I want to buy a gaming computer. Help me, please.

[Redrobes]

Another vote for getting the Intel Core Due processor...

My dual core is an AMD 64 X2 type and I love it becuase it has 64 bit instructions when at the time I bought it the intels did not. I am not typical in my requirements however and I doubt that games manufacturers are going to produce x64 and ia64 versions of their games.

It appears that the core 2 has 64 bit instructions now so it probably beats my AMD in most areas now. I just think that having more than one CPU helps out a lot as it stops the machine from locking bfiefly while it has to perform some urgent processing. With a dual core you have a second processor to handle that.

In terms of cooling, whether you have a cooler Duo or not, you still have to cool the graphics card and bridge chips...

 

[Cergorach]

While it's a good idea to look around for hardware advice (look at the post by SW for some usefull info). But if you want to buy around christmas, look for specifics in four months. The comming months there will be a lot of changes, AMD might drop it's prices even further and that might make it more interesting to buy AMD. There's also a new generation of vidcards on the horizon, those might be more interesting then the current top of the line. Those 7950 GX2 certainly look interesting, but running two at the same time (Quad SLI) isn't the most stable platform in excistance. Also if you want to run a multi monitor setup, SLI ain't for you (so no 7950 GX2). You might want to wait for some NWN2 benchmarks, decide wether you want to run all the nifty settings, and look at the performance needed for what resolution.

 

[drothgery]

The Intel Duo looks to be a winner hands down except for a few items. a) Its pricey right now b) Poorer floating point c) No memory controller on board and d) Its not got any 64 bit instructions. But saying that, it appears to be by far the better overall choice for a games machine where all of these factors are not as important to playing games as they might be for other users.

Core Duo isn't 64-bit capable. But Core 2 Duo is. Core 2 Duo is kind of expensive right now (when you can get one at all) because it's new and has excellent performance. By December, the whole line should be widely available, from the lower midrange E4xxxx series all the way up to the E6700 (and there will probably be a clockspeed bump, so there will be an 2.93 GHz E6800 in the non-crazy price zone and a 3.2 GHz X6900 replacing the X6800 as the $1000 part).

Having said that, the latest price cuts have made most A64 X2s (except the FX models) fairly competitive with Core 2 Duo on price/performance (by virtue of some pretty serious price cuts). So an A64 X2 box isn't a bad value play. Neither is a non-EE Pentium D, for that matter; Intel cut prices to a point that mostly makes sense given Core 2 Duo performance, and if you get the right motherboard you'll be able to upgrade to a C2D later.

Other notes -- Intel's 975 chipset doesn't support DDR2 800 memory, so if you're going that route (and if you value stability, it's the way you're going for a C2D this year), you can save some money with DDR2 667 without sacrificing much performance; the benchmarks that most big-name hardware sites ran (which had C2D stomping all over A64 X2) were with DDR2 667 in the C2D and DDR2 800 in the A64 X2.

Core 2 Duo systems will be a lot more widely available and less expensive in December than they are now. Today, for example, Dell only offers them in the XPS 700 ultra-high-end consumer desktop, their top-end Dimension 9200 business desktop (you can't get it throug the home/home office store), and the Precision 390 low-end workstation (high-end x86 workstations are dual Xeon/dual Opteron boxes). But by the end of the year you'll see Core 2 Duo everywhere but at the extreme low end.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Those 7950 GX2 certainly look interesting, but running two at the same time (Quad SLI) isn't the most stable platform in excistance.

True, thought the tests on the newer Quad SLI drivers have greatly improved stability.

The real problem with Shader 3 based games is on the size of your LCD. For a 19" monitor, a 7900GTX should be fine and a 7950GX2 should pretty much rock.

For larger displays or widescreen? No. Adam Brenecke and Brian Lawson at Obsidian Ent have already confirmed that at high pixel resolution, there really isn't much hope for decent framerates without a Quad SLI approach. That will not change for the forseeable future either for SM 3.0 games.

 

[Mycanid]

Hmm ... I would set a budget for yourself and then go from there. Get the best for your budget. You can get all kindsa screamer machines out there ... Falcon just released an amazingly potent machine, but it is for 7,000 ... ouch. Anyway, set the price range in your mind and then go from there.