Noobie needs quick decision help

[alfreddelacruz]

I'm a noob (relatively, I still have an old 450 Celeron with TNT2 graphics with Abit BH6 MB that I will bury to R.I.P.) to all the recent new tech. ALthough I've tried to read and keep up, my job keeps me too busy. So to all you enthusiasts and techies, I need help in making decisions on motherboard, chipset, CPU, and ram brands. I'm looking for relatively high performance at moderate and reasonable cost. I'm definitely sold on Asus MB, quad core, and corsair brand. What chipset should I settle for? 590 or 975 or ATI's (??) Sorry, don't have time to browse the threads (Lunch only 30 mins). I'm also thinking about buying through cyberpowerpc.com. Their combos look reasonable. Suggestions highly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

BTW, which vendors for ready made systems would you recommend?
And I plan to use this for high performance gaming, graphics (Maya, Bryce), noobie video-editing, and ho hum general Office tasks.

 

[soydios]

First things first: is this going to be a completely new computer? If not, what parts will you be reusing from your previous system? And last (but most important), what's your budget?

Intel is king in the mid- to high-end. AMD offers pretty good price/performance at the low-end. Asus still makes great motherboards (I'm using one myself), and Corsair still makes good memory. Graphics is always changing.

 

[o1die]

I would get a pre-built system with vista and 1 gig of memory after Jan 30th. Dell and Lenova have some pretty good deals. Vista is so new that hackers haven't quite figured it out yet. For video, you can wait for a directx 10 card that's cheaper than the 8800. Just use the onboard video for awhile until cheaper cards are available.

 

[idiotekniQues]

saying quad core and moderately priced in the same sentence is a contradiction.