Trying to get ready for 08 gaming

[Jacob6909]

I want to make a mid-grade system capable of running these next-gen PC games with decent ease.I don't need an average 90fps on 2620x1600 just something that can play it with decent settings. Now I'm having an argument with myself to upgrade my motherboard/CPU/memory/PSU or my GPU/PSU. I don't really care for consoles. I don't know if i should just go head and upgrade my mainboard and wait to see if the graphics cards go down any. I'm hoping to just spend around $400.

Motherboard: $130 Nvidia 650i

CPU: $90 Intel Dual-core E2160 I heard this thing has massive over-clocking ability's

Memory: $100 CORSAIR XMS2 2x1GB

PSU: $80 COOLER MASTER eXtreme power

Or the new Graphics Card Solution

GPU: $370 MSI Geforce 8800 GTS 640MB OC

PSU: $80 Corsair CSPSU

My current rig: Dell Dimension 4700
CPU: Intel P4 2.8GHz
Memory: Kingston 1x2GB
Graphics Card: MSI Nvidia Geforce 8500GT
OS: M$ Windows Vista 32-bit

 

[Maziar]

looks nice , but why do u get a P35 board instead like ASUS P5K or GIGABYTE P35 DS3R , arent they cheaper ? (if u dont need sli go for P35 )

 

[L1qu1d]

ur good to go for mid and above, I had an 8800 gts 320 single (same as 640 at native resolutions below 19 inch monitors) It ran any game out at maxed settings (antialising 2x max) at 30-40 frames. You'll be ok for sure yours has the extra 320 so you can push higher screen resolutions than mine. Plus you'll have the option of getting another 8800 gts and run sli. The 8800 gtx are highly over priced and pointless at the moment, when you can get sli 8800 gts for the price of 1 gtx and have them run at higher speeds and frames.
But if you want new technology I'd wait till january when microsoft unleashes direct x10.1 which will have Smart shader 4.1, which is un available to the 8 series and requires new hardware. (you can always buy the old hardware even cheaper then)

P.s

There always is overclocking ))