gaming pc help

currently i only have my ibook. i want to purchase a nice (relative) pc for gaming. what specs should i have. i want to be able to play all games, doom 3, half life 2. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Depends on your total cost figure. I'd say build it yourself or catch one from http://www.ibuypower.com

I'd go at least AMD 3000+ (3200 and 3400 are nice but unless it's a small price difference I wouldn't bother) try to go with a 939 socket chip if you can. 512mb-1024mb of RAM. ATI x700 or greater vid card. Go with serial ATA RAID hard drives in a RAID-0 format. HL2 acutally has quite a bit of read/write to the HD so the speed will really help out. Of course win XP PRO (home edition bites, and MCE is only useful if you get the tv tuner, remote, ir receiver). You can do quite a bit better, but that's a good start.

If you have enough experience you can makeit yourself and save some money, NewEgg has a lot of good prices, also TigerDirect, they have greatprices and can assamble the computer for you. Just to add one thing to the previous post get at least 1024mb of RAM and at least 128mb for video. My last upgrade was as follows (from NewEgg):
EPoX EP-8KDA3J Socket 754 NVIDIA nForce3 - $69.50
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Newcastle 800MHz FSB Socket 754 - $190.00
Rosewill 512MB DDR 333 PC 2700 x2 - $74.00
(iBook G4 12" - priceles )

two questions? should i get a 1gb stick, or 2 512? and should i try and get a 256 video card?

macman88 said:

two questions? should i get a 1gb stick, or 2 512? and should i try and get a 256 video card?

Click to expand...

One gigers are nice, unless you have to use pairs then you might want 2 512's, although 2 1 gigers would be even nicer...(G)

Unless you just like to spend money a 128 meg graphic card either a top end Nvidia or ATI will run Doom III just fine.

james, could you post the specs of your pc computer and possible some pics.

I just bought a Nvidia 6600 GT 128MB video card this weekend and I must say it is a quality card. I wasn't about to pay ~$400 for a video card and this card is just a step down from the top of the line 6800 and it is flawless and for only $212.

For RAM, I would get a dual channel motherboard (most are nowadays) and then get 2 sticks of 512MB DDR RAM and you will get full use of the 1GB they combine for.

for $950 i priced this out, how does it sound?

[1] Area-51® 3500

Processor: Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 540J w/ HT Technology 3.2GHz 800MHz FSB 1MB Cache
Memory: 1GB Alienware® Dual Channel Low-Latency DDR PC-3200 at 400MHz - 2 x 512MB
Keyboard: Microsoft® Basic Keyboard Black
Mouse: Microsoft® Basic Optical Mouse Black
Sound Card: Intel® High-Definition Audio (24-bit, 192Khz) with 7.1 surround sound
Warranty: 1-Year AlienCare Toll-Free 24/7 Phone Support with Onsite Service
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition with Service Pack 2
Chassis: Alienware® Advanced Mini-Tower Chassis - Silver/Black
Motherboard: Alienware® PCI Express Motherboard with Intel® 915 Chipset
Optical Drive One: Lite-On® 16x DVD-ROM Drive with Software DVD Decoder
Display One: No Monitor
Display Two: No Monitor
Network Connection: Integrated High Performance Gigabit Ethernet
System Drive: High Performance - Serial ATA - 80GB Serial ATA 7,200 RPM w/8MB Cache
Alienware Exclusive Offers: Gamespot Complete - Free 90-day Trial (a $20.85 value)
Power Supply: Alienware® 300 Watt Max Power Supply
Removable Storage : 3.5" 1.44 MB Floppy Disk Drive - Black
Desktop Enhancements: Exclusive AlienGUIse Theme Manager
AlienInspection: AlienInspection - Exclusive Integration and Inspection - $99.99 Value - FREE!
Graphics Processor: ATI RADEON™ X700 Pro PCI Express 128MB w/Digital and S-Video Out

Very nice....especially from Alienware! Usually they are overly expensive, but thats a heck of a deal. Go for it !

That is really cheap for an Alienware but you might want a bit better video card. You could start out with a cheap Dell system then just add whatever card you want.


Check this dell deal, $529 after $100 MIR, Go to a 3.2ghz for $70. Then order a gigabye of ram from newegg for ~$100 along with whatever video card you want. If you don't like the 17in LCD that comes with the dell then just sell it and use that money to buy a nicer video card, I bet it could get at least $180 on ebay.

I would suggest moving up to WinXP Pro if you have any inkling to network the machine. XP Pro is alot easier to network and configure in a multi-machine setup than XP Home.

make your own
thats what i did

that alienware is overpriced and that vid card isnt tha tgreat

make sure you go amd for gaming too

macman88 said:

currently i only have my ibook. i want to purchase a nice (relative) pc for gaming. what specs should i have. i want to be able to play all games, doom 3, half life 2. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Click to expand...

These guys make the sickest rigs around but they're insanely expensive, mostly due to their custom paint jobs. http://www.falcon-nw.com/machv.asp
Look at the attached thumbnail. See the dual video cards running in SLI?

These people also make very good machines, capable of gaming.
http://www.abspc.com/

Cruise around here for good PC articles. Best PC mag in the business. A sister company to Mac Addict. www.maximumpc.com

macman88 said:

two questions? should i get a 1gb stick, or 2 512? and should i try and get a 256 video card?

Click to expand...

If you want to run D3 and Half-Life 2 with Bilinear/trilinear filtering, Antialiasing, yada-yada-yada, then go for 256 mB v/c definately. These improve the textures and the modeling/lighting of the scenery. The extra ram helps address these little "nifties" and takes the work away from your processor. At least, just get PC3200 DDR ram. Don't worry about 1 stick or two.

make your own dont listen to people giving you websites cheapest and best way

yeah, i am thinking about building my own, i have some friends who could help me out. but, if i do want to build a machine that can run whatever i throw at it, how much money do you think i should put into it. currently this is what i am thinking,

4 x 512mb- $119.96
160gb seagate hd, 7,200- $99.99
nVidia GeForce 6600- $169.99
CPU Athlon 64 3700- $329.99
Asus K8V SE 754 ATX Motherboard- $119.99
Toshiba DVD Burner- $45.99
Diablo ATX case- $49.99
Sound Blaster Audigy 2- $69.99
2 x ThermoContorl Case Fans- $9.99
Ultra CPU fan- $14.99

Total Cost- $1030.87

How does this sound?

If you are going to build an A64 system, go with socket 939 and an SLI board, it'll make upgrading easy. Also go 6600 GT over regular 6600, the price difference isn't much. You don't need 2gb memory, that is overkill. Just my thoughts...

yeah, but $120 for 2gb of ram is not bad at all. $30 for a 512 card, so why not. thanks for the suggestion about the motherboard/processor.