i cant upgrade the comp i have now (4 year old gateway) cuz i jus got into gaming a couple years ago and the lil upgrade i did isnt enough so i need a new everything (monitor/speakers/keyboard/mouse ill jus get basic or what comes with the sites systems) ecollege seems to be cheapest, cyber in the middle and alienware the most expensive, but all the sites i read on have the same thing 'with computers you really get what you pay for' games i prob will use it for are games like warrock, medievil total war, gta3, gears of war and gta4 when and if they come out so the graph card i wont worry bout yet cuz i jus need enough to run the games i play now (warrock/gta3) until the other games come out, but by then most good card prices will go down so i need a mainboard, processor, power supply, and ram to hold me over the next few years and that can play those types of games - was thinkin 1gb ram, but should i get 2gb to be safe? - lookin at single amd processors, but should i get dual core intel to prepare for future games and if yeah, then what speed at the least would i need (1.87, 2.13, 2.40 ghz)? - are even the cheapest dual core processors better then some of the best single cores? - mainboard aint gon mess with 'overclock' cuz i dont know a lot bout it, so i jus need one that will let me upgrade my card when i need to, so would any with pci-e let me upgrade even with the latest cards? - was lookin at 550 watt supplies, but should i get a more powerful one for future cards? - which is the cheapest card i can get but can still give me the most out of todays games and minimal for future if i wanted to play them? - are 10,000 rpm hard drives really good? - o yeah will i need extra cooling for this type of equipment if i dont order from alienware? my bad i know thats a lot to ask but i appreciate any help, and o yeh i can spend anywhere from bout $500 - $2000 cuz i dont needa pay up front i can do payments
I wouldn't spend too much more then $1000. I'll tell you my build, it was about, eh, $1080. Core 2 Duo E'6400. Will offer plenty of preformance. Biostar TForcePT P965 Corsair TWIN 2x1GB DDR2-800 5-5-5-12 eVGA 7600GT (Good card, I have it, I got around 100FPS on CS:S.) Seagate Barracuda SATA2 320GB (you can get a second one if you want more room. The 10K RPM hard drives don't offer a great enough preformance boost to get.) Any CD/DVD R+RW, doesn't really matter. My NEC drive works just fine. Thermaltake Amour Series case -- nice an big, really cool looking too. My power supply is very good, although when I get a new Radeon R600, I may need a seprate power supply for it. Nonetheless, it's very good. Enhance PSU 500W: http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=PS-E5150GH
no problem, we like losts of questions... - was thinkin 1gb ram, but should i get 2gb to be safe? well, you might want to wait on 2 gig, its exceptionally high these days... - lookin at single amd processors, but should i get dual core intel to prepare for future games and if yeah, then what speed at the least would i need (1.87, 2.13, 2.40 ghz)? Opteron or X2 for AM2, Or LGA 775 for Intel - are even the cheapest dual core processors better then some of the best single cores? in a way, yes... but single cores are pretty much dying out.. - mainboard aint gon mess with 'overclock' cuz i dont know a lot bout it, so i jus need one that will let me upgrade my card when i need to, so would any with pci-e let me upgrade even with the latest cards? Then get a good board with 7.1 sound capabilities, dual Ethernet, dual PCI-E, etc. MSI K9N Platinum is awesome. have it myself. - was lookin at 550 watt supplies, but should i get a more powerful one for future cards? watts do not matter these days, only the 12v rails matter. - which is the cheapest card i can get but can still give me the most out of todays games and minimal for future if i wanted to play them? x800gto or a 7600GT is about the best cheapest PCI_E card you can get - are 10,000 rpm hard drives really good? they are good for Windows partitions, but for storage, a regular 7200 will do - o yeah will i need extra cooling for this type of equipment if i dont order from alienware? It depends...
essentially I'd recomend an exact duplicate of his system. You can try swapping the RAM to a diferent kit if you want, or swapping the case to a diferent one, but on the whole his build is ratehr good and well ballanced. as for 10kRPM drives... I liked my raptor. I had the top of the line WD1500 Raptor. Nice and blazing fast drive. Fairly quiet too. My seagate baracuda with PRM is about 90% as fast holds nearly twice as much and cost 1/3rd the price. Only downside is it is marginally noisier. My next real upgrade after getting a better graphics card will likely be another one of those drives so I can put them in a RAID0 array.
alrite im decidin between 7600gt and the 7950 gt right now only thing mainly botherin me is the mainboard im using cyberpowerpc and these are the 3 mainboard options they have ECS P965T-A P965 Chipset LGA775 MSI P965 Neo-F P965 Chipset LGA775 Intel DP965LT P965 Chipset LGA775 the rest have sli chipsets but i dont think id ever use it so thats only reason why im stuck between those 3 checked out newegg and all of them have mixed reviews
Alright, I went through what I suggested to get, and the total was around $1250, and that was with a crappy case. I have to be deathly honest, spend 10-15mins reading on how to construct a computer, and buy all your parts from newegg.
