Gaming Rig or whatever...

[Anski]

Intel Dual Core > AMD Dual Core
AMD Quad Core > Intel Quad Core

If you get a Dual Core, make it an Intel. AMD's are not as good, despite their Quad Cores using interthreading.

Also it doesn't matter what the vRAM type of graphic card you get, as long as you make sure that it is compatable.

I can't stress enough saying that everything has to be compatible.

Edit: Also, if you are looking ahead for speed make sure that your core is out of the box clocked at 3.00 GHz.

 

[___]

Regarding Crysis performance: I helped my younger brother build a PC on about $1200 (no OS cost in there), including a nice high-res 22' LCD, it ran Crysis at 1600x1050 with 4x AA and high-very high graphics settings with no visible slowdown except in a couple really massive firefights that I should not have ramboed into in the first place. That was last year, and most of the parts came from a black friday sale at a Frys Electronics so we saved a good chunk of cash there, but you should be able to pull of something similar even without a sale a year later. Of course if you can afford it definitely pick up a second video card and smooth out those rough spots I mentioned.

Just don't go overboard, everyone I have ever built a PC for or helped build a PC with who spent way more than they needed was upset about it a couple months afterward.

 

[skirtboy]

I agree. You'll see a much bigger difference by buying a really nice LCD than you would by buying a second video card.

Trying to plan for 8 gigs of ram is extremely excessive. Get four (at most).
For storage, get a 500GB velociraptor. That's the best drive currently in existance, except for a few models optimized for servers.
For the videocard buy ONE, and only ONE. SLI is unlikely to help you now, and by the time you have any use for it, you can get a second card for a tiny fraction of what a second one will cost.

Optical drives, get either two or three, preferably three. Dedicate one to DVD reading, one to DVD burning, and one to CD operation. That way when one loses a function, you have a backup.

Processor, go ahead and get the quad core. It's more than you need, but you'll be spending enough that the extra expense won't hurt too bad, and cutting down as outlined above should absorb the cost.

If you intend to overclock it (definately worth it, if you know what you're doing) water cool. Your ears will thank you.
Motherboard, choose last. Make sure you can support your hardware.

 

[verballydecapitating]

Go for any Intel dual core, they overclock like mad. Maybe E7200. Quad core shouldn't make much of a difference as the CPU shouldn't be a bottleneck in this system gaming-wise.

Some DDR2 ram with good timings (CL4), 2GB will be enough. I love my SuperTalent CL4 800Mhz ram, easily hits 1ghz and I have it on 4-4-3-8 timings.

A Radeon 4870 512MB, don't go for the newer 1GB.

A 500W PSU will be plenty, you won't need some crazy 1000W PSU.

For a motherboard I'd have to recommend ASUS or Gigabyte, very well priced and haven't had problems with either. Just make sure they have the features you want and perhaps read a couple reviews before you buy.

And for a hard drive just get the standard 500GB Western Digital, Samsung or Seagate. The Western Digital Velociraptor is total overkill for a gaming rig and you would see much more benefit spending the money elsewhere. And 500GB velociraptors don't exist. 640GB seems to be the sweet spot ($ per GB wise).

I see my build isn't super top of the line, but that's pointless as it will just get outdated in a few months time anyway and you won't have been ahead at all anyway.
It wouldn't hurt to go quad core as gaming is becoming more multi threaded, but the cpu shouldn't be a bottleneck, and if you have a 24" monitor or larger then a 4870x2 wouldn't hurt. You'd better not be wanting this type of system on a 17" monitor. 1280x1024 resolution is nothing for these video cards.

@skirtboy How can you say 8GB of RAM is excessive when you recommend 3 DVD drives (!!!) and a WD Velociraptor!. I've never had a DVD drive fail on me and never had the urgency to not wait for the disk to read before I write one.

 

[skirtboy]

I've never had a DVD drive, be it Sony, Philips, or knockoff that did not lose some functionality within 3 years. Thus, having redunancy in that area is always a priority for me. There are very few computer experiences worse than coming home from work, putting in a game, and not being able to play because the drive suddenly won't read CDs.

Ad for the Velociraptor, 99% of the slowdown I experience in games is HDD access. A high speed drive would solve that.

8 gigs of ram is only useful on 64-bit OSs, of which only two support gaming,  and both have compatibility problems. If you use standard XP, the second 4 gigs might as well not exist. Even if you do use a 64-bit OS, between the VRAM and system memory, you are unlikely to use 8gigs of system ram in gaming. The only places I'd reccomend 8 gigs at this point is video and photo editing or 3d modelling. By the time games that need 8gigs of system memory come along, he'll be able to buy another 4 gigs at a fraction of the price.

 

[verballydecapitating]

Wow 3 years, isn't that how long he is planning to keep this build for anyway? I hardly ever use my DVD drive and if it did happen to die on me it would only take a few days to buy another one. And there shouldn't be any slowdown from HDD access unless you are running torrents in the background or some crap. The Velociraptor is 8 times as expensive as a normal 7200RPM hard drive for little to no gaming benefit apart from loading times. I would much rather recommend an SSD if you are wasting this much on just the drive.
I experience no slowdown at all on any games on my 750GB Samsung drive and I seriously doubt the lag you experience is from HDD access unless you have too many background applications using the drive at the time or you are in serious need of a good defrag.

But I do agree 8GB of ram is excessive and yes 32bit windows can only address 4GB memory (32bit numbers can only go so high) and it steals 1GB of that for itself. I said it myself 2GB is enough.

 

[skirtboy]

It really depends on the kind of games you're playing. I play a lot of sims (Combat flight simulator 3, Silent hunter 3, etc.) which load MASSIVE amounts of data at one time. Thus, every twenty minutes or so, it has to stop to empty the ram and load another two gigs of data from the HDD.

 

[Roph]

Judging from your posts I concluded you're kind of a retard with this stuff. Just buy the following and you'll be fine for years.

http://img159.imageshack.us/img159/2766/dumbnb0.th.png[/img]

 

[___]

Haha way to lay it out Roph.

 

[tyranius]

thanks for your comments guys