mainstream gaming pc

[nick753159]

I'm planning out the new PC I want to buy soon. I have a pretty low budget, since I just started my first job, so I'm aiming for mainstream, lower-end hardware. I don't need to play games at 2,000,000 x 1,800,000 resolution and the highest settings.

I'm pretty sure I'll go with the Intel Pentium D series, one of the 9xx models.
I checked the recommended system requirements on a bunch of the newer games, (Oblivion, Rainbow Six: Vegas, etc), and it recommended a Pentium IV 3Ghz.
What Pentium D is equivalent to a Pentium IV 3Ghz?

For a video card, I'm leaning towards the ATI 1650XT. I was reading benchmarks and it seemed to be the top performer for mainstream cards.

I think I'll get 1 GB of RAM for starters, although after I read the article on RAM here, I might go for 2GB. Because if I get 1GB, I'd buy 1 - 1GB stick, not 2 - 512MB sticks.

Do you think a 450 watt power supply would cover all that? Or do I need more power?

What about fans? Is one case and one CPU fan enough to keep it cool? Or should I get more case fans?

Thanks.

 

[Lord AnthraX]

Well whats your budget?


and yeah, you could get away with a quality 350 if you wanted to.

 

[Sora]

Pentium D's arent bad but they certainly aren't what I would buy for any new PC's these days. I would try to budget a C2D or an X2 in there. Dual core is the name of the game now, and they aren't that much more expensive.

 

[nick753159]

My budget is probably around 500-600$
But I'm not going to be buying hard drives, cd drives, or a monitor.

I think I'm going to buy a Pentium D/Core 2 Duo compatible motherboard, and upgrade to the Core 2 later on when more games have taken advantage of it. I don't really do any multitasking besides listening to music while I'm online.

 

[Blackheart]

I'd still get a dual core proc. and get a mobo that's quad core compatible since quad cores are already out for intel so you'd be better off doing that, and I'm building a computer soon too. And what I'm doing is just get a Core 2 E6400 for $222 and then a mobo for $130 and a gfx card for $110 and my psu is debabable right now, it's between $60 for a 550w rosewill or $130 for a 600w OCZ so I think you'd be fine going core 2 now and still make your $500-$600 budget.

 

[Ronnie]

for 600 bucks you could get this...
Gigabyte S3 Mobo
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813128015
Core 2 E4300 $180
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819115013
1GB DDR2 667 $70
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820134216
Biostar 7900GS $160 after rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814141041
CM Centurion case $55
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811119106

 

[veg1992]

pd? wow that's pricey for such a lame platform, go with fade2black's system, it pwns ur system anyday, compare them both on a pcmark and the clear winner would be the core 2 duo, then u could get an even better score by overclocking with the ds3, that would like kill x6800 that costs 1,000$ the price to performance is killer on fade2blacks system (similar to mine)