Intro and question

[Tomer]

He guys, Tomer here.

Long time Anand member, first time poster to this section. I usually hang out in the Hot Deals section trying to hook people up with good finds.

So here's my question.

I am building a system for my son. Nothing special, but not a bad start for him.

Gigabyte MOBO, 4600+ DC, 4Gb DDR2, 8600GTS 256Mb

He enjoys racing games, killing games, etc.

What would be your short list must have games that this lower end machine will be able to handle? Not really interesting in bleeding edge games as much as ones that might be 1 or 2 years old that I could buy for a reasonable amount that would run well with the above vid card.

Thanks!

 

[meltdown75]

I like the KOTOR series for linear RPG-style game, Half Life 2 (and 1 of course) if he likes shooters, I enjoyed Need for Speed: Most Wanted for the arcade-style racing. I've never played a MMORPG or most new FPS games so I can't comment on those.

edit: I liked Fable too

 

[QueBert]

Originally posted by: Tomer
He guys, Tomer here.

Long time Anand member, first time poster to this section. I usually hang out in the Hot Deals section trying to hook people up with good finds.

So here's my question.

I am building a system for my son. Nothing special, but not a bad start for him.

Gigabyte MOBO, 4600+ DC, 4Gb DDR2, 8600GTS 256Mb

He enjoys racing games, killing games, etc.

What would be your short list must have games that this lower end machine will be able to handle? Not really interesting in bleeding edge games as much as ones that might be 1 or 2 years old that I could buy for a reasonable amount that would run well with the above vid card.

Thanks!

Games will run good at lower/med settings. That box would play Crysis. If you get into slightly older games everything would run better. I have a 6550 which is a faster CPU but my video card is slower (8600GT) I don't see that box having a problem with any game, some might have to run at lower settings but your son should have a blast. Even in a year or so that should still play newer games decently. I'm not sure how much faster the GTS is over the GT, but my GT does okay in everything i throw at it.

 

[jjones]

UT2k4
Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War
Quake 4
FEAR (although I didn't really like this game, most did)
Dungeon Siege 2 (this is a really fun game, imo)
GTA: San Andreas

The rig you have will run these games like butter and they should be easy on your pocket.