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When I was younger about 16 I had a pc rig that handled max payne, half life 2, and far cry maxed out. I forget what I put in there but im pretty sure i just updated a graphics card that cost about 100 bucks. Ive been console gaming since then and I want to get back into pc gaming for its obvious technological advantage. Where do I start? At what point in dollars do I start to see a considerable advantage over console graphics? I have a multi thousand dollar 7.1 speaker system with a 50 inch pioneer plasma. Is the plasma 1080p compatible or is there higher resolution in monitors? Whats the most important part that I shouldnt skimp on? Return back to computer gaming.
Don't skimp on the CPU. Get yourself a Quad core CPU. Intel i7 920 is your best cost effective processor. Then you want a Graphics card now get yourself something good like the Nvidia 260GTX, ATI4870 or Nvidia 280GTX. Then you want RAM. Grab yourself at least 3GB of RAM DDR3. X58 motherboard. You have youself an amazing PC. Goodluck.Return back to computer gaming.
That is not t he most cost effective CPU, you can recommend it since it looks like he has money if he has a Pioneer plasma, but it's not the bang for the buck platform ;) GTX295 or HD4870x2.
A $600 PC (or even less) will have considerable technical advantage over a console, whats your budget?
[QUOTE=''teddyrob'']Don't skimp on the CPU. Get yourself a Quad core CPU. Intel i7 920 is your best cost effective processor. Then you want a Graphics card now get yourself something good like the Nvidia 260GTX, ATI4870 or Nvidia 280GTX. Then you want RAM. Grab yourself at least 3GB of RAM DDR3. X58 motherboard. You have youself an amazing PC. Goodluck.[/QUOTE]Those specs are for a kick ass computer that will kick consoles ass now. The problem you will find is that even if you buy the parts yourself with those specs you are looking at a (all newegg.com prices)$300 cpu, $ 370 GPU, $100 RAM, $220 MOBO, $100 PSU=$1090. Plus a HDD of your choice,DVD/Blue-ray drive, a case, better cpu/gpu cooling solutions if overclocking, the display, keyboard, mouse, other gaming devices(gamepad, wheel, joystick), speakers, power protection, anything else you can think of. In my opinion if you can afford those specs you will get your money's worth penny by penny, very good specs.If you only want a gaming pc to get slightly above console like performance and above all cheap, you can go for (once again newegg prices):$76 X2@3.1Ghz cpu, $250 GTX260 core216 gpu, $70 780G MOBO, $40 4GB ddr2 800 ram, $100 PSU= $536. Plus all the rest i mentioned before. Cheap? yeah. As good as the other one? Hell NO!
Thanks for all the responses. My budget isnt really an issue. Now im not going to say I want to spend ludacris amounts of money for something that right now is just a side project. The thing that made me decide to do this was the gamespot comparison of gta4. On console it was blurry and the textures didnt really seem that robust. When I saw the pc version picture I couldnt believe it. So my budget lies in doing whatever it takes to make it look that good. If 300 bucks will do it, awesome. If it takes 1500 then so be it. And im guessing with all things electronic there comes a point of diminishing returns. I am not by any means looking for the elite rig here, just something to tinker with. No one mentioned if the monitor would need to be purchased or if the pio plasma would be just as good. Thoughts? thanks again
The video cards output is dvi, and depending of the manufactures some bring a dvi to HDMI adapter. Using a HDTV as a monitor requires some adjustments you should read this thread:http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=26716202%26tag=topics;title Yes PC monitors can give even higher resolutions, it could be said that the bigger the monitor size the bigger the resolution.