Putting together a Gaming machine

[kmk42019]

A couple of years ago I put together a machine with AMD athlon 64 3500+, 1 GB of RAM, and ATI 9600 series graphics card. I was wondering what is a new, great processor and graphics card that would play games like BF 2142, and other high end games extremely smoothly.

[l337_GuY]

Intel Core 2 Duo are the top processors at the moment, And GeForce 8800GTX / GTS are the top graphics cards.

[kmk42019]

i put together my pc a couple of years ago...IS the athlon 64 3500+ and radeon 9600 series graphics card still sufficient to play the latest games out there?

[l337_GuY]

At low detail. A friend of mine has a Athlon 64 3200+ with 9600 pro and it lags like crazy on minimum detail on the game F.E.A.R, which is a high end game. Anything like a 7900GTX or 7950GT will ply those games at high detail, but nothing as good as a 8800GTX. And the Core 2 Duo processors are much faster than any Athlon 64, even the FX series.

[Jimmy420]

Yeah, F.E.A.R. has high system req's too, if i remember right... Around 2GHz processor, 1GB RAM, and 128mb dx9c video card, but the 9600 i would think would run it fine as far as graphics. BF 2142 req's are close to that as far as graphics and processor, but i think its ram only needs 512mb.

But the Intel Core Duo's are awesome processors, along with the 8800GTX graphics cad.

[l337_GuY]

9600 can't run F.E.A.R well at all. Not sure if BF2142 is real high end graphics but if it's anything like F.E.A.R or oblivion, to play them smoothly at a high detail then 9600 wouldn't even run smoothly on lowest.

[khanibal]

latest and greatest = intel's quad core line. Add 2 8800gtx's, 4gb of ram, and worry about this entire problem in another ~4 years.


What socket processor is that? 939? If it is, throw in another gig of ram, and grab a 1950pro card for AGP (guessing you have agp). Much cheaper, and should play games fairly well..

[cHiNgY1788]

older games prefer speed than more cores
so Core 2 Extreme X6800 is better overall (old games out number new games)

using a slow CPU with a good graphics card doenst mean its the best game PC ever


that 3200 is fairly old and would be a major bottle neck with todays high end cards

you can put that x1950 in there, and i can get a Core 2 Duo 6600 and a mediocre video card, say the X1600 and it would probably be better than the 3200 + the x1950

[silver914]

PC Gamer did an article last summer where they built a great system using the AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (Socket 939). Great system for the money!

Aspire X-Navigator ATXA8NW-AL/500 (But they swapped in a bigger PS)
Enermax EG701AX-VE SFMA (24P) 600-Watt
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (Socket 939)
ASUS A8N-SLI ATX
Rosewill 1GB (2 x 512MB)
Two PNY Geforce 7800 GTs
Plextor PX-740A
MITSUMI USB 2.0 & FDD Digital Card Reader FA404A/404M
Western Digital Caviar SE 320GB Serial ATA150
Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition w/SP2

They did it for $1,758.89 but I'm sure with falling prices you can do it much cheaper now.

Depending on your mobo, SLI or Crossfire with last years "in" cards is a better way to go than this years "gotta have it" card and for less money. I would even buy 'em used, some come with a lifetime transferrable warranty so who cares if they're used. OC that proc and the cards and you have the performance of one of Dell's $5,000 rigs. Sorry, but I detest Dell nowadays.

[cHiNgY1788]

Budget Dells i hate too, any Dell that isnt user customable/upgradable

i dont recommend OCing(overclocking) if you dont have any experience in the field, also note that Overclocking voids warranties

you might not need the SoundBlaster X-Fi, sound quality of the onboard chip is comparable, your just paying to take some small load off the cpu, and ability to play more sounds simutaeneously (128 instead of 24-32)

damn that makes my alienware look like carp...
the only difference is the AMD Athlon 3500, mines AMD athlon 4000
and that costs $4000 AUD in November 2005, but i won it in sweep stakes