feinicks Wrote:As Zinga said, the purpose of the PC directly affects what you should get. Gamers will prioritize graphics, RAM and CPU.. HTPC builders will focus more on screen estate, hdd capacity and sound accessories. Normal users will try to balance out (and thus get extremely confused)
If its for hard gaming, then you will need a mobo+CPU+Graphics card that are all capable of being aggressively OC'd, especially in the future.

Actually, gamers really don't need that strong of CPU. Gaming performance is almost completely GPU limited, unless your CPU sucks that bad.

feinicks Wrote:For graphics card, you can look into the HD4890 or the GTX285 as both are mid-to-high performance cards but are not that expesive (as the GTX295). You can look into something cheaper, but among the two listed, I recommend the 4890 (or the 4870 or the cheapest of them, the 4850.. depends on how much you want to spend.)

I suggest something like...

Ultra-hardcore "games are your life" gamer: 4870x2 or 295. Crossfire or SLI if you're completely loaded.
Heavy gamer: around what feinicks said.
Gamer: 4850, 250, or if you're willing to spend more, 4870, 260.
Normal user/casual gamer: 9600 or 4670.

(This post was last modified: 29/04/2009 08:50 PM by Assassinator.)