how much you aiming to spend?

Depends on your budget, if you dont mind paying a bit more go intel otherwise go amd.

A decent gaming box these days will set you back around $1200-$1800 or more if you like the extra big LCD TV as your screen 😀

Dual or Quad core – well not much games use quad cores at the moment so I suggest you stay with the duals.

Best monitor brand = Samsung but if your on a budget scope out for the brand “Chi Mei.” Its a cheaper alternative but if you research carefully you may land a nice one which is equipped with a samsung panel. For monitors choose one thats high on the refresh rate(no less than 65hz) and 5ms or less response time.

Specs – Basically a dual core processor, 4GB ram ddr2 pc6400-800mhz, 2xhdd, go ATI for graphics card, sound card is optional since almost all motherboards these days come with onboard gfx+sound, grab a decent asus or gigabyte motherboard, power supply should be at least 600W.

With the mouse its pretty much personal preference, you can always get use to it with time. Since you use the mx510, I’d suggest you use the mx518. By far the most all rounded mouse on the market even though its old.

Pricelist – just goto msy.com.au under the systems section pick any of the 2 or 3 options and upgrade the ram and add another hdd preferably 120gb for the operating system. For intel pick E8400 or better and amd pick a phenom II processor.

At the risk of repeating myself …

http://games.on.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=129047

Cheers nelots, excellent response.

Matlida I have that link saved already just wanted to ask some questions.

My budget is about 1.2k-1.5k…cheaper the better.

Check out my specs under my avatar.My rig set me back about 2500k with out monitor (i left some stuff out of the description).Its a sweeeeet games rig,hope it gives you some ideas.

Check out my specs under my avatar.My rig set me back about 2500k with out monitor (i left some stuff out of the description).Its a sweeeeet games rig,hope it gives you some ideas.

jeez dude, you could run ET on high with crysis in the background

http://www.pccasegear.com <- i built a good computer through these guys a few months back for my cousin. cost about $1700 (inc. shipping) but if you bought the same thing from…say…. Dell… it would set you back about 2500-3000 bucks. just have a browse through some of the stuff, what you want and need, then put what you want/need in the cart and see how much it'll cost you

Agree with everything Cheekz said, except Monitor, dont skimp on monitor, get a Samsung widey, you wont regret it.

blusky u in melb?

our comp sells some parts to msy. i could maybe help you out if u like.

Agree with everything Cheekz said, except Monitor, dont skimp on monitor, get a Samsung widey, you wont regret it.

I said Samsung as top pick, Chi Mei is an cheapo alternative as I know a few models are fixed with samsung/sony panels. Meaning the panel spec is good just a bit generic on the frame and stand.

G, you do know that Chi Mei is one of the worlds top 5 TFT-LCD manufacturers right?

Shh don’t crush his brand name loving spirit butz 😛
Just a little add on to what butz said, go dual core not quad core. Quad core is (most of the time) just a dual core split up. If your like me and just play old school games, then its best to whack them on one core anyway since they can’t really do multitasking all too well and you end up with fps lag while it tries to sync itself up with the cores.
I personally use a dell laptop for gaming (the one game I play really :P) and it works well, 2 ghz, 2 gig ram, some integrated graphics card (not advised if your a true gamer). Does what I need it to really 🙂

Cheers

^BAHAHAHHAHHA DELL, I’ll give you a +1 just because mess uses a HP 😀

I remember back in the day when I asked an engineer what an intel quad core was, his response was – “In layman’s terms they simply connected 2 dual cores together with super glue and called it a quad core.”

The specs under my avatar costed me $1200. (Everything except winXP OS)

That was about 6months ago so it would be bit cheaper. It runs every possible game to date with medium-high settings and great FPS. I tested extreme graphic settings on Crysis and still managed to get decent FPS.

It really depends how much you want to spend and what you want to use the PC for….if you can anwser these questions then you will have a good idea of what you can get and it would help us as well. 🙂

If your price is getting too high, think about an E5200. 2.5GHz dual core, but it’s apparently one of the best and most stable overclocked CPU’s on the market. And they’re like, $120, not even.

Oh, don’t forget two 290’s in dual/quad-SLI. Or whatever the ATI version is. A must for 334 fps. To one up all those 333 guys.

And oil-cooling is slowly becoming practical now, or so my electrician told me.

4550 is a good graphics card.

Buy a sweet TV instead of a screen. then HDMI from 4550 -> screen. 1920×1080@100Hz = quite sweet. I’ve only run it like twice, and not when the computer was in the cabinet, but it looked awesome. Kinda.

Crossfire>SLI