I have been looking for an upgrade for my desktop about a month now and need to buy a robost machine for playing 3D games like NFS latest and others. Also I do a lot of print designing that eats a lot of RAM. Please let me know your views and the essential configuration if possible.
2006-08-16 02:20:41 · 7 answers · asked by Caprisco 3 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Desktops
If you've got the money, the Core 2 Extreme is easily the best performing CPU right now (I'm usually an AMD fan, but their top cpu would be at the low end of the Core 2 cpus.)
I'm sure you'd be looking at a 7900GTX or some SLI setup. Sounds like you'll really need good video also.
Just noticed, Tom's has a $10k computer giveaway. Pretty much maxed out. Get one like that and you'll be at the top for at least a couple days.
2006-08-16 02:31:03 · answer #1 · answered by dcomputerman 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It depends on how much money you are willing to spend, keep in mind that the motherboard/ram may have to be changed. One solution would be buying an AMD Athlon-64, since they are at very low price at newegg.com right now. If you are willing to take a risk, you could buy one of the cheaper A-64's and overclock them to higher speeds, currently my A-64 3700+ is overclocked to 2.9GHZ (2.2 stock), personally I do not think spending the money for a FX-60 (stock clocked at 2.6GHZ) is worth the price. I would reccomend buying a 1MB cache version of the processor, since the cache size greatly impacts the performance of the processor.
Dual core processors do not help with gaming due to the fact that only one core is utilized while gaming. Work applications like Photoshop, AutoCAD, etc. will benefit from having a dual core processor, but the gains are minimal.
I personally have never worked with Intel processors, so I cannot advise you there. I hope my advice is helpful.
2006-08-16 12:09:32 · answer #2 · answered by Smefeman 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Graphics depends less on the processor and more on the motherboard/graphics card. For high end graphics you should use an PCI Express Video Card with a compatible motherboard. The video card has it's own processor and its own memory on it. My fiance recently put together a system with 2 PCI Express Video cards wired together. The system was for a guy that needed high end graphics to run a cad program. Your CPU/Motherboard combo plus RAM are still important. Software today is complex and requires plenty of speed and RAM. I'm an AMD person myself. I would recommend AMD FX-55 Processor.
2006-08-16 09:45:01 · answer #3 · answered by Carol B 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Athlon 64 FX
And don't listen to some of these people. CPU is very important when it comes to gaming. But when it comes to gaming, nothing is faster than the 64 FX. Pair it up with a nice 1GB video card and you'll be set.
2006-08-16 11:10:39 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The processor is of some inportance, but your VIDEO CARD is the MAIN thing to consider when concerning graphics.
2006-08-16 09:26:51 · answer #5 · answered by mrresearchman 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Stay away from onboard video cards....Intel 900 graphics and the like......
AMD or intel...TAKE your pick but get at least 1GB of RAM or more and a seperate video card pref 256MB or more.
2006-08-16 10:06:00 · answer #6 · answered by Captain Tomak 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Conroe, But if you are building wait for next wave. Trust me 4 Cores are coming
2006-08-16 09:51:24 · answer #7 · answered by midtownhazard 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋