Looking to buy a new computer...?

Question

Hi! I'm looking to buy a new computer. I want to get one that is $500-$650 that can run Medieval 2 Total War (hopefully on medium settings or better). Any help would be much appreciated!

I'm looking to buy one from a retailer so that there's all that "insurance" stuff, support, being able to return, etc but : Recommended System Requirements
System: Pentium 4® 2.4GHz (2400MHz) or equivalent AMD® Athlon 64 or equivalent
RAM: 1024 MB
Video Memory: 128 MB
Hard Drive Space: 9000 MB
Other: 128MB Hardware Accelerated video card with Shader 2 support
and the latest drivers. Must be 100% DirectX® 9.0c
compatible*. The Nvidia® GeForce 7300 or greater, or the
ATI Radeon® X1600 or greater is recommended.

If I should get a graphics card after, then what choice do I select when customizing (required to get something, integrated or not)?

How much is a single core?

Answer 1

Buy a computer and add an aftermarket graphics card. The video cards that come with almost all computers are not designed for gaming. For the amount of money you're looking to spend, the best configuration would be one with an Athlon 64 X2 3800+ or higher processor, 2GB of ram if possible but if not at least 1GB, and at least a GeForce 7600GT or Radeon X1650XT video card, or whatever the highest one is you can get without going over budget.

I'd check out this site for video card recommendations:
http://www17.tomshardware.com/graphics/

The best processor would be a Core 2 Duo E4300 or higher, but the price on those still hasn't fallen enough.


Edit: Holy crud, after seeing the game's recommended specs. The 'recommended specs' in computer game marketing are really the minimum specs you need to have a playable experience. If you can get a 7900GS or X1950 PRO class video card, you should be fine, I'd think.

I went and looked at Circuit City's site, and it seems that the least amount a pre-fab computer of the type I'm talking about will cost is $700.
http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/HP-Pavilion-Desktop-PC-A1700N/sem/rpsm/oid/170740/catOid/-12962/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do
That's $550 for the box, and $150 for the graphics.

The first thing to do to reduce the price would be to drop down to a single core processor. That should actually do it- most computer games today don't benefit from dual core, but that will change in the future. So if you can find a computer with a single core Athlon 64 processor and 1GB of ram, you should be set. Then go to newegg.com or another ecommerce site and get the video card. Brick-and-mortar stores will usually gouge you when it comes to video cards since most consumers are uninformed.

Make sure that the PC you buy has an expansion slot for graphics cards. It should have a PCI-Express X16 slot (PCI-E X16). It should say this in the feature list.


Edit2: You would select the cheapest offering since you're not going to be using it anyway.

Edit3: A single core A64 is about $50-$70 less expensive than a dual core.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Order=PRICE&Page=1&Category=34&Brand=1028&N=2000340343+50001028+1050706980&Submit=ENE&Nty=1&SubCategory=343
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Order=PRICE&Page=1&Category=34&Brand=1028&N=2000340343+50001028+1050717007&Submit=ENE&Nty=1&SubCategory=343

Answer 2

Well I build computers in my spare time and I could put you one together and put it up on ebay for you. Iv never played that game before but if you tell me the recommended hardware im sure i could match or exceed it for that price.

Answer 3

This stuff can get expensive.. Why not use this free $500 best Buy Gift Card to save yourself some cash? http://urlx.org/5ea50

Answer 4

yes a laptop