My son needs help purchasing a computer for gaming - Page 3

T3485 · #21 08-15-2007, 11:28 AM

For a gamer I think you're going to want to spend ~$200 on a video card alone. Much less than that is too little power, much more than that and you're paying for the latest and greatest without a significant leap in power per dollar spent.

Build the system around the Video Card. For a gamer it's going to be the first piece of hardware that becomes significantly outdated.

I'd be inclined to make the exact same arguement for the CPU.

Meech · #22 08-15-2007, 04:36 PM

Agreed. If the primary purpose is gaming, buy the best video card you can afford. Don't skimp on the memory.

CPU doesn't have to be bleeding edge with a great GPU/graphics card.

Shoe Lace · #23 08-16-2007, 02:56 AM

Buying a very good or upper mid range video card right now is a pretty bad idea. nvidia's new video card will be coming out in 2 months or so (estimated time, but if it's like the past.. it will happen).

For the games he plays a 7600gt or 7900gs will be more than fine.

Buying a first generation DX10 card with no DX10 games out in addition to performing worse than the better DX9 cards (short of spending a lot of $) seems like a waste of money.

DWarrior · #24 08-16-2007, 07:14 PM

Wait...so people actually have to pay extra to get XP? Is Vista that bad?

LuckOfTheDraw · #25 08-16-2007, 09:06 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Buying a very good or upper mid range video card right now is a pretty bad idea. nvidia's new video card will be coming out in 2 months or so (estimated time, but if it's like the past.. it will happen).

For the games he plays a 7600gt or 7900gs will be more than fine.

Buying a first generation DX10 card with no DX10 games out in addition to performing worse than the better DX9 cards (short of spending a lot of $) seems like a waste of money.

[/ QUOTE ]

He said his son wants to do some FPS. Maybe he'll get into more FPS games in the future. I just don't see why you would want to limit the overall performance of the machine by skimping in this very important aspect.

Also, what do you think about my suggestion to opt for the Radeon X1950XT? It's only about $100 more but much much better than the 7600/7900 GT cards.

I agree that getting directx 10 support right now is not worth it. There aren't really any games to get an idea how they will handle an actual dx 10 game. Also, I think you have to have Windows Vista to even use directx 10.

Beavis68 · #26 08-16-2007, 10:30 PM

Toms hardware

2600XT or 8600GT

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/08/...ney/page2.html

LuckOfTheDraw · #27 08-16-2007, 10:45 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Toms hardware

2600XT or 8600GT

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/08/...ney/page2.html

[/ QUOTE ]

Those are exactly the types of graphics cards I would stay away from. I'm not really sure how much of a premium you're paying for directx 10, but I'm pretty sure neither of those cards are powerful enough to actually support any upcoming directx10 games. They don't perform very well on existing directx 9 games either.

Shoe Lace · #28 08-17-2007, 05:45 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Also, what do you think about my suggestion to opt for the Radeon X1950XT

[/ QUOTE ]

It's a really solid card. I think it was a great buy about 6-9 months ago.

But, if he wants to play future games this card (and the 7600gt/7900gs) is most likely going to struggle, and if the game is DX10 then it won't support the new DX10 features.

I think it's better to drop $80 on a card now and have it blaze through slightly aged games as well as play current generation games at a reasonable frame rate rather than pay double that for a X1950XT.

If he saves up some cash for when the new cards are out and really wants to play the latest games with good performance he can check out the newer cards when they are out or get a card that's new today for a much cheaper price.