New Gaming Rig

I've been considering building a new rig, as I'm sure some of you have noticed. Now, the thing is, I'm not too hot on certain issues eg- intel/AMD etc...

So I was thinking, 'hey those cool dudes on THQ might know a bit between them, I'll ask them'

SO, In everybodies opinion, what is better for a new (and small) gaming rig? Intel/AMD, P4, Dual core? I know I'll need a good amount of RAM, and a fairly decent Graphics Card, hopefully 512MB

I'm just after a bit of advice really, oh, and my budget is roughly £250-300, ($450-500 for you US guys) I dont need a monitor, mouse, keyboard, just the innards for the rig you see...

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According to Google £250 = 507 USD and £300 = 608 USD, so to us US people that increases your budget

So do you have a case already? Or any of the parts that you dont really have to buy?

Intel/AMD it depends on whats going to matter most to you when you use your box. Are you going to do a lot of video editing? Emails/Word Docs? Gaming? Lastly you can choose which one looks the coolest!

I will pull some info/specs/prices latter on tonight, right now I need to sleep!

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You registered for QuakeCon on April 30, 2008, 6:56 pm. You were # 366 to sign up for QuakeCon!

I priced out a fairly good AMD system for about $628....I may be building it when I have some cash to spend.

Anyways, you should definitely get a dual core processor. AMD or Intel is still totally preference as far as I can see.

As for ram, 2GB should be more than enough for anything, but leave room for expandability in case you ever need more.

Video card.....I'm going to be honest. I like ATI, but they haven't been keeping up as of late. Nvidia has the better cards overall, but there are certain things that the ATI cards do better. I guess it depends on what kind of games you are going to run, at what settings, and what hardware you are going to use.

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Spike

Ok, to clear things up, I will need to do video editing/rendering. And the games I will be playing are the ones like Counter Stike: Source, HL2 + ep1, ep2. Maybe X3 Reunion 2.

So that taken into consideration, which processor should I choose, then I can choose what MB I get. Oh, and I'll find a case from somewhere. I dont really want to order parts online, so what I really need is a shopping list of sorts, then I can haggle the price down at the local computer store, I'm good at haggling, you see

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I would suggest a Core 2 Duo for the processor. Anything above the 2.14GHz model.

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If you want a heavy duty rendering machine, you'll want 4GB.

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Spike

What Spike said. I routinely push 3.5 gigs of RAM use while doing heavy-duty rendering. But, given your budget, that might not be an option.

Along the same lines, I'd suggest looking at Core 2 Quad procs as an option. They'll cost a bit more, but it's so worth it when rendering times drop by two-thirds.

As for the video card, from the sound of things you don't need a DX10 card--which means that the X1950 Pro (512 MB version) might be a good fit.

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ah, graphics cards, Which is better, PCI-E or AGP (dont throw any books at me) and do PCI-E slots look likenormal PCI slots?

I'm really not too clued up about PCI-E

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PCI-E hands down these days, a couple years back with all the bugs and the fact that PCI-E was so new, it was a toss up, but not anymore.

No

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You registered for QuakeCon on April 30, 2008, 6:56 pm. You were # 366 to sign up for QuakeCon!

thinking of this case: http://www.edge-online.net/store/ind...productId=1327

HANDLE HANDLE HANDLE! = great for LAN sessions, oh, and 600W PSU

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