CPU vs Graphic Card Dilemma

Enlighten

Distinguished
Mar 14, 2007
2
0
18,510
New guy here. I've been gathering info for building my new gaming computer. I'm trying to keep it under $900 ($800 even better) and here's the dilemma I ran into. Initially, I was thinking of going for the e6400 and radeon x1950 xt to get the best performance for the buck. But now that the 8800 gts is out, I am very tempted to get that instead. However, within the same price constraint, I'll end up for an amd x2 4200+ for the CPU. So, the question is, which would perform better gaming-wise (I'm aiming for UT3, which has not been released yet):
1. e6400 and radeon x1950xt
2. amd x2 4200+ and 8800 gts 320mb superclocked

With all things equal (2gb pc5300 ram, etc.). I am not planning to OC and actually, not planning to use Vista/Dx10. However, I might sell the computer 2 years later (when I move out of the country) and I am afraid that the x1950 xt without dx10 ability would make it difficult to sell.

Any thoughts?
 

sailer

Splendid
My opinion, for what its worth, go for the 4200 and the8800 GTS. Since you don't plan to overclock, the cpus will perform close to the same. You'll get a bigger difference from the video card than the cpu. Resale will also be better with the 8800 and if you ever decided to upgrade the cpu, there are plenty of better ones from AMD.

Another thing with the AMD is that when you purchase the motherboard, look for one that's compatible with the AM2+ cpu lines that are going to be coming out shortly. That would give you even better possibilities of future upgrades. Again, this would help with future resale value. Don't know if such a board would fall into your price constraints though.