Looking For some hints

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AcidTrip

I am a gamer and wish to build a machine purley for that. I already have and
average speed pc but find it is lacking when I play games like battlefield 2,
the issue I have is I only have minimal knowlage of hardware, but i refuse to
buy a package pc. I have ask a few people but they never give me a straight
answer, if anyone has any suggestions I would appreicate greatly
 
AcidTrip said:
I am a gamer and wish to build a machine purley for that. I already
have and average speed pc but find it is lacking when I play games
like battlefield 2, the issue I have is I only have minimal knowlage
of hardware, but i refuse to buy a package pc. I have ask a few
people but they never give me a straight answer, if anyone has any
suggestions I would appreicate greatly
Click to expand...

First you have to decide what you want to spend. Then you work from there.
Look at the suggested requirements for the games. Read of 'Ultimate game
machines and see what others are using. Read as many site reviews as you can
handle. Posters will most likely give accounts of the machines they use so
you will get more than you can handle at first. All will be considering
their Systems to be the best for them but may not be best for you. You will
have to do much research on your own. Basically a gammer will tell you to
buy as much as you can afford. The fastest CPU with as much RAM as you can
and the largest power supply and many of the largest and fastest hard drives
you can find and then OVERCLOCK until it overheats then cool the crap out of
it and buy another Video card because as soon an you get it built there will
be a new one out.
 
What is your budget and what CPU and motherboard do you have inside your
current PC (in case you want to upgrade your current machine)?
 
I am a gamer and wish to build a machine purley for that. I already have and
average speed pc but find it is lacking when I play games like battlefield 2,
the issue I have is I only have minimal knowlage of hardware, but i refuse to
buy a package pc. I have ask a few people but they never give me a straight
answer, if anyone has any suggestions I would appreicate greatly
Click to expand...

First I suggest posting the specifics of your current
system. Only then might we know what is lacking, it might
be upgradable rather than scraping whole thing.

Generally speaking, you'd get an Athlon 64 CPU (possibly
around 3200 or higher, depends on the total budget), at
least 1GB but preferribly 1.5GB of memory (if not 2GB, since
dual channel boards may like 2 x 1GB sticks), and a
mid-range or better video card (typically $150+, depends on
the budget again... a cheaper card can play the game but to
buy new today for a "purely for that" purpose, the video
card is definitely going to be one of the (probably THE
most) costly items.

That's about it, any budget-grade semi-modern HDD will do,
but of course you'd want a DVD (or at least CD) drive as so
many games require the CD in the drive to play.

IF the budget doesn't allow for a fairly high(er)-end video
card, don't use an LCD monitor with a high(er) resolution,
with a mid-grade card you would get better long-term results
sticking with an LCD with no more than 1440x900 or 1280x1024
resolution unless you don't use much FSAA.
 
hey thank for the replys my budget is around the $1000 mark can go a little
higher. I only need a case as all my peripherals are fine, my current pc it
going to my younger brother so upgrading it is not an option I wish to start
again and build my own.
 
I am a gamer and wish to build a machine purley for that. I already have and
average speed pc but find it is lacking when I play games like battlefield 2,
the issue I have is I only have minimal knowlage of hardware, but i refuse to
buy a package pc. I have ask a few people but they never give me a straight
answer, if anyone has any suggestions I would appreicate greatly
Click to expand...

If you want one purely for gaming and want to save a little money
you could get a lower end single core CPU. The gig ratings they give
are kind of wacked out. The dual core 3800 is 2.0 gig while the 3800
single core is 2.4 gig and a 3500 venice core is 2.2.

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews/Specific.aspx?ArticleId=10618

see heres a 3500 at Monarch
http://www.pricewatch.com/cpu/240852-1.htm

$203 bucks or I think plus MB nforce4 ultra for 80-120 bucks.
Thats about 340 or so.

Then get prferably 2 x 1 gig sticks for 2 gigs. I once saw some test
one of the hardware sites had that gave detailed specs and performance
figures for BF2 and memory actually made a difference. That was the
first time I actually felt like going above 1 gig. Also my test on a
system showed big improvements in DOOM3 going from 512 to 1 gig which
maybe obvious to most people but I was surprised on a marginal system
using a 9600 XT+32000 AMD that the additional megs made a huge
difference.

Also I saw some test a while ago at Anandtech where he claimed in this
one test that these systems he was testing OCed better with 1 gig
sticks than lots of 512 sticks I think thats what he said. Dont know
if thats true nowadays for most systems but I wasnt to get 2x1 gig
sticks Right now the 512 sticks are still the cheapest but there have
been recent price drops on 1 gig and 2 x 1 gig sets on sale at newegg
etc.

Theres some killer deals on graphics cards nowadays. I was even
thinking of buying this though its insane. I just upgraded two months
ago again but was thinking the 1800XT ATI which comes out surprisingly
well in tests at Firing Squad comes with 512 megs and can be lower
than $300. The price for what you get is amazing. I wouldnt spend more
than that as the Direct X 10 cards are slated to come out maybe early
next year or so with Vista. I was watching that awful clip they have
at some sites they took on a demo of supposed Direct X 10 effects in
far cry and youll defintely want to upgrade again when that comes out
and prices are reasonable which may be months after its release
inSpring or maybe even summer but you wouldnt want to spend 400-500 on
a card and have it nosedive in value after the direct 10 cards come
out. If you want to save more you can get a 7600 or even a 6600gt for
100 or so but many of the top games like obiviion now with all the
effects turned on at higher res can even bring top cards way way down
in FPS.

Im satisfied with the 7800GT I have --- dont need to set it at ultra
high res or have AA turned on.
 
hey thank for the replys my budget is around the $1000 mark can go a little
higher. I only need a case as all my peripherals are fine, my current pc it
going to my younger brother so upgrading it is not an option I wish to start
again and build my own.
Click to expand...


Check these trailers out . Hype about a preview of the Far Cry engine
with new features which hopefully the Direct X 10 cards at a
reasonable price will have with decent speeds.
http://www.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?id=2509
 
I was having a look at a few systems the other day whats you guys opinion on
a

Asus intel P5GV-MA (LGA775) Motherboard,
Intel 3.4ghz. CPU
1gig X 2 DDR
200GB Seagate sata HDD

not sure on what hard drive to get or the video card yet
 
I was having a look at a few systems the other day whats you guys opinion on
a

Asus intel P5GV-MA (LGA775) Motherboard,
Intel 3.4ghz. CPU
1gig X 2 DDR
200GB Seagate sata HDD

not sure on what hard drive to get or the video card yet
Click to expand...

If you are referring to this one:

http://www.asus.com.tw/products4.aspx?modelmenu=2&model=793&l1=3&l2=11&l3=237

note that it uses a xxxGV chipset, and what "graphics value"
means, is it has no video card slot. Since you can see
there is a video card slot located on the board, there
has to be a trick. And the trick in this case, is the
PCI Express in the video card slot is x4 and not x16.
In other words, it doesn't have the bandwidth of a
"normal" PCI Express motherboard. For office applications,
that amount of bandwidth is OK, but if you were gaming or
running benchmarks, it is possible the x4 limit might slow
an add-in video card a bit.

If you want to understand how having a x4 video card slot,
versus an x16 video card slot might affect you, this
Tomshardware article used insulating tape, to insulate
the PCI Express signals on a video card, and test the
card with different numbers of lanes enabled. You can see
in the benchmarks, that the impact is not too high, but there
is still a measurable difference between x4 and x16.

If you just want to use the built-in graphics, this will be
a non-issue for you.

The downloadable manual is here:

http://dlsvr03.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socket775/P5GV-MX/e2580_P5GV-MX.pdf

A normal motherboard looks like this:

Processor
x16 |
Video_slot-----Northbridge---Memory
|
|
Southbridge
| |
PCI PCI Express (mainly x1 slots)
bus

The P5GV-MX looks like this:

Processor
|
Northbridge---Memory
|
|
Southbridge
| |
PCI PCI Express
bus | x4
v
Video_slot

The Northbridge on the P5GV-MX has a built-in
graphics controller, but it is mainly suited to
office applications or perhaps watching a video.
For gaming, a video card is recommended, and it
goes in the video slot.

On the plus side, the motherboard does have three
PCI bus slots, and people generally prefer them, due to
the rich set of add-in cards you can get. The PCI
Express x1 slots still leave a lot to be desired -
we're still waiting to see a sound card that runs
on PCI Express, for example.

Paul
 
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