What to buy? First time PC builder

[taurus252]

Hello all
This site was highly recommended to me and I hope I can find the help that I need. I am going to be building myself a new PC - this PC will be used 98% for Online Gaming.
I do not want to get too crazy about overclocking and would rather get something that is already fast and gives me some basic OC options for the future. I would like it to have SLI for future upgrades as well. I would also like a board that is fairly simple to setup and build off of.
This is one so far that I am looking at, I just do not want to spend extra money on higher end features that i wont really use (RAID). Any help is appreciated.
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium

 

[wanderer27]

Welcome to the boards !

Since you've stated you're primarily looking at gaming check my SIG.

Probably the most popular CPU is the 3000, as it OCs quite well. The 3700 (San Diego) is quite popular too, as it has a 1M Cache and has been clocked to FX speeds - a lot cheaper.

I quess a lot is going to depend on how much you're planning to spend.

 

[orion23]

It all comes down to how much you are going to spend.

The motherboard is a good choice.
The ideal would be to get an X2 Dual core processor, which-ever you can afford.
The Power supply unit is also very important if you want to protect your hardware. Buy a good quality PSU. (Seasonic S12 600W)
RAM, get at least 1GB, but if you go for 2GB make sure you buy 2X1GB sticks and not 4X512MB.

 

[taurus252]

Thank you both for replying,

I would like to spend in the 700-1200 range- I already have a monitor.

Now someone recommended to go with the AMD 4000 (I am only assuming its better then the 3000- but by how much) I only state this because I really do not want to be upgrading anytime soon, a good 2-3 years hopefully, so I dont mind spending the money- but only if I am getting my moneys worth.

Now what is with the X2 dual processor? What does that refer to? Is that like the amd xp64, or the amd 4000? or is that the chipset...damn I feel dumb.

 

[taurus252]

Ok I now know what the X2 refers too...

X2 3800+ 2.0ghz 512 l2 cache
x2 4200+ 2.2ghz 512 l2 cache
x2 4400+ 2.2ghz 1024 l2 cache
x2 4600+ 2.4ghz 512 l2 cache
x2 4800+ 2.4ghz 1024 l2 cache

the question is which one to choose.. now do these come already set on the motherboards? Like say the one I was looking into>?

 

[forumposter32]

The ideal is not the dual core CPUs. Too many threads on here on problems with gaming and X2s.

I'm not arguing, the threads are all over this forum.

 

[taurus252]

ok will start reading up on it.