Need some advice in purchasing a gaming PC

Hey guys, I would just like some advice in choosing between these two PCs. My old one ran poorly and I'm looking to get a decent one for around $1200 or less. Here are two I've found so far that seem decent.

Antec 500W Power Supply SmartPower 2.0

Motherboard
ASUS A8N-E NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX Motherboard for AMD Socket 939 CPU

Processor

AMD Athlon 64 4000+ 2.4GHz 1MB L2 Cache Socket 939

Memory

Quantity 2 of Corsair XMS Extreme 1GB (2 x512MB DDR400 Timing 2-3-3-6 (Total 2GB)
or
CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 X 1GB) DDR 400 TIMING 3-3-3-8[-$11.00]

(not sure if the lower timing would be worth the fact that they come in four 512s instead of two 1024? Any input here would be great)

GeForce 7600GT 256MB/128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16

Sony 16X DVD-Rom/32XCD-RW Combo Drive



Or I was considering this PC

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...Tab=2&NoMapp=0

I'm just not sure how much better if at all dual core systems are for gaming. They boast superb multitasking ability, but I would figure that would be for people who work with multiple memory intensive programs at the same time. I have no need to play two games at the same time so would dual core even be worth looking into? I thank anyone who responds for any input you can provide.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

My advice? Wait.

Intel's new Conroe chip is coming out shortly, and AMD is most likely going to drive prices down in an effort to counteract that. AMD is also introducing a new socket form facter (AM2), which will drive prices down even farther.

Also, don't bother buying a PC from factory. You're much better off assembling it yourself.

As for what parts, the only thing I suggest right now is that you get a 7900 GT. At 300 bucks with performance equivalent to a 7800 GTX, it's a steal.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Dual core is worth it. The multitasking helps with background tasks (AV, firewall, downloads, etc.) And future games will make use of dual core as well, some current games are starting to (Quake4, etc.).

Do *not* get the Tigerdirect machine, the 6600 in it is miles behind the 7600GT and you wouldn't be happy with the gaming performance.

I just built a new box, and it's an X2 3800+ (This chip overclocks very well to ~2.4Ghz, so it's a much better buy than the 4000+). Ram is good, 1-2GB is what to shoot for. I personally think the 'low lantency' stuff is not worth the premium. I didn't get a video card in my box yet, but when I do it'll likely be Gigabyte's 7600GT (fanless). There are faster cards out there, but not as good value for money in my opinion.

Really though, if you don't 'need' one right away, you'd be better off waiting until Intel releases their new CPUs and check out the changes in pricing and performance at that time.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Thanks for the input guys I really appreciate it

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I'm not much of a PC gamer (I'm running on an ancient 700 MHZ clunker, so I can't be), but I'm looking into buying a new PC that's at least capable of today's highest demands (Oblivion, specifically :P, but I'd like it to last). I have a low price limit of around $1400 max, though, which limits a lot.

I've got quite a few questions...

I'd definitely want to go dual-core, most likely around 3 to 3.2 GHZ, but Intel's Conroe intrigues me. Would a Conroe likely be a better purchase than a dual 3 GHZ? I'm thinking about price, performance, and longevity here. Would Intel's Pentium D's see a price drop? Would a bleeding-edge Conroe be worth the higher price tag?

I'm also not sure what to do on the graphics-side of things. I'd want to go SLi compatible, but not necessarily go immediatley Sli (as in, I might want to buy the second card later...). A GeForce 7800 tickles my fancy, but I have to keep in mind my budget (which, sadly, inclues a monitor). I was thinking perhaps two 6800s. I'm not likely to upgrade anytime soon, so would two 6800's be better than one higher card? (I don't even know if I can afford that, though...)

Also, in terms of RAM, my minimum is 1 GB (533 MHZ min.), and the plan is to upgrade to 2 GB later. Is one gig good enough for now, and when would the upgrade be necessary? I know it's impossible to tell when 1 GB won't be enough, but any guesstimate is welcome. I've been out of the PC loop for years because I've never had the opportunity to upgrade.

The biggest problem though, is that since I have no way of paying for all of that myself, I need my parent's help. That means I probably won't be able to build this myself, and I'd have to have a professional assemble it for me with a warrenty. That plus the monitor cost effectively puts my actual budget significantly lower than 1400...

Anyway, if anyone bothered to read all that, any suggestion at all would be great. Basically I'm looking for a wallet-friendly PC that can handle today's demanding games that will give me at least a little longevity.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I'd put good money on any conroe being better than current 3-3.2Ghz CPUs. You have to wait for confirmation and release, but the best buy will *probably* be a mid range Conroe when it's released.

Your 'minimum' Mhz that you want on the RAM is unfounded. As for the amount of RAM, we'll see when Vista comes around, but I wouldn't be too surprised if 2GB starts to become 'standard' in gaming machines in spring.

I believe that getting a current mid range or near top of the line (7600GT or 7900GT) is the best way to go. You get performace now, and with the money you save by not going SLI or getting the real top performance card you should be free to upgrade when you feel you need to. Getting an older or slower card is too slow, getting faster is throwing away money that you could have used elsewhere (or saved for a future upgrade).

Right now a good computer to get is a Pentium D 820 machine, but it'd be too slow for you to be happy in the long run as a gaming machine.

You could get an X2/Opteron machine and get a more long lasting solution. It's more expensive, but it'll perform well. This kind of box runs great on DDR400, so it kind of rules out your arbitrary 533Mhz RAM wish.

As was suggested to the OP, your best bet will be to wait for Conroe to hit, and the assess the market for price/performance.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

My question is dealing with laptops, but it's also a game PC question, so I'll stick it in here. These are figures from NVidia (found on Tom's Hardware in an article about Dell M1710):

Geforce Go 7900 GS Geforce Go 7800GTX
memory interface 256 bit 256 bit
memory bandwidth 32.2 GB/s 35.2 GB/s
Fill rate (billion pixels/sec) 7.5 9.6
Vertices/sec (millions) 656 800
RAMDACs 400MHz 400MHz
Core Clock 375MHz 400MHz
Pixel Pipelines 20 24
ALUs 40 48
vertex processing engine 7 8
memory amount, max 256 512
process .09 micron .11 micron

On paper, at least, the 7800GTX is better than the more expensive 7900GS. The 7900 GTX, by the way, is very expensive and adds $400 to the laptop cost with Dell. There's no option to get an M1710 with a 7800 GTX and the entry-level laptop is $2,600. Before they changed the laptops from M170s to M1710s I had configured (but not purchased) a pretty good laptop for $2,400. So now you see why I'm irritated. I may just blow off Dell and get a laptop somewhere else. Budget is $2,500 unless very compelling reasons could make it worthwhile to spend a bit more. Suggestions?

FELIPE NO

Something to keep in mind, wait until the Conroe processor is actually released and some real specs are run on it - right now benches run on the conroe are all things that fit in its cache, like SuperPi 1M. I'm not saying it won't kick ass (even though I'm an AMD fan), I'm just saying you should wait.

On AMD's side, they either have/are developing something called "reverse hyperthreading" which allows a dual core processor to use both cores and function as a single processor -> effectively doubling processor performance in single threaded applications.

So basically, you have two very awesome things just over the horizon, so I'd hold off just a little bit.

How ya doing, buddy?