Looking for some buying advice. I'm building a cpu that will pretty much be used as a gaming rig. Looking to play games like Doom III, Half Life, Far Cry etc.. I'm going to put it together myself and really only want to spend around $1000. Pez? Sideburn? any other gamers out there?
I was hoping to avoid reading a bunch of articles on tomshardware before I made my decision, I always tend to over analyze my purchases.
Pezman
05-04-2005, 04:50 PM
Hmm, tough call. $1000 will get you a pretty good rig, but not a top 1/3 level cpu. The video card alone will eat up about a quarter of that budget if you are looking at sweet framerates. However, the real sweet spot is finding bargains on 64 bit processors, since they will be coming down in price big time over the next few months.
With the advent of 64 bit Windows OS looming, it would help to think ahead IMO.
As for a mobo, well, those can be had for $100-$150 so no problem there... If you can, try and grab a mobo that has good sound capabilities. Something like Nvidia Soundstorm. That will save you on having to buy a Creative card ($100). Of course, being in Cali, you can find great deals on hard drives over at Frys Electronics. They are currently selling 120 gig drives for $49.99 and 160 gig for $64.99. So, all that is left is memory.
Grab yourself a gig of memory if possible. This will eat into the budget but I highly recommend it myself. Dont go with the low end or overclocked memory either btw as you will notice the difference. Always go with Mushkin, Corsair or any familiar namebrand.
~One final note, dont worry about overanalyzing your decision. Hell, it took me 3 months of exaustive research before I picked out my camera... Teh Computer Geeks Un1t3!
Thanks for the info, I will let you know which way I go.