[Starman01]

Hello folks,

I have a little problem and hope some of you can help me making a decision.

Since I spend most of my time before my computer (sad, isn't it ) I think it is about time for a new one, cause this one is already 2 years old and is getting slower with every new game I puchase or every new feature the SCP-Team adds

No seriously, I want to buy a new "game-PC" but I'm not sure what hardware is best. I really have not that kind of knowledge and lost the overwiew in this part-jungle.

However, I don't need anything too special. I want a

- Intel Pentium around 2,8 GHZ (maybe a little more) in any case
- and a middle-class sound-card is enough,
- also a normal hard-disk, 80 GB is more than enough (I can even live with a 40 GB, but I think there is no one for sell anymore).

My real problem is, I don't know what Graphic-card I shall purchase.

So what is the best available gaming-card around ? Price doesn't matter too much, but I don't want to spend more than 1.200 USD for the new one (without monitor).

Thanks in advance for your help

[Fury]

If you want a decent gaming computer which you don't need to upgrade for a while, I recommend following set:
- Socket-939 motherboard for Athlon 64.
- A64 2800+ socket-939 (Has the 2600+ hit the stores yet?)
- 1 GB DDR 400 MHz
- 120 GB is probably better for you since in most cases going with smaller does not save you much.
- For gaming, there is only one card; SoundBlaster Audigy 2. Its going to save you precious CPU time over integrated solutions. There are alternatives of course but usually it isn't going to save you much. Even though most of use don't like Creative that much, its the best choice for gaming.

Thats enough for my general advice.

As for graphics card, I would recommend looking for Radeon 9800XT's since their price will eventually start to get cheaper now that X800 has hit the stores.

At the moment it is either Radeon 9800 series or top of the line GeForce 6xxxx or Radeon Xxxx series. Don't go with GeForce FX series at least.

[Flipside]

I use the Audigy 1 Platinum, I must admit, it's a bloody good card, however, if you do get an Audigy card, let me know, the creative drivers install a couple of programs that run in the background, are entirely un-neccesary and cannot be disabled from MSConfig. I've deleted them now, so if you need to know how, drop me a PM, it's quite easy

[F1gm3nt]

1.200? I'm going to assume you mean 120.00 USD... I would go to pricewatch and look there if your not too shy about buying online. Most places will accept checks and money orders, if you don't have a credit card. (Just takes longer) Stay away from anything thats GeForce based with an LE in the name as LE=light edition and concurrently = slow POS, same with Radeon SE. Remember with the Radeons right now Spec is broken with newest drivers for the  FSO (....has been for a while) but the marks seem to be about the same in most games now that Nvidia got their foot out of the companies collective arse and fixed what they could with drivers. I run a geforce FX 5900 that I got last X-mas for $200 mostly because it was top of the line then (right before 5950 release) and the 9800 XT was 150 more and didn't have VIVO. I can only offer that my experience with the Geforce has been good. I had a 9200 Radeon before and that also was a good experience so, I geuss it really depends on what you actually want, pricewatch is a good place to start.

[karajorma]

I think he meant $1200 for the entire computer.

[Cyker]

I'll agree with the sound card.

Despite the fact that Creative Labs are complete bastards who's support is absolute crap as well as their software, their sound cards still butcher everyone elses.

There are a few cards that ain't bad - the old Philips Accoustic Edge was an okay no-frills cheap card (Nowhere close to the Audig, but more than adequete), and the TerraTec DMX6fire (An awesome card for high-quality sampling and sequencing, but average for gaming).

TBH, most nForce2 on-board sound chips are more than adequete if you don't want to get a seperate sound card.

At risk of starting a ATI/nVidia fanboy flamewar, I'd say that the top-of-the-line ATI's are better for the now but the top-of-the-line nVidia's are more future-proof. Take that as you will...
Personally I wouldn't touch either of them (I promised myself in the GeForce1 days that any video card that needs a bigger Heatsink&Fan than my CPU is not getting within 10 metres of my case.)

As for the rest... well... frankly I'm out of touch there too. I used to recommend any mobo by Asus but I've had lots of stability and compatibility trouble with their newer stuff.
Epox ain't bad - very stable, but very no-frills. A-Bit are somewhere inbetween, but they seem to have blips where one batch of boards will have really crap QA.


P.S.> On a slight tangent, what's the deal with GeForce FXs? My bro got an FX5200 and so far it's seemed okay. Do you guys know something I don't...?

[WMCoolmon]

Audigy pwns....

And the thing about the FX5200 is that (from what I've heard) it's an MX440 featuring full DirectX9 support and a doubled price...although Directx9 games will generally run on the 440.

I think I might've started a thread here asking about it when I got my new vid card.

[Liberator]

Do not fear the FX series, just get the second gen stuff, IE the 5950, 5900, 5900 SE.  Ignore all others, the 5900 SE can be had for the price  of a 5700, but has 95% of the performance of the regular 9500 and ~80% of the 5950.

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by Starman01
Price doesn't matter too much, but I don't want to spend more than 1.200 USD for the new one (without monitor).

That's pretty much the upgrade I just did not a month ago, but I got more than you seem to be able to expect to get.

First off, www.newegg.com rocks.

Secondly, here's what I got for - all total - right around $1100:

• AMD Athlon XP 3000+ (CPU)
• ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe (motherboard)
• 1GB (512Mb x2) DDR400 PC3200 Corsair RAM
• 2x 160GB 7200rpm Serial ATA Hitachi/IBM HDDs
• HIS IceQ Radeon 9800 Pro 128Mb (graphics card - look it up... nice cooling system)
• Gigabyte 3D Cooler Pro (CPU heatsink/fan combo)
• Compucase HEC 6A mid-tower case

I'm quite pleased with its performance as a gaming machine - even under Windows 2000. ;) I can run FarCry at 1152x864 with all graphics settings at full and with FSAA and anisotropic filtering both set to 4x.

Oh, and many of those components were purchased earlier this year - around springtime or so (northern hemisphere, Steak! :p), so undoubtably prices have dropped even further.

[Starman01]

Hm, looks like many of you (also seen this in other treads) are
prefering the radeon 9800, and I see a lot of AMD-Prozessors out
there.

I was always afraid buying something other than a intel Pentium.
How are these AMD-CPU's anyway ? I heard they make problems
with some games (but this could be limited to the first AMD's ever,
I'm not uptodate here ), also aren't the Pentiums not a little superior
(but more expensive of course ? )

One more thing about the Graphik-Card. AFAIK Radeon 9800 is the
chipset. Is there any publisher (i.e. Asus and so on), which is better
than the others (I don't care much about the games included, I just
want qualitly).

(edit) about these online-stores, I will rather not buy a PC online to let
him ship from US to Europe (I'm from Germany btw ), but I have
some very good business-contacts which allow me to get some good
price-offers in Computer-technology. I just need to know what I
want,  and that's my Problem.

But for starters, I guess the Soundcard you guys mentioned above will do the trick
in any case.

[Flipside]

Theres a windows XP Patch iirc that fixes most if not all the compatability problems

I own a GeForce FX, and I'd recommend an ATI card to be honest, not that my card performs all that badly, but simply that in every comparison I've seen between the two, ATI produces better quality images at a higher framerate, simple as that. My next card will probably be an ATI if this doesn't change.

[ionia23]

For video card go for top-of-the-line Nvidia.  It's all we have after they demoralized and assraped the vastly-superior 3DFX.

[Setekh]

Originally posted by Sandwich
around springtime or so (northern hemisphere, Steak! )

How did you know I was going to ask that question?

Man, seriously... why's everyone upgrading lately? Not that it's a bad thing.

[vyper]

With Doom3 and HL2 coming out soon, this was bound to happen

[pyro-manic]

I'm "upgrading" because my last pc kicked the bucket last year, and I just got a pile of money in the form of a tax rebate. I'm fed up of trying to play newer games on this pile of junk (Athlon 1GHz, 512 RAM, Radeon 9000, lots of junk and spyware etc. as a result of my little brothers' unscrupulous surfing), so I thought I'd splash out. My last treat before university next year (gotta save the pennies now....)

Getting the following:

AMD Athlon64 3500+ (socket 939)
Asus A8V Deluxe motheboard
1GB RAM
160GB Maxtor SATA hard drive
Antec 1080AMG case
HIS Radeon X800Pro VIVO 256MB IceQ 2 graphics card (flashable to X800XT PE :thepimp: )

Should be pretty damn fast

[Kosh]

I have a Sound Blaster Live! that is fairly good. It is cheap, but there is a driver issue to watch out for (it needs to be installed first or else it will give you problems).