The Ultimate Gaming PC

[Dr. James Rustles]

I've decided lately I want to purchase or build The Ultimate Gaming PC.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,134752-page,1/article.html
^ I used this website to get an idea of what I want, however the voting community largely dissents with the author. I need an opinion from you (the voting community!)

List your gaming PC and its specs, parts, etc. and some advice as to whether or not I should build or buy.

 

[Sporkman]

First things first.

Budget?

 

[Dr. James Rustles]

No budget! I'm getting a job for this summer very soon. I'll have at most 150$ to work with within the next month.

 

[Sensai]

Huh. No budget? Are you sure?

Here's the first question that this thread needs to get by: XP or Vista?

 

[Dr. James Rustles]

XP, for sure. Vista sounds like a gas hog. XP is cheaper, too.

I've decided I'll probably build my own PC. After I found Newegg, it seems I won't be able to pay a lot for S&H.

What should my gear consist of? FPS is very important to me, and I atleast want to be able to run Crysis fluidly on medium settings.

 

[Lawlb0t]

I think you should wait until the RV770 and GT200 come out. It would be a huge waste of money right now.

 

[Goldberg]

XP, for sure. Vista sounds like a gas hog. XP is cheaper, too.

I've decided I'll probably build my own PC. After I found Newegg, it seems I won't be able to pay a lot for S&H.

What should my gear consist of? FPS is very important to me, and I atleast want to be able to run Crysis fluidly on medium settings.

I think that needs at least a decent dual-core processor, 1(maybe 2) GB of RAM and an Nvidia GeForce 8800GT, for a low budget.

 

[Sensai]

You definitely want at least 2 gigs of RAM, certainly. Definitely a dual-core processor, going at least 2 GHertz...

And XP would be my choice, as well.

 

[Dr. James Rustles]

I think you should wait until the RV770 and GT200 come out. It would be a huge waste of money right now.

What are the details on these? What kind of system changes will I be expected to make? Anyway, I can't buy them *right away.

 

[everlasting yayuhzz]

Going to overclock?

 

[Dr. James Rustles]

No; not only do I not have any experience for overclocking, I don't want to risk frying my parts. Anyway, I don't want to end up having to pay a gigantic eletric bill either.

 

[AltF4]

Overclocking is dead. Your clockspeed isn't where the pipeline issue is anymore. Lots of high speed memory is important, as well as things like video cards and even hard drive write speed / transfer speed.

Don't risk it.

 

[Gerbil]

My PC is 3 years odl from Alienware, and I still have no need to upgrade it.

I'm running with a 3800+ processor from AMD, 2 gigs of RAM, a GeForce 7800 GTX graphics card, a 160 GB HD (if you're gonna game, get lots of space for them all), Sound Blaster Audigy with 5.1 Dolby Surround Sound + Amp, and........... a 15 inch monitor LMFAO. See, I went broke after buying the essentials, so I had to settle on standard stuff for keyboard/mouse/monitor/etc.

The whole rig cost me about 2k$ + taxes.

I seriously recommend you start off with the best graphics card you can from the start if you're going all out. Make sure you have plenty of RAM (1 gig will be fine, but 2 gigs will ensure your framerate is kicking ***). Again, have a somewhat large HD to store games and games and games, get GOOD speakers (a game can be said to be only as good as the sound quality you get from it).

Yeah.

 

[MarsFool!]

Best GFX Card I can name: 9800GX2. Too bad that sucker is upward s of $500.

My Rig: Core 2 Duo 6850@ 3.6 (Zalman 9700 sitting on it)
4 x 1g Crucial Tracer @ 800Mhz
650 Sli Mobo
2 x 320G 7200 RPM WD Drives
1 x 10000 RPM WD 150G HDD
EVGA 9600gt 1G DDR3 GFX Card
ABS 700W PSU
Vantec Nexus PSI Fan Card
Favorite game: Solitaire :D

 

[Gerbil]

It sucks how graphics cards are updated constantly. When I bought my 7800GTX card, that was the #1 on the market. Now it is still an amazing card and plays all games, but it no longer can run the newer games at full settings like it used to (last full games I bought that I could run full settings are Battlefield 2142 and AoE III)

 

[Sensai]

Jeah...it's kinda sad how technology is outdated by the time you walk outta the store with it...but hey, that's how it goes. And, as long as I'm not buying things, I'm kinda happy we're progressing that quickly.

And I'd recommend getting a fairly high end videocard. And hell, if there's no budget, why not get two?

 

[MarsFool!]

Jeah...it's kinda sad how technology is outdated by the time you walk outta the store with it...but hey, that's how it goes. And, as long as I'm not buying things, I'm kinda happy we're progressing that quickly.

And I'd recommend getting a fairly high end videocard. And hell, if there's no budget, why not get two?

two 9800 gx2s will make the neighborhood explode. Ask the guys at tigerdirectblog on youtube. >_>

 

[Sensai]

two 9800 gx2s will make the neighborhood explode. Ask the guys at tigerdirectblog on youtube. >_>

Well, if the budget is limitless, he can pay for that too.

:-D

[Edit:]

Didn't mean to put the sig there, sorry.

 

[chaos_Leader]

Falcon Northwest computer systems

If you're looking for the highest quality in gaming PCs, go with these guys. I have a rig from them that was state-of-the-art when I bought it 6 years ago in ye olde 2002, and its still chugging along with plenty of life left in it. It can handle most contemporary games even at their highest level, remember, is is 02 technology here, think of how powerful the rigs they sell now are!