DUO @ 2.4 GHz
    RAM : 1 GB for XP/ 2 GB for Vista
    Video Card : 128 MB (nVidia 7600, Pixel Shader 3.0 Support)


    Call of Duty 4
    “Required (min) Specs”

    * CPU: Intel® Pentium® 4 2.4 GHz or AMD® Athlon™ 64 2800+ processor or any 1.8Ghz Dual Core Processor or better supported
    * RAM: 512MB RAM (768MB for Windows Vista)
    * Harddrive: 8GB of free hard drive space
    * Video card (generic): NVIDIA® Geforce™ 6600 or better or ATI® Radeon® 9800Pro or better

    “Recommended Specs”

    * CPU: 2.4 GHz dual core or better is recommended
    * RAM: 1GB for XP; 2GB for Vista is recommended
    * Harddrive: 8GB of free hard drive space
    * Video card: 3.0 Shader Support recommended. Nvidia Geforce 7800 or better or ATI Radeon X1800 or better






    Any help is appreciated.
     
  2. SwAT

    SwAT Well-Known Member

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    That looks like a decent card, and it comes with COD5 it says, so that should help if you wanted to play it and don't have it or whatever. What operating system do you plan on running, XP or Vista (i know it says you currently run xp, so are you planning on sticking with it?), and how much are you looking to spend? and do you need a monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc, or just the actual CPU (as in what's in the case)
     
  3. .infinite

    .infinite Senior Member

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    I'm looking for bumping up the processor, currently stuck at a 2.4 Ghz Pentium 4. Also I want to up my RAM. But I'll need a new mobo to put all this on cause this mobo doesn't support Dual Cores or anything like that. I'm currently running XP and don't think I'ma change it, depends on how Windows 7 goes over.
     
  4. SwAT

    SwAT Well-Known Member

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    Well for the mobo, this should suit your needs:

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813128359

    For a processor, either of these will work with that mobo,
    A Quad Core: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819115017

    Or a faster dual core
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819115036

    and for the ram, i'm not sure how much you're looking to get, for 4gb (2x2gb) these would be good with that board:
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820145215 Corsair
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820231166 or G Skill

    Personally I've had trouble with g skill with mobo compatibility but that was with an asus board, it's up to you. Up front the corsair is more expensive but there is a rebate (I hate them) but after that the difference is about $2. Up to you though, i've had more luck overall with corsair, not to say g skill is bad, I have built computers with it it can just be a little touchy

    If you don't quite want 4gb, maybe 2? try looking around here but honestly, if you're doing that much gaming the 4gb in the long run couldn't really hurt
     
  5. .infinite

    .infinite Senior Member

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    Ah, thanks mate! Yeah I didn't specify the RAM because it would depend n hoe much each board held.
     
  6. str8killa92

    str8killa92 Member

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    looks good just get like 4gb ram and also get like a 3.20 ghz dual core
     
  7. xlink

    xlink GR's Tech Enthusiast

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    there's only two chips which are 3.2Ghz dual cores. A pentium D 940 which sucks(comparable to a 1.6Ghz core 2 duo) and the athlon x2 6400+ which isn't adviseable either.

    GHz doesn't equal performance


    I'd recommend a 4850 over a 9800GTX, moderately better performance for less $$$
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814161259

    no free game though, so your call, after factoring in the $40 game(don't care what the MSRP is it's not as good as COD4 and worth less) they're about even as far as bang/$ goes.



    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819115132
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813186145
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820208353
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817371005

    basic low $$$ upgrade with some room for overclocking if the desire should arise. No VT FYI, but that shouldn't be an issue.
    also limited upgradeability due to cheap board, if future upgradeability is a concern go for that gigabyte p45 board as it is a good board.

    and just a heads up, games aren't CPU limited that much, they're video card limited. Going from a single core CPU to a dual core CPU doesn't even increase performance THAT much and going to a quad even less. games don't scale well with cores, higher clocked duals perform better than lower clocked quads.
     

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