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Originally Posted by Jazhara7
Well...actually I was talking about last christmas...
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Oh
In that case please ignore all the "seven months" thing in my other post... thank you, now I’m going to give you some suggestions about what to look when you buy.
Let’s see, both AMD and Intel have two different socket types depending on CPU class. On the budget side (below $150), it's Socket 754 for AMD and Socket 478 for Intel. On the mid-range and high-end (above $150), it's Socket 939 for AMD and LGA775 for Intel. I'm going to focus on mid-range/high-end chips for now, since Socket 939/LGA775 hardware is reasonably cheap at this point and most people will be able to afford it.
If you're on a tight budget, you'll probably want to pick a cheap enough CPU in order to balance out your system: there's no sense going with a 3800+ if it means being stuck with 256MB of RAM and your old GeForce 3, for instance. As the graphs below show (Edit: I forgot them, I'll post them later if you want them), getting a more expensive CPU isn't always a good idea regardless of budget, since higher-end chips carry a very heavy premium and are in most cases not worth it.
I suggest you to go AMD, like I said before, if you are not going to do some specialized work then this brand of chip is the best option in my opinion. Here’s a
good article that lists the most recent AMD CPUs , check them, it’s a good read, if you have any questions, just ask.
Oh, and if you're on a very tight budget, avoid AthlonXP or Socket A Semprons at all costs. Socket 754 Semprons and Athlon 64s can be had for below $150 and seriously outperform any AthlonXPs or Socket A Semprons you might find. If you have more than $150 to spend on a processor, however, go with Socket 939 or LGA775. The upgrade path on those will be much better (especially Socket 939).
For motherboards, I will explain a little more about slots. PCIe is a new, very fast serial interconnect set to replace both AGP and 32-bit PCI with new types of slots. PCIe is not backwards-compatible with either PCI or AGP, and it is currently being offered on all new nForce 4 and 915/925 motherboards. AGP is being phased out on the graphics side, and PCI will also be slowly replaced over time. Unless you have an existing AGP card that you want to keep, it makes a lot more sense to go with a PCIe system. Even if you're not a gamer, upcoming SATA/RAID controllers, soundcards and ethernet controllers will all benefit from PCIe, so you might as well jump in now.
Once you have the CPU you want, you have to coose from the compatible motherboards with the characteristics you want. They shouldn’t be a lot, just check them all and compare them.
RAM is not a problem, just check your motherboard manual for how to arrange the sticks in a dual-channel configuration. Note that you can buy two sticks from the same brand/type and they'll work fine in dual-channel mode, "dual-channel kits" are largely a marketing thing.
As for which sticks to buy, it's really pretty straightforward: unless you intend on overclocking big time (like some people I know), go with Value RAM from a major brand (Corsair, Crucial, Kingston, Mushkin, etc) and make sure it carries a lifetime warranty.
For video cards in the $150-300 PCIe segment, you should be looking at only these two cards (6600GT and X800XL), with maybe a cheap (<$130) 6600 or X700 Pro if your budget is really tight. Anything else is absolutely not worth it, and $400+ cards don't really offer a significant enough performance increase to justify the elevated cost. And even the cheap cards I just listed will work fine with the games you mentioned and most of the upcoming games this year.
Here are some
benchmarks to measure the speed of a video card, just keep in mind that not all benchmarks there might be accurate, so only treat them as a curiosity.
For hardrives, the following lines come standard with 5-year warranties, so you should take a look to them:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7/7200.8
Samsung Spinpoint P80
Maxtor MaxLine
Western Digital Raptor
A Power Supply Unit of 350W or 370W sould be more than enough, unless you want to use three hardrives, two DVD-drives and dual-video cards.
Lastly, if you're pricing out something and want to examine it at a later date, use
C4. You can save configurations there, link them, and it'll compute the total prices for you. It takes the prices from NewEgg.com, but they usually are not that different in other places. It’s really cool.
Good luck with your new PC, I'll be around if you have more questions
