Hey my dad said he is goin to buy me a computer as a early graduation gift since i had to give my brother my old one. I don't do much but play rpgs, what should I look for besides a good video and sound card(speaking of which got any ideas of some good cards) at a reasonable price

what price is "reasonable"?

Radeon 9800 Pro/XT is a nice ATI Graphic Card and is reasonable powerful by todays standards. If you want real power, go with something that fits the PCI Express slot, and get a motherboard that supports it.

For sound, go with anything made by Creative, I don't care what it is, they are practically the creators of PC Sound Cards.

You want adequate cooling as well, and try to get a large PC case, preferably something made for a file-server or some other such PC. They're usually larger and have built-in fans on the side to draw extra heat away. Fill up every area you can with a fan. You'll need all the cooling you can get.

Make sure your power-supply is at least 400 watts or greater (400w). I would prefer something around 480w, but the more power you have, the less you have to worry about all your new toys not getting enough juice.

Go with ASUS for your motherboard. They are EXCELLENT, their service, is amazing, and they have some of the best built-in features I have ever seen in a Motherboard company. That said, stick with an AMD processor, as Intel uses on-board and on-chip software to achieve their clock-speeds and that's just wrong.

Try to get a Serial ATA Hard Drive, and make sure your motherboard supports Serial ATA. It's faster, more effecient, and the connectors are so slim that they don't block the cooling inside your PC and you'll be all the better when it comes to your CD drive. Speaking of which, if you must have a DVD drive, get seperate CD and DVD drives.. it'll just work faster, and if you use Serial ATA, you can use both IDE connectors to perform some amazing burn-on-the-fly fun and you have to switch CD's less.

Speaking of IDE, try to get IDE cables (sometimes called data ribbons or data ribbon cables) that are twisted and wrapped in plastic. This will let the air flow around the cables rather than get blocked by the wide, untwisted kind.

If you want awesome RAM, buy anything made by Crucial. I would trust my firstborne child to them, so you should too.

As per standard, -wired- optical mouse and keyboard, USE PS/2. USB is slower and you'll get less response time than with a wired, PS/2 mouse. Wal-Mart sells a Creative 2.1 speaker set for $30 that produces some pretty awesome sound, and try to get a gel-cushioned mousepad, because you won't be leaving your PC for quite awhile.

I recommend:
System Shock 2
Neverwinter Nights
NES/SNES ROMS
Unreal Tournament (the original, the rest suck)
Armies of Exigo (Real-Time Strategy, but fun and neat)
Battlezone 2 (First-Person Real-Time Strategy, very cool)
... and most anything made by Irrational Games/Through The Looking Glass Studios.

ASUS Support is horrible. DFI makes good motherboards specifically for gaming. I'd agree with everything that Lapis said, besides the motherboard and processor part. You should also go with a motherboard that uses DDR2 RAM. DDR2 is excellent.

LL: i think that corsair makes better RAM than crucial. when it comes to cooling THERMALTAKE is the best brand. if you go with AMD make sure you get a 64 bit processor at least 3400+.

Go to china and buy the parts, it will be much, much cheaper than where you live for sure ... it'll even be cheaper if you buy in one of those black market place :P ... look for glass panels that say "Quality computer parts" and it has been spray-painted on :D and also ... neva forget to bargin :)

Wohhoooo Lapis is for AMD!!!111!!elleven11
just get a dvd drive they work for both cd-rom and dvd-rom

It all depends on how much money you want to spend. If money is no object,go splurge on one of the Audigy series sound cards from creative,and the latest 9800XT. If you want to find your own,for comparison, the 9800XT's processor runs at 500mhz,and its ddr ram runs at 1000mhz. Since you are in the USA,I would recommend looking at newegg.com. They have the best dam deals around. I would just assume buy a lower powered card, 385mhz,and 700mhz ram,and over clock it.If you wanted to do that,make sure you get a card with a fan. If all it has is a heat sink,you have limited options as far as overclocking goes.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-164-029&depa=1
^A decent $50 card,with a fan ^^

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-102-325&depa=1
^First 325mhz processor Ive seen at this price range...
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-102-426&depa=1
^400mhz Processor,600mhz ddr ram

Anyway,you get the idea. Good luck.

Lapis seem to know the deal.. =D

AMD rules. Too bad that new processor is so damn expensive..

It's a common misconception that you need a massive power supply in order to run your computer. The truth is that 300W is perfectly adequate for just about every computer ever made. If you want to err on the safe side, of course, go ahead and get a 350W or maybe a 400W PSU, but 480W? How dare you recommend such a useless and overpowered component to someone; it will only waste money.

Also, in my opinion, currently the best mid-range video card on the market is the GeForce 6600 GT. Not only is the 6600 GT cheaper than both the 9800 Pro and XT, it will easily outperform both in just about everything you can throw at it. For $200 you simply can't beat the price comparison. If you don't believe me, just read this article: http://www20.graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041119/index.html

AMD makes awesome chips, and the Athlon 64 is starting to really come down in price. You could get a barebone Shuttle system and an Athlon 64 3000+ for about $460. It only has a 240W PSU, but just about everything you need is on the motherboard anyways. Just plug in th 6600 GT, a nice 160 Gb HDD or something, and a DVD-RW, and you'd be good to go for under $1000.

Vangelis, if money is no object why on earth would you refer him to a card almost 2 years old? the latest and greatest is the ATI Radeon X850XT Platinum Edition. and Rosewill products are crap. if you go for a 3rd party brand for an ATI chipset, Sapphire is the way to go. dont refer him to such old parts if hes looking for a good computer. get with it.

Yeah, as long as money is no factor, you might as well get an SLI system with dual GeForce 6800 GTs.

AA I really dont know anything about video cards, I was just simply trying to help. And also, try and read the WHOLE post before flaming someone

i did read the whole post, was there a secret message i missed?

go intel XD i bought my whole computer piece by piece for about 600 bucks canadian
2.8ghz+HT
Geforce FX 5500
512 mb ddr ram
Asus mobo
case
maybe some other stuff too XD

you should go AMD if your mainly using the computer for gaming. go Intel if you do alot of multitasking and such but not much gaming.

Hyper-Threading can cause a lot of problems with games that use the CPU extensively, So I would go with AMD for gaming.

Ok know-it-alls =P which is better, 250mhz mx4000 nvidia with 400mhz 128 ddr ram,or Ati 9200se at 200mhz with 128 ddr ram at 333mhz? Then nvidia is by Rosewill,and the ati is by Saffire or whatever,the nvida supports DX 7 and the ati supports DX8. They are both simularly priced. Can you help me?

dont get either of them. they both suck. find yourself a nice ATI Radeon 9800XT if your on a budget. it should be around $200. and yes, that IS a budget card.

The card will just be for my 9 year old bro,which loves gaming. I will get him a better one later. Sooo, which one is better =? Also,his case doesnt have an agp port....

his MOTHERBOARD doesnt have an Agp port, then he's outta luck. and i suppose the ATI card is better.

Here is the Ati Sappire model: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-102-354&depa=1

And the eVga Model: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-130-186&depa=1

go with the geforce chipset i suppose.

quote:Originally posted by AerialAssaultdont get either of them. they both suck. find yourself a nice ATI Radeon 9800XT if your on a budget. it should be around $200. and yes, that IS a budget card.

Aaaagghh, NO. You're dreaming if you think you can find a Radeon 9800 XT for $200. And as I said, the GeForce 6600 GT will outperform the XT in just about everything anyways. All the XT is is a slightly overclocked Pro, which doesn't really doesn't add that much at all performance-wise. For $200 or less, the 6600 GT is a far superior option.

alright then, 6600GT > 9800XT

Don't go with nVidia cards, no matter what they say. Nvidia held the market and I don't believe they have it any more. I had loads of problems with every Nvidia card I had, their drivers are bunk, overloaded gobbledygook and you'll end up constantly switching driver sets just to play your games. I mean, c'mon, they pack a freaking pop-up blocker into their drivers. What?

Go with ATI, get a Radeon 9800 XT (Yes, you can get one for $200, you just have to avoid the middle-man), and save yourself some time.

ATI also features a trade-up program, so when you decide to upgrade again, just return your card for some extra credit towards a newer video card.

you dont have to download nVidia drivers, you can download 3rd party drivers that, in some cases can provide better gaming performance and stability.

I'd go with the ATi, with Geforces you can't use Anti-aliasing with Soldat, and ATis are somewhat better than their nVidia equivalents at HL2.