Well, it's been about a year since I kept up with hardware progressions and developments, and now I'm ready to build a new system. The last time I researched hardware, the Ti-4600 and A7V333 were top of the line. I really know nothing about any of the newer products, but I keep seeing more gamers with ATI cards instead of Nvidia ones, which is a change. Nforce motherboards seem all the rage, however.
I'll be using the powerful components primarily for gaming and possibly a little bit of presentation-building (but nothing heavy whatsoever, power point will probably be the extent of that). As for how much I'm willing to spend: I'm not necessarily worried about a specific price range (though $1800 including a monitor would be the absolute max) as the overall value and longevity. To elaborate, I don't think it's ever a good idea to purchase the number 1 graphics card available, simply because it will have dropped in price threefold by the times games have caught up to it. I'm not into overclocking, but I do want my games to perform very well.
I am familiar with most types of hardware, but I have never purchased monitors or speakers before. I don't really want to spend more than $35 on speakers, and the monitor just needs to be good enough to keep up with my gaming (so most likely a larger CRT). Due to this previous experience, I would like a bit of explanation with anyone's suggestions. Also, this needs to be built by September 10th, so if you feel I should wait a while to buy certain parts (price drops, of course) or for new models of products to come out, please say so. Thanks
I'll be using the powerful components primarily for gaming and possibly a little bit of presentation-building (but nothing heavy whatsoever, power point will probably be the extent of that). As for how much I'm willing to spend: I'm not necessarily worried about a specific price range (though $1800 including a monitor would be the absolute max) as the overall value and longevity. To elaborate, I don't think it's ever a good idea to purchase the number 1 graphics card available, simply because it will have dropped in price threefold by the times games have caught up to it. I'm not into overclocking, but I do want my games to perform very well.
I am familiar with most types of hardware, but I have never purchased monitors or speakers before. I don't really want to spend more than $35 on speakers, and the monitor just needs to be good enough to keep up with my gaming (so most likely a larger CRT). Due to this previous experience, I would like a bit of explanation with anyone's suggestions. Also, this needs to be built by September 10th, so if you feel I should wait a while to buy certain parts (price drops, of course) or for new models of products to come out, please say so. Thanks