[mxsuprastang]

Alright, I have ben out of the game for two years now. You can imagine how my brain is being fried when finding out about everything new (well, new to me). When I got out of the game (been in another country for 2 years) directx10 was a mystery, Oblivion ruled the pcs and vista wasn´t out yet.

I want to be able to play anything that is new. Crysis seems to be the game that everything is built on. I need to start from the ground up and I have about 1200 dollars to do so. I would like some suggestions on nice builds for such a price. Keep in mind, however, that my monitor will never be larger than 22 inches. I have seen that many of the gpus are made more for higher resolutions. I figure that that information is necessary. I need:

case
psu
cpu
gfx
mobo
HD
RAM
DVD drive

Any and all suggestions are welcomed. Thank you!

[obobskivich]

well, GPUs aren't really built for a given resolution, so you'll be fine with anything you pick, but even at 1680x1050, Crysis is not going to run full max with no issues on $1200 (even on $8000 it has issues doing that consistently, so don't feel bad)

look at Radeon HD 4850/4870 or GeForce 9800GTX+/GTX 260 as far as gfx is concerned

mobo wise, check out Intel's P35, P45, X38, and X48 chipsets, and nVidia's 680i, 750i, and 780i chipsets (or the AMD equivalents, if thats your thing)

not much else is really a drastic difference, unless you're one of those "Flavor of the month" types

[JOHNILL1971]

case: really don't matter as long as it looks cool to you and has the features that you want. (firewire usb ports windows .. ect)
psu: you are going to need a psu that is at least 550w and I suggest a little more like 650w.
CPU: Intel quad core. the price on these are really coming down and with some Patience you should be able to pick one of the lower end ones fairly cheep like 200.00
gfx: here its really all about what you like I would stick with a mid to high end vid card to start with. something with crossfire - sli capability that way later you can get another vid card to upgrade very easy.( remember that the games are all about the vid card)
mobo: go with gigabyte or asus.(make sure that you buy one that you can upgrade so if your looking at the mobo specs and you have a low end CPU the name of your CPU should be first or second in the support list. that way if you find a great deal on a higher end CPU later you can change them out)ohh and make sure it supports GB of memory even if you don't plan on that much memory now.
hd: thats what ever you have the money for I run 10,000 rpm raptures in all my computers it really makes a diff in the speed at witch my applications run and boot up. but if you run out of money 7200 rpm will do just fine.
DVD: just the highest read / write value that you can find at less than 40.00
ram: ocz makes very good low latency memory all the timings are very good you can get GB 4 sticks for about 200. that will run 5-5-5 without oc.

OK now with all that being said this is really advise that I would give anyone that wants to get the best bang for their buck. For product reviews visit cnet.com they really do a good job at looking at the cost and performance of each thing they review and give you the real scoop. I hope that this helps and good luck!!

[obobskivich]

I wouldn't be locked into Asus or Gigabyte exclusively, DFI, MSI, eVGA, etc all make great boards as well, especially for this price segment (most of Asus' lower end stuff is fairly common, vs some of the stuff MSI offers in this price segment)

and PSU wise, not any 550-650W is a good buy, only a handful of brands are worth their salt, so consider that

[mxsuprastang]

Here is what I got so far, let me know if all is well or no

cpu Intel q6600 - $189 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115017)

mobo evga 780i with combo pack psu corsair 750w - $329 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...pk=evga%20nf78)

RAM OCZ Gold 4GB - $90 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227199)

GFX Evga 9800 gx2 1GB - $290 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130338)

HDD 500GB 7200RPM - $80 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148288)

Case LIAN LI Lancool - $90 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811112154)

DVD X2 - $54 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827136152)

Windows Vista Premium - $110 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16832116488)

Grand total of $1232 which is about where I wanna be. Don´t understand the differences in Vista, but I guess that is for another thread. What do you all think. Potential? I just want to buy what´s good now and have room for upgrades in the future ie SLI etc.

[Tvangeste]

I would definitely not get a mid tower case with all of that, I only see problems coming from a LIAN LI Lancool. Try going for a full tower, your computer will love you for it.

[JOHNILL1971]

Yes i have to agree with tvangeste your going to create a lot of heat and a full tower will give it more room to dissipate also your psu only has one 12v rail. That might not be a problem depending on what your wanting to do i prefer more than one these two have 4 and not that much more silver stone 750 $109.99 and ocz 700 114.99 (and i would do away with vista now thats my personal opinion i think very soon it will go the way of windows me).lol the other stuff i think this thing will rock for a good while and bring you a lot of enjoyment have fun with the build.

[mxsuprastang]

Full tower, alright anything else? What about the fact that I am using ddr2 RAM and not ddr3. Big difference?

[JOHNILL1971]

I wouldn't go with DD3 because they still haven't solved the latancy problem unless you spend a lot of money on high end DDR3. They should get that figured out in a year or so and then it will be another year or so for the price to come down so that its cost effective to switch over. Just like the big DDR2 switch over 5 or 6 years ago. Here are some links these were written in jan 2008.
http://www.digit-life.com/articles3/...ddr3-1333.html
http://www.build-gaming-computer-gui...3-vs-ddr2.html