On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 14:35:00 -0700 (PDT)
(E-Mail Removed) wrote:

> I have about $2500 to spend on a PC. I am debating on whether to
> just buy a gaming computer or build one myself. If I decide to build
> one. Which parts will give me the most "bang for my buck"? Any help
> is much appreciated


A gaming PC is a computer built around a video card, or around video cards. You choose video first, then build the rest of the system around that. But for your budget, you should be looking at an nvidia 8800 GTS, or TWO of them. Then you will want an Intel processor, something like an E8500. You will be building dual or quad core, but for gaming you need high clock speed. That's why I suggested the E8500, as that is the highest clock speed I could find in a quick search that is still reasonably priced, considering your budget. Other than that? Get a couple cheap 7200RPM drives to run in RAID, and another huge hard drive to use for backups. Start with exactly 2GB of the fastest RAM your mainboard will support. And don't spend less than about $150 on your power supply. The following will work well for SLI, and be a bit of overkill for one video card (but nothing wrong with that):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817256033
You will also need a good Creative brand PCI format sound card. PCI Express format sound cards are out, but if I was building a gaming system, I'd stick with PCI format for now.
OK there are a few parts I missed, but hard to mess up on those. For example, you will want a DVD burner, but just about anything will do for that. Same with case. Personal preference. Just don't pick something small, as you will want plenty of room for airflow to keep things cool.

Oh, and if you are looking for most "bang for your buck", you should be looking for ALL of the features I listed above in a pre-built system. Good luck on that. Pay close attention to POWER SUPPLY of prebuilt systems, in particular. You will probably want to replace the power supply immediately if you go that route. (it will be crap) -Dave

I have about $2500 to spend on a PC. I am debating on whether to
just buy a gaming computer or build one myself. If I decide to build
one. Which parts will give me the most "bang for my buck"? Any help
is much appreciated

In article <dadef6ba-0d56-4fc3-8f58-
(E-Mail Removed)>, says...
> I have about $2500 to spend on a PC. I am debating on whether to
> just buy a gaming computer or build one myself. If I decide to build
> one. Which parts will give me the most "bang for my buck"? Any help
> is much appreciated
>
Don't bother. Buy a PS3/XBox 360, a LCD HDTV and a decent laptop.

--
Conor

I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't
looking good either. - Scott Adams

Dave <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> (E-Mail Removed) wrote:
>
>> I have about $2500 to spend on a PC. I am debating on whether
>> to just buy a gaming computer or build one myself. If I decide
>> to build one. Which parts will give me the most "bang for my
>> buck"? Any help is much appreciated
>
>
> A gaming PC is a computer built around a video card, or around
> video cards. You choose video first, then build the rest of the
> system around that.

Real-time strategy is heavily CPU dependent. Supreme Commander
benefits from multiple core CPUs. The input interface can matter, a
keyboard is not resource hungry, but speech activated scripting on
top of everything else increases required CPU resources.

> You will be building dual or quad core, but for gaming you need
> high clock speed. That's why I suggested the E8500, as that is
> the highest clock speed I could find in a quick search that is
> still reasonably priced,

Whether faster dual core is better than quad core is a very good
question. Probably, at least for now, if your only PC use is gaming.
The Extreme series is way overpriced. I don't see clock speeds on
dual core being much higher than on quad core CPUs.

Another question is between the 1333 and 1066 on CPU interface
speeds. I really like the cache sizes on Intel CPUs.

> You will also need a good Creative brand PCI format sound card.

Monitor quality is infinitely more important for gaming IMO.

Good luck and have fun.