- Dec 11, 2007
- 6
- 0
- 0
This is kind of a long post, but I desperately need help! I want to really, really thank anyone in advance who takes the time to read and respond to this!
I was a huge PC gamer in high school, but when I went to college I didn't have any money for about 5 years and thus completely fell out of the loop. Now I have some money again (though I ain't rich!) and I'm looking to pick up my old hobby again. I want to build a desktop PC for less than 1,000 that's mid-range-ish, that can be upgraded over time (9 - 18 months) to a high end gaming machine.
I plan to start out with 2 GB of RAM and a 256 MB 8600 GT, but the rest of my choices are still up in the air depending on what kind of feedback I can get.
I have three questions:
1) I don't know what kind of motherboard I need to get. My target spec by the end of a year and a half or so of upgrading will be:
Quad core Intel at least 2.4GHz
SLI - 2x GeForce 8800 GT 512MB
At least 4 GB of RAM
Possibly an Ageaia PhysX card or a nice soundcard but those are not huge priorities
Possibly the above will be adjusted upwards depending on the release of new options and price drops over the next year.
So I want something that will be functional after that point. I've looked at the nForce 680i motherboard, but it's much, much more expensive than the 650i. Do I need to go with the 680i for longterm upgrading potential? Or is the 650i okay? What are some affordable alternatives the the nForce mobos? I'd really prefer not to spend more than 150 or at most 175 bucks on a mobo out of the gate but that seems unavoidable unless someone can help me find an alternative to the 680i!
2) I need to know how much wattage I need in the power supply. I've Googled this and I've found wildly varying responses ranging fro 550W to 1000W. The price difference between 550W and 1000W is enormous; I don't think I can afford to buy more than I need. So what do I need?
3) Is there a good entry-level dual core Intel CPU for 100-150 dollars that I can get now and replace with a high end Quad core 6-9 months down the line? It seems like the Core 2 Duos are all almost as expensive as the Quad core options that are out now, so I might as well go all out now. But I want to make this initial purchase as inexpensive as possible while maintaining longterm upgrading potential.
In other words, as long as I can run Unreal Tournament 3 and Lord of the Rings Online on high-ish settings at 1360x768 at more than 40fps, and preferably Crysis on medium at 1360x768 at 30fps in the short term, I'm fine. I want to buy all the expensive stuff to do better than that later.
Keep in mind I'm coming from a Dell notebook with a single core Pentium M 2GHz, 1 GB of RAM, and a 6800 Go, so no matter what, in the short term this is going to be an enormous performance increase over what I'm trying to live with now.
4) I have a 1360x768 Samsung 720p LCD HDTV. I do not have another computer monitor, and I don't want to get one. This HDTV has 2 Component, 1 VGA, and 1 HDMI inputs. I notice that all the GPUs now come with DVI. Are there affordable and decent quality DVI-VGA converters? I'd prefer to keep the HDMI for my PS3/Blu-ray player, plus my TV seems to have issues with PC over DVI-HDMI. The TV is specifically designed to handle PC input over VGA, so can I convert DVI to VGA?
Thanks so much every one! Ya'll are the experts. I have no idea what I'm doing anymore, things have changed so much in the past few years.
I was a huge PC gamer in high school, but when I went to college I didn't have any money for about 5 years and thus completely fell out of the loop. Now I have some money again (though I ain't rich!) and I'm looking to pick up my old hobby again. I want to build a desktop PC for less than 1,000 that's mid-range-ish, that can be upgraded over time (9 - 18 months) to a high end gaming machine.
I plan to start out with 2 GB of RAM and a 256 MB 8600 GT, but the rest of my choices are still up in the air depending on what kind of feedback I can get.
I have three questions:
1) I don't know what kind of motherboard I need to get. My target spec by the end of a year and a half or so of upgrading will be:
Quad core Intel at least 2.4GHz
SLI - 2x GeForce 8800 GT 512MB
At least 4 GB of RAM
Possibly an Ageaia PhysX card or a nice soundcard but those are not huge priorities
Possibly the above will be adjusted upwards depending on the release of new options and price drops over the next year.
So I want something that will be functional after that point. I've looked at the nForce 680i motherboard, but it's much, much more expensive than the 650i. Do I need to go with the 680i for longterm upgrading potential? Or is the 650i okay? What are some affordable alternatives the the nForce mobos? I'd really prefer not to spend more than 150 or at most 175 bucks on a mobo out of the gate but that seems unavoidable unless someone can help me find an alternative to the 680i!
2) I need to know how much wattage I need in the power supply. I've Googled this and I've found wildly varying responses ranging fro 550W to 1000W. The price difference between 550W and 1000W is enormous; I don't think I can afford to buy more than I need. So what do I need?
3) Is there a good entry-level dual core Intel CPU for 100-150 dollars that I can get now and replace with a high end Quad core 6-9 months down the line? It seems like the Core 2 Duos are all almost as expensive as the Quad core options that are out now, so I might as well go all out now. But I want to make this initial purchase as inexpensive as possible while maintaining longterm upgrading potential.
In other words, as long as I can run Unreal Tournament 3 and Lord of the Rings Online on high-ish settings at 1360x768 at more than 40fps, and preferably Crysis on medium at 1360x768 at 30fps in the short term, I'm fine. I want to buy all the expensive stuff to do better than that later.
Keep in mind I'm coming from a Dell notebook with a single core Pentium M 2GHz, 1 GB of RAM, and a 6800 Go, so no matter what, in the short term this is going to be an enormous performance increase over what I'm trying to live with now.
4) I have a 1360x768 Samsung 720p LCD HDTV. I do not have another computer monitor, and I don't want to get one. This HDTV has 2 Component, 1 VGA, and 1 HDMI inputs. I notice that all the GPUs now come with DVI. Are there affordable and decent quality DVI-VGA converters? I'd prefer to keep the HDMI for my PS3/Blu-ray player, plus my TV seems to have issues with PC over DVI-HDMI. The TV is specifically designed to handle PC input over VGA, so can I convert DVI to VGA?
Thanks so much every one! Ya'll are the experts. I have no idea what I'm doing anymore, things have changed so much in the past few years.