Help me build a gaming system!

[racingmc12345]

Hey everyone, I was hoping to get some help from all the pros here. I have about 1000 bucks to build a gaming system. I already have a monitor and speakers ( but could use an upgrade to the speakers).

So basically I need everything else. The main games I play are WoW (which has probs on my system now, i had to lower the bus spd to 200 to get it stable), Star wars BF2, Age of Empires, etc.

Would really appreciate any help!

Thanks

 

[GamerExpress]

Well I would maybe think about picking out some of your own parts for the build then posting on here for critique. Everyone on here will have their own opinions on parts, for example personally I am an ATI fan so I would recomend an ATI card.

 

[Malladine]

What is your current rig?

If you want a whole new system, I recommend the following:

A64 3200+: $160
MSI Neo4-F mb: $85
7800GT: $280
X-FI soundcard: $120
2gb ram: $170

that leaves $180 for speaker upgrade if you want or upping the cpu to a 3700+ or even a dual core 3800+ if you don't want to overclock. If you do, you might want to invest $50 into a nice hs/f to crank the cycles out of that venice. You'd also want to swap that mb for an asus of some kind.

$180 beyond the $280 for the 7800gt would get you a gtx too. Many options

I'm guessing you don't care about SLI? Those mb are somewhat more expensive, in the order of $120 or so minimum.

I also assumed you'd want to salvage your old pc case and hdd. Oh, you might need a new ps if you have less than 350W. If you do buy a new one, a $50 400W fsp group (fortron) will do you well, leaving you with $130 to spend.

If you want a case and hdd:

this Antec comes with a 450Wthat's of good enough quality. $100 incl shipping
Seagate 80gb sata $65

 

[racingmc12345]

I would LOVE to build an X2 system, even if it costs me a bit more. I used to have alot of time to research which videocard,memory,etc was best to put in a system, but nowadays I have much less time

ATM, I have an AMD moble chip OC'd in an ABIT MB if I'm remebering correctly lol. I have 1 gig of ram and an ATI 9600 video card. I also have on-board sound. Please stop laughing.

I thought I read somewhere that the X2 is the next big thing for gaming, but tell me if you guys have heard different.

I've always been an AMD fan and really have liked ATI. But I'm willing to switch to nvidia if you guys think it's more bang for the buck.

Thanks for the replies so far.

 

[Malladine]

Right now Nvidia offers the best price/perf. in the $250-$300 range, by far. The closest ATI can come is the x850xt which can be found, ar, for around $200 iirc. Microcenter's offer expired jan 31st though so I don't know if that's still true.

AMD is the only way to go for gaming.

So can you salvage anything? Case/hdd? If so, you might be able to scratch an x2 or gtx.

On the X2 and gaming. Currently there are no games that make use of dual core processors, but that will inevitably change, possibly this year. I've heard oblivion and ut2007 might.

I assume your ram is pc2700? you might be alright salvaging that too to allow gtx AND x2 now and an upgrade to 2gb pc3200 down the line.

 

[racingmc12345]

I cannot salvage anyhting from my old system sans the monitor. My wife is the lucky winner of my old system. It'll beat up on her Dell any day of the week.

I was looking at maybe the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814122235 for a video card?

 

[Malladine]

Originally posted by: racingmc12345
I cannot salvage anyhting from my old system sans the monitor. My wife is the lucky winner of my old system. It'll beat up on her Dell any day of the week.

I was looking at maybe the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814122235 for a video card?

Doh, that puts a dent in things!

Yeah, that's a decent card. You will get more performance out of this for $10 more, though it does lack SM3.0. If you don't play AoE3 or Chaos Theory you won't care...yet.

An X2 is beyond your budget now, so the 3200+ or 3500+ are the best you can aim for.

I highly recommend the MSI mb i listed if you aren't interested in SLI/Crossfire down the road or in overclocking (though it may be ok at that, haven't tried).

 

[dogmir]

i am with malladine on the sapphire card.....personally i would go with
an opteron 165 $330 ish
dfi ultra infinity $90
2x512mb crucial ballistix $115
antec truepower II $90
sapphire x850 $209
logitech x 530 $48
maxtor diamond max 10 sata 16mb cache 250gb hd $101

total $985 granted i didnt suggest a case but that is a nice setup in my opinon

 

[racingmc12345]

Nice, thanks for the replies so far.

an opteron 165 = good for gaming?

 

[Malladine]

Originally posted by: racingmc12345
Nice, thanks for the replies so far.

an opteron 165 = good for gaming?

Good overclocker and therefore good for gaming if you want to OC

 

[dogmir]

i put my opty setup together last night and it is amazing.....i have that system i noted above other than i have a different vid card and harddrive...i can tell you that ram oc's usually around 270mhz and that cpu is a doozy for overclocking too....i unfortunetly ended up with a not so great stepping and i am still at 2.6ghz rock solid stabel and i still have some vcore left to give it......