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I'm buying a new computer soon, built specifically for gaming, and need suggestions for good graphics cards/processors. I'm trying to keep the price range below $1200, so nothing incredibly extravagant.

Gaming and below $1200? If you don't have a specific manufacturer already in mind that you're going to, i recommend this site for decent gaming machines at a reasonable cost - http://www.ibuypower.com

Cheap graphics cards include the Radeon 9800, of which you should be able to find at reasonable costs. For processors i'd recommend a P4 for gaming, given its 800MhZ FSB is super for that. Plus hyperthreading technology is always a bonus.

As of right now, the best gaming processor you can buy is the Athlon 64. Trouble is, the prices are seriously out of whack, so you'll want to go for the Socket-754 model instead of the much more expensive Socket-939. A Athlon 64 3000+ can be had for around $200 and is an exceptionally fast gaming chip (and can also be overclocked quite well). Pair it with a good nForce3-250 motherboard.

As for the graphics card, I'd get a GeForce 6800GT if you can afford it. Sure its $400, but if you give it a couple of weeks you should be able to find it for $350, and quite honestly, this card is so much faster than last generations hardware that its worth making tradeoffs on other system parts.

For $1200 you should be able to build a gaming PC with both the Athlon 64 3000+ and the GeForce 6800GT, you will just need to trade off on some other components. Still, $1200 is a lot for a DIY PC so you should be okay.

Darth_Zod wrote: For processors i'd recommend a P4 for gaming, given its 800MhZ FSB is super for that. Plus hyperthreading technology is always a bonus.

NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER MAKE AN INTEL BASED GAMING SYSTEM. Intel is in a state of suck. Their high end processors are overpriced, lack 64-Bit instruciton set support and tend to melt components when not used with the latest chipsets (have you seen the [H]ardocp article when they first got prescots? That was insane). Their low end and mid range chips also have problems, though in a gaming system those aren't of concern. Yeah I'm gonna have to agree with Kernel and say go Athalon 64, but I'm an ATI whore so I'll have to say go with an X800 instead of the 6800. It's slightly cheaper, and it's performance is about equal being better in some areas and worse in others.

My personal recommendation is to get either a 3.0 GHz Northwood (they're priced at that sweet spot between performance and price) or a 754 pin Ahtlon 64 3000+ like The Kernel suggested. Both around $200. Avoid Prescott at all costs, and stay clear from "budget" processors like Duron and Celeron, too.

For a vid card, if you could squeeze it, I'd suggest an X800 Pro or 6800 GT. They're $400, sure, but as a first time for brand new cards in a long time, they're worth it. Either one will work. The Radeon is faster now but the GeForce has a more advanced architecture and will get faster with new drivers and new games. Image quality's about the same.

For memory, what you want depends on the processor. The Intel has dual channel memory, so you're probably going to want PC4000 or better, while the AMD has single channel memory, so you want lower latencies, since it can't make use of the higher bandwidth anyway. You're probably going to want a gig of ram.

For CDs and DVDs, I'd personally just get a good DVD burner. Then you can read and write both CDs and DVDs. No sense in having more than one drive when you don't have to.

For a hard drive, I'd get a 7200 rpm 200 GB drive. RAID is great on paper, but I tried it and it was a hassle and I never noticed any difference in performance.

As for the rest of it, you don't need Ethernet cards, sound cards, or any of that stuff since most motherboards have it built in already.

Checked some prices at my local computer store, and so far this is what I have (roughly) in mind:
Athlon 64 3000 754
GeForce 6800GT
n-force3-250 motherboard
Combo Cd/Dvd Burner
21" LCD Display
7200 RPM 150 GB HD

you sure it's a combo cd/dvd burner on the machine? did it say dvd/cd-rw, or dvd+rw, dvd-rw, what exactly?

Captain tycho wrote:Checked some prices at my local computer store, and so far this is what I have (roughly) in mind:
Athlon 64 3000 754
GeForce 6800GT
n-force3-250 motherboard
Combo Cd/Dvd Burner
21" LCD Display
7200 RPM 150 GB HD

Can you really get a 21" LCD on a $1200 system? Otherwise, that system looks top notch, just make sure that you get a Serial ATA hard drive and maybe this if you can find it.

Captain tycho wrote:21" LCD Display

I'm not sure if that 21" LCD will be good for gaming, just a word of warning.

darthdavid wrote:NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER MAKE AN INTEL BASED GAMING SYSTEM. Intel is in a state of suck. Their high end processors are overpriced, lack 64-Bit instruciton set support and tend to melt components when not used with the latest chipsets (have you seen the [H]ardocp article when they first got prescots? That was insane).

AMD64/IA32e is virtually useless for gaming for now.

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:For CDs and DVDs, I'd personally just get a good DVD burner. Then you can read and write both CDs and DVDs. No sense in having more than one drive when you don't have to.

There are plenty of cheap ones around now, though if you want to try and splurge, Plextor makes the best ones.

For a hard drive, I'd get a 7200 rpm 200 GB drive. RAID is great on paper, but I tried it and it was a hassle and I never noticed any difference in performance.

Unless you are using a true hardware raid controller, you probably won't see much of a boost due to overhead. Such controllers are not cheap.

As for the rest of it, you don't need Ethernet cards, sound cards, or any of that stuff since most motherboards have it built in already.

Meh, their sound isn't really that good and is often unaccelerated. Ethernet is usually fine, though.

Darth_Zod wrote:you sure it's a combo cd/dvd burner on the machine? did it say dvd/cd-rw, or dvd+rw, dvd-rw, what exactly?

Right. Be careful of "combo" drives unless they're what you want. They usually mean a CD reader/writer and a DVD reader, but not a DVD writer

Also, feel free to cannibalize whatever you please from your old machine before you turn it into a boat anchor, especially hard drives, CD-ROMs/Burners, peripherals (like mouse, kbd, monitor, etc), and those pretty case-mod blinkenlights.

DON'T take RAM chips, the mobo, or the PSU. RAM can be incompatible with your new ship; the mobo is, well, pointless to get since you probly have a new Star Destroyer to your old ship's Galaxy-class POS; and the PSU is likely far too weak and close to the end of its life anyway.

Once you've stripped the old hulk of anything worth keeping (and installed it on your new boat, natch), you can smash it, melt it, or just shoot it!

phongn wrote: I'm not sure if that 21" LCD will be good for gaming, just a word of warning.

21" LCD's are pretty high end and most of them have respectable response times. GamePC has some good reviews of LCD's from a gaming perspective.

Unless you are using a true hardware raid controller, you probably won't see much of a boost due to overhead. Such controllers are not cheap.

Actually, integrated RAID soultions tend to be quite good these days, although moreso on Intel chipsets. Moving the RAID controller off the PCI bus helps a lot with overhead.

Meh, their sound isn't really that good and is often unaccelerated. Ethernet is usually fine, though.

It's just a shame that we don't have nVidia's SoundStorm for the K8 chips until nForce 4 gets released. nVidia's Dolby Digital ICE is an extremely flexible audio unit, it sounds great and it has low CPU usage to boot.

The Kernel wrote:21" LCD's are pretty high end and most of them have respectable response times. GamePC has some good reviews of LCD's from a gaming perspective.

Depends which one he gets, I suppose.

Actually, integrated RAID soultions tend to be quite good these days, although moreso on Intel chipsets. Moving the RAID controller off the PCI bus helps a lot with overhead.

Eh, they usually aren't 3ware or LSI Even taking it off the PCI bus, you still have to worry about that overhead.

It's just a shame that we don't have nVidia's SoundStorm for the K8 chips until nForce 4 gets released. nVidia's Dolby Digital ICE is an extremely flexible audio unit, it sounds great and it has low CPU usage to boot.

I hear the DACs on SoundStorm aren't always so good, though, but if you're using some sort of digital out its good

phongn wrote:

As for the rest of it, you don't need Ethernet cards, sound cards, or any of that stuff since most motherboards have it built in already.

Meh, their sound isn't really that good and is often unaccelerated. Ethernet is usually fine, though.

Your ears are probably better than mine. I can't really tell much difference between good and middling sound.

phongn wrote: I hear the DACs on SoundStorm aren't always so good, though, but if you're using some sort of digital out its good

Well, if you're going to use the SoundStorm, you probably want it for its Dolby Digital encoding which means that you are using S/PDIF.

Darth_Zod wrote: Cheap graphics cards include the Radeon 9800, of which you should be able to find at reasonable costs. For processors i'd recommend a P4 for gaming, given its 800MhZ FSB is super for that. Plus hyperthreading technology is always a bonus.

Hyperthreading doesn't help gaming.

Pu-239 wrote: Hyperthreading doesn't help gaming.

Well, it can in a roundabout way. If you are the type of person that runs background software when you play games (read: pretty much everyone), Hyper-Threading can be a nice asset that can make your games run smoother.

The Kernel wrote:

Pu-239 wrote: Hyperthreading doesn't help gaming.

Well, it can in a roundabout way. If you are the type of person that runs background software when you play games (read: pretty much everyone), Hyper-Threading can be a nice asset that can make your games run smoother.

What background software? The only apps I ever open in the background is a web browser... shutting things down don't help the speed at all (then again, it was slow to begin with, due to limited hardware).

Pu-239 wrote: What background software? The only apps I ever open in the background is a web browser... shutting things down don't help the speed at all (then again, it was slow to begin with, due to limited hardware).

I usually keep IM, Virus, File Sharing, etc going in the background while I play games.

If you're going all-gaming, get an Athlon64. Technically, the 64-bit extensions don't do jack (yet), but it's still a P4-thwomping proc... for games, anyway.

If you're going to be doing anything extensive into video editing or 3D rendering, get a P4 Northwood (avoid Prescott unless you're looking to replace your stove). It'll handle gaming just goddamned fine, no matter what the crazier AMD fanboys'll tell ya, and it's superior at non-gaming apps.

But, again, if you're just gaming, go Athlon.

As for the monitor, avoid LCD's, especially the 21" ones. If you REALLY must get an LCD, you'll probably want a 17"... but that'll eat up half your budget. Better to just drop $200 on a 19" CRT with amazing resolution, perfect response times, and... well, they're just superior in quality to LCD's. Unless you live in a shoebox, of course.

Video card: Either go with the Radeon 9800 Pro, or, if you're willing to double the allocation for the vid card (and with a $1200 budget, you should be able to), get the Geforce 6800 GT or the Radeon X800 Pro (flip a coin to decide between them, because they're pretty much neck-and-neck).