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I will be going with the AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ for my cpu. I don't have any brand loyalties, this just seems like the best choice to me.
Now for my graphics card we have ATI X850/X1800 series, or Nvidia 6800/7800 series. Will there be a big diffrence between these or would whichever one I find cheaper be enough?
BTW, I would like to thank everyone for their help so far! I have already learned a lot just looking into the things you are telling me about. :D
You'll get exactly the same brand loyalty between ATI and Nvidia as you get between AMD and Intel. I'd say that exactly the same applies really, they both make excellent graphics chipsets and really there is nothing to choose between them. I have to say that I personally have always preferrred Nvidia's driver software though.
However, with graphics cards the situation is more comlplicated in that ATI and Nvidia make the cipsets, you still have to consider the actual make of card as well.
Asus, Gainward, Gigabyte and MSI are all excellent brands right off the top of my head.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12/02/vga_charts_viii/
Rosewill is a newer brand, but their reviews are good. I have a vidcard and 19" LCD monitor both made by them, they work quite well.
Motherboards often have Nvidia northbridges on them now; I don't know if it makes any difference in compatibility with the vidcard, but if it does you may want to keep that in mind, too.
Well, if you base it on budget, then you can pick one from either manufacturer.
E.G If you break it down for the whole system like this:
CPU = $ 400 ish
Motherboard = $ xxx.xx
Graphics Card = $ xxx.xx
Memory = $ xxx.xx
PSU = $ xxx.xx
Soundcard (Unless onboard 5.1 would be sufficient)
You get the idea. This way if you want to spend $1000 total, and you take off about $400 on the CPU, you can then breakdown the $600 remaining into the other bits and bobs.:)
You will have to choose a motherboard with a 939pin socket as you're using a AMD X2, and they will probably be standard with a PCI-E slot for the graphics card, so you can then look into PCI-Express graphics cards alone.
Liam
Graphics card eVGA 256-P2-N516 Geforce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card seems like the one I need, although about 100$'s more expensive than I would like.
I must admit I don't understand what all of these numbers mean but this seems to be what I would need to play games like F.E.A.R. without losing any graphics. Am I right or just horribly, horribly confused?
The Geforce7800GT is a very fine graphics card, and would do you very nicely for playing games. It's an excellent choice (but then I would say that, I've just bought a 7800GT myself :D ).
However, that is a rather unknown brand. I'd advise paying a few dollars more and going for the Asus, Gigabyte, MSI or PNY cards:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ice=&maxPrice=
Thanks for the advice on the brand, I've changed to a MSI NX7800GT-VT2D256E Geforce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card.
What should I look to next?
Motherboard can now be added, as we've established a socket 939 and PCI-E should be incorporated, this will help narrow down the board choices.
Stick with brand such as Asus/MSI/Gigabyte/Abit.
Liam
Alright, I found a MSI K8N Neo4-F Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 ATX AMD Motherboard on newegg. Best I can tell, it has what I need.
That sound good, all of these are compatible: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ice=&maxPrice=
Just incase you overspend on one component, you can always go for a cheaper board that has the right features.
Next thing would be RAM, again you want to stick with the good manufacturers such as Crucial/Kingston, and you'll be looking for 512mb minimum of 3200 400Mhz DDR RAM.
Liam
This RAM is what I bought just last month. The difference in response time is startling. There's also 2 x 512MB pairs for $120. Get decent RAM up front, you'll save money in the long run by not wasting it on slower RAM first (like I did!).
Photolady recently had problems with eVGA vidcards, got two bad ones in a row.
Is patriot a good brand for RAM? If not how about corsair?
They are both god makes, but i would say Corsair are better, for the simple fact that they are crazy and make stupidly powerful gaming RAM. :) .....with a stupidly powerful price to match some......
Liam
If you're looking towards something like Corsair, you may want to look at Geil/OCZ/G.Skill/Mushkin....
Liam
You can add Micron to that list.
Corsair/Geil/OCZ and Mushkin for years were the overclockers ram of choice as they were designed and made with that idea in mind.