Is this okay for a gaming PC?

Question

I'm planning to buy a Desktop and it's for gaming purposes...From what I've chosen , these are the basic parts

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+
4 Gigs of DDR2 ram
GeForce 8500GT
250 Gigs of hard disk

From the components I've picked, is this okay? Because it's just nice for my budget...As for other things such as power supplies and which motherboard is better, can anyone tell me which should i choose?
For the SLI and overclocking part, I have totally no idea what they're talking...Can anyone please explain to me here?
Finally, is this PC able to go for the long run?Because I wouldn't want it to be outdated so soon...

Answer 1

For the gaming purposes, do not get 4GB RAM because your computer will only recognize 3GB RAM if you run 32-bit Operating Software. You could run 64-bit OS, but it is definitely not compatible with alot of games.

If you are on a tight budget, AMD products are a good thing to stick with, but Intel's Core 2 Duo series are much much faster than equal AMD 64x2 series, so you may want to spend some extra bucks.

GeForce 8500GT is fine for a budget PC. It won't run your newest games at high setting though, and it sure wouldn't last more than 1 year as well. Get 7900 if you are using Windows XP, or 8800 for Windows Vista. 7900 is much cheaper though, and 8800 is a power-consuming hog. You need 400w Power Supply for 8500, 450w for 7900, and 500w+ for 8800.

Hard Disk Drive is fine. make sure it is brand manufacturer like Samsung, Seagate, or Western Digital. I prefer Samsung in my own opinion, due to it being the quietest.

For motherboard, go for either Asus, Gigabyte, or Evga products. Make sure they are AMD compatible if you are getting Athlon. Getting these motherboards with nForce northbridge series is a plus if you are looking for a SLI mode later on.

SLI is basically putting two same SLI compatible GeForce graphic cards into SLI compatible (nForce northbridge) motherboard. Double the power, but double the power consumption and much hotter system. You shouldn't try to SLI it if your computer case do not have enough case fans.

Overclocking means just making your components (Usually CPU, Graphic Card, or RAM) run faster than it is suppose to be running. (we call it stock speed) Overclocked components often perform better than stocked one, but they get much hotter so you need a very decent cooling sytem to your components like better fans and heatsinks. Mind ya, overclocking is for expert only! It will kill your system very quickly if you don't know what you are doing!

Your PC (assuming you are using 2GB RAM with 32-bit OS) will last about 2 years. After 2 years, if you change your graphic card (assuming you still went for 8500 GT,) and add one more 1GB RAM, it will probably last another 2 years.

Hope this helped. Good luck with your new system!

Answer 2

Yep, that'll be a pretty good gaming computer. :)

As far as the other things go, just make sure they put a 450W minimum (500W or greater recommended) power supply in it, incase you want to do upgrades in the future. Motherboard doesn't matter a whole lot. Just as long as it's a good brand, with all the modern, standered features, it should be fine.

Also, SLI (Scalable Link Interface) is where two NVIDIA based graphics cards are "hooked" together to give you the benefit of one super graphics card (when you have this, there will be two cards inside your case, and two PCIe slots on your motherboard).

Overclocking is where you push your CPU or RAM to go faster than the default specifications. You don't have to worry about this though, as it's not something you really need to do.

And finally, your computer overall should be good for the next 2-3 years at least. It really depends on how much you keep up with the latest games. If you want to play the very newest games all the time, then I'd say that the possibility is there that you may need to replace the graphics card 2 or 3 years down the road.

Hope this helps, and happy gaming! :)

Answer 3

That video card is junk for gaming. You may be able to play old games well, but for newer games you are looking at medium-low settings at best, as for the future, forget about it. Drop from 4GB to 2GB of RAM and then put that money into a better graphics card. For a motherboard either get an ASUS or a Gigabyte. For power supplies get a 500W one. As for SLI, not within your budget, so don't worry about it. Overclocking allows you to run your parts faster than they were designed for, it requires you to have good cooling and some knowledge of the subject. Do a little more research into it before you start overclocking.

Answer 4

If you are getting an SLI PC here are two pieces of advice:

1. Do Not Use Windows VISTA

2. Read #1 again.

The SLI drivers for Vista are still very poor and most people see no difference with SLI and some see a performance decrease with SLI in Vista.

Also - 1 higher end card like a 8800GTs 640mb will be better than 2 8500s running in SLI.

Answer 5

Sure. Pretty good and fast. Good RAM and a decent video card.

Go to www.newegg.com or www.tigerdirect.com and match the MB (socket AM2) to your processor. Dont cheap out. Get ASUS, BIOSTAR, MSI etc. Stay away from cheap brands (ECS etc.) Get the most memory slots as you can find AND PCI-X slots as well.

Answer 6

pretty good for your budget
just make sure you have enough power and maybe get a newer graphics card

Answer 7

That is more than enough for gaming!!!