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[Fubb]

my dad says, "dont skimp!", so i was think 4gb RAM Pentium IV, 3ghz, unless you can get 4ghz. What sort of graphics card do I want? NvIDIA or ATI? Also vista is innevitible, so dont freak...im looking for the $1600-$2300 range... still on my PS3...

[hibikir0984]

I'd go for a Core 2 Quad Q6600 instead of a Pentium IV.

The most economic video cards would either be the Nvidia 9800GT or the ATI HD4850.

[Fubb]

this is what I have so far...3.5 or 4ghz...4gb or 6gb RAM...NvIDIA 9800...quad processer...anything else?

[hibikir0984]

The Q6600 is actually 2.40GHz, however in recent times clock speed stopped being the primary measure for the power of a CPU. The Q6600 is 4 very powerful cores running at 2.40 GHz and should be enough power for the best games for next couple of years. If you're particurlarly daring its possible to overclock it up to 3.0GHz.

You're going to need a motherboard, power supply (definitely don't skimp), and probably a Creative X-fi for gaming. You'll also need to consider the drives you want: optical, hard drive, floppy (if you need it).

[Eagle of Fire]

Please note that old games and most applications or programs made before Vista are not multi-core compatible. DOSBox, for example, is not and won't be multi-core compatible for a very, very long time either.

Thus, quad or dual cores are probably your worst bet if you plan to use your PC for retro gaming.

You've been warned.

[AlumiuN]

The only thing multiple cores are better for are multi-tasking and applications that actually support them (of which I can name none).

[hibikir0984]

Well compressing video files and music files can multi-thread, along with most modern games.

Single core processors are becoming a rarity nowadays, you generally find them in netbooks and miniature computer systems.

[Icewolf]

I'd say you take an Athlon X2 processor. 6000 or so.
Intel will only increase your costs.

If you are willing to, I can build a PC for you in a german online store and it won't be more than 800 €

*calcualtes $-price: 800*~1,3 = 1040 + shipping. :thumbs: *

I like the ATI-graphic cards better.

[Tulac]

ATI Radeon HD4850 is the best buy for graphics ATM, you can buy a dual core AMD like the one Icewolf told and then upgrade later on to quad, but if you choose an intel quad like q66000 you won't be able to upgrade because Intel changed it's platform on the new i7 processors which are expensive as hell. I'm not sure if you should go for quad just yet, there are only a handful of games that can use it and only one where it will have a bigger impact on FPS (GTA4). If you use your PC for recoding your media etc. then go for a quad core.

Also people who are talking about single cores, you can't even buy them anymore. It's like saying don't buy MMX processors it won't give you an advantage in DOS. Besides using only one core in DOSBox or older windows games is more than enough and is at least as fast as the last generation of single core processors. Just because older games didn't use multicores doesn't mean they won't work on them.

And not to mention that you probably won't even be able to run future games on a singe core processor (GTA4 being the first to break that milestone I think). I probably don't have too mention that dual core processors are very cheap nowadays so that it wouldn't make any sense to buy a single core any way.

On the issue of Vista, you can always use dual boot XP or virtual PC for backwards compatibility as far as I can see.

[Icewolf]

Originally Posted by Tulac

[...]On the issue of Vista, you can always use dual boot XP or virtual PC for backwards compatibility as far as I can see.

Plus, you can download the Vista downgrade pack for free from Microsoft to downgrade your Vista back to XP. :thumbs:
But I don't have a clue if this causes any probs.