«

[JoM]

Is it just the components you're looking to buy or do you need a case, power supply and monitor as well?

[Lozzenger2]

Dont forget a top notch cooling system. It's all very well having the best computer, but if it overheats every other hour it wont last long.

[_r.u.s.s.]

nah these "get cooling that costs more than your box case" comments are silly. default cooling that you get on your case us usually sufficient. +if you keep your case opeend you don't have to worry at all

[hibikir0984]

With today's mid-range and high-end video cards you'll either need a case with good airflow (based on design and wire management) or better cooling (some manufacturers can take care of that for you).

[hahajejeje]

everithing as you want,except Vista that "thing" ruined my life....

[JoM]

Vista's actually pretty good with SP 1. It's just a shame hardly any abandonware designed for Windows 95 or earlier runs on it.

[hibikir0984]

Originally Posted by Tulac

ATI Radeon HD4850 is the best buy for graphics ATM

Barring a couple of situations this is true.

1) Physx: Nvidia has it and ATI does not. There isn't a game out there that makes this a big selling point yet, but there are a few big titles that do use it. Mass Effect, Mirror's Edge, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 1&2, etc.

2) LCD DVI scaling: Nvidia is capable of centering old low-res, full-screen games instead of stretching them to fit the screen. If an old game is capable of 1024x768 max. the card will center it in your larger monitor. Generally this produces the best image quality, but the excess space around it may turn some people off.

[Eagle of Fire]

About the dual/quad cores... Well, I have a 2 gigs mhz single core here. *taps his tower* Oh yeah, you nice computer. Who does this nice computer belong to? Huh?

*ahem*

It is true that if you have a dual core computer with two cores of 2 gigs mhz inside, your games using a single core will run just as fast as mine. And probably faster 'cause your OS will use the power of the second core to keep up with system resources and background operation.

The tricky part is, of course, to make certain that those dual cores are fast enough by themselves. No point in having a quad core with 1 gig mhz each if you're thinking of using DOSBox even if those four cores still amount to 4 gigs mhz, for example.

Even with my 2 gigs mhz computer, I wished a few times for more powers when running some games. And some single threaded games like Dwarf Fortress still ran pretty slow with only 2 gigs mhz... So I'd imagine it would be even worse with lower cores...

[Fubb]

we're getting a quad core, 4gb RAM, 4Ghz,8800 NvIDIA GT 512mb, and our 500gb hard drive....so close this topic