Currently have Athlon 2100+, ASUS MB, 512MB crappy Kingston RAM, and 128MB TI4200 GeForece 4X AGP video card. This setup is a couple of years old, and I'm ready to build a new one. Doom3 performance is so bad I haven't even tried Half-Life 2 yet. I'm looking at ASUS P4C800 MB, 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 Prescott, 1 GB good RAM, and possibly GeForce 6800GT video card. I've been trying to find online references for what to buy for 3D games, benchmarks, etc. Does anyone have any recommendations on what specific hardware components I should use or where I can look to read up on hardware? I usually shop at http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Home.jsp . Thanks for the help! Eric
To stay with AMD: Athlon 64 3500+ Socket 939 Suitable Asus MOBO w/dual channel 400MHz DDR To go to a Pentium 4: Socket 478 3.0C w/Hyper Threading Asus P4P800 SE (i865PE chipset) or P4C800-E Deluxe (i875P) With either board/proc: 2 x 512MB PC3200 non-ECC, unregistered DDR SDRAM NVidia 6800GT graphics card & 66.81 drivers XP Home/PRO SP1a, DirectX9.0C Also you will want a nice case like this one! Almost all Thermaltake cases are pre-modded and make excellent gamer's cases; also, most come w/o a power supply, so you can make sure you get a good one. I run a 480w Antec TruePower model, but Enermax and OCZ are both good as well. I have seen Tt PSU's fail more than once, so I suggest getting a case from them sans PSU--they use rebranded Super Flower PSU's and those aren't known for their good qualities! Things to avoid: An NVidia 6800 Non-Ultra (4 of its 16 rendering pipes are crippled); Socket 940 in the AMD CPU/MOBO: it is a server-type system that requires expensive registered memory and is slower because of the error-correction; LGA775 socket form factor on Pentiums (the PINS are on the MOBO! WRONG!!); Cheap, lightweight power supplies; And running a quality machine w/o a good-quality, non-switching UPS!! Best regards, FastVFR PS. I build PC's for a living, so you can rest assured that I give good advice on such matters to my fellow GT'ers.
fastvfr: I sent you a PM. Thanks for the help everyone. It is greatly appreciated. This is only my second PC build, so I'm still shaky in a lot of areas. And technology evolves so fast it's hard to keep up with the latest. I'm looking forward to playing Half-Life 2 with my new setup and replaying Doom3 on the high settings.;f Eric
Oh, no, there are lots of us sensible types on the loose. The frustrations of cramped cases with sharp edges everywhere, poor cooling, and severe ugliness are only a few of the nasty situations spending $100 to $200 on a nice case completely eliminates from your life. I mean, you're going to be using it daily for years and years....break it down that way. Save a few dollars and suffer with an inadequate case for years...I do not see that as a good thing, myself. That's why I stress quality over savings to clients. If you can't afford it now, buy SOME top-end parts and use your old POS puter until you can assemble all the QUALITY components. Your PC will thank you, won't it? I know mine does.
