Well, I'm finally getting a new pc, and I have an $800 budget. Www.newegg.com has an amd dual core 4200+ for $187, so I think I have the processor down.. So now I need some advice on everything else I have a friend building this for me, and he was just going to put what he thought was the best for my budget, but I'd like some more input! I already have a monitor, keyboard and mouse. So I only need to build a tower. I really don't know anything about vid cards, how much ram to get, what kind of MoBo, and so on.. So if someone could help me out, that would be awesome!

Thanks

Get a Intel Core Duo 2. The base model will outperform the highest brand AMD processor avaiable with just a little tweaking and is cheaper than the 4200+.

Personally i think 1GB is fine for most games, 2GB helps if you do play alot of MMO's or multitask alot.

GFX cards are iffy simply because the new chipsets are coming out this winter, so prices will drop on the current ones, meaning buying now will mean you will be able to get the same card much cheaper a couple of months later. As a rule of thumb ATI cards have a much better image quality and perform better in games like HL2 or Oblivion (anything that requires alot of shader grunt) and nVidia handles OpenGL better. I personally think you're best off with a 1900XT or a 1800XTX at the minute for a single card.

I don't know alot about the new Intel Mobo's, but i'm sure someone else here will.

Bottom line, get a Intel Based computer, the new chips are unreal in everyway.

Thanks for the reply higgins! I'm getting $400 for my amd 3200+ pc, which I think is more than it's worth. So I may just pocket the cash for a couple months, and use my dad's crappy pc. So I may go with what you said about prices dropping with the launch of the new chips. If I can wait a couple months, I should be able to get a decent pc in my price range. I just really want a pc that will be able to run ut 2007... Which may be hard

Im using the asus p5wdh deluxe motherboard, its good and i have no complaints so far, if you need to change any of the bios options its simple enough. Comes with a nice manual which also includes instalation instructions on everything u will possibly be connecting upto it.

Dunno if u wanna spend that much on one tho mine was £152

Unfortunately ddr2 ram prices seem to have gone up a bit since i ordered ....not sure why that is.

if you want a cheaper one probably best togo for a 965 board for the core 2 duo stuff.

Higgins is right about the graphics cards...but depends if u want to wait.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115005

base core2duo btw

the motherboard i have:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131025

probably to expensive..... and its out of stock anyway asus do a 965 one for core2duo aswell ill see if i can find that


edit: they actually do 4 different ones god knows what the difference is on them hehe

ok the 965 arent much cheaper. the cheaper ones seem to have only 1 x16 pci-e slot i.e. no crossfire or sli ...unless u get sli on a single card ofc...

Id advise deciding on all the other stuff and leaving the motherboard till last so you know exactly what u want from it.

The more i read about the new 975/965/945 boards the more i keep hearing about memory conflicts. Certain brands not working with certain Mobo's. When you think you've got down to the mobo and ram you want, double check they are compatible.

If ofc you want to go with a Conroe, but i would strongly recommend it.

I hate buying new PC stuff, no matter how long you wait you always buy stuff right before it plummets in price

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Cant be bothered

Funny you should mention that .... not really a major isssue but the one complaint i would have of the p5w dh, was that it didnt auto detect the memory speed properly.

I have 2gb corsair memory at 800mhz so it should run at 400. Instead it had it running at 337 when on auto, not hard to fix you just go in to bios and set to 800mhz and it works fine.

Not really a major issue as i said.