practical questions

[jmcwhor1]

im looking into building myself a nice little system to use with my new 40" 1080p LCD tv.. Im looking to build something that will do my new tv justice and that i can use to play some awesome games with some ridiculous graphics..

I am basically looking for

cpu
mobo
ram
video
hard disk

My main question is, how much does each piece affect gaming, im not into competitive gaming, just casual awesome graphics playing if you know what i mean.

do I really need a quad core proc? or will a dual core proc work just fine considering im not going to run any background apps when im playing a game.

how much does a hard drive put into gaming? if i have a crapload of ram is it necessary to get a super hard drive?

can someone talk to me about this and give me a little input? some links to some great information would be good as well. I would really like some input from someone who is totally into hardware...

thanks, ill check back later

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

I think dual core is fine. Hard drive, faster is better, but not as important.

2 gb of ram is sufficient.

Now, biggest thing is your video card, this is where to spend most of your money.

If I were you, I would go cheap dual core processor, maybe midrange. Good video, such as the 3850. Also, 2 gb of ram, and a nice amount of hard drive.

 

[Guest]

How much can you spend?

for a gaming rig, the video can is most important like ohiou_grad said.

gpu>cpu>ram>hardrive

note - a good psu is always a must, not much less than $100 at the least
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139004
something like that would be good.

If you really want "ridiculous graphics" to do your tv justice, you will need to be looking at the 8800gts 512, 8800 gt or 3870. you'll probably want to go dual graphics cards in sli or crossfire. although this all depends on your budget.

 

[jmcwhor1]

yeah, i was going to get a really good dual core, I was just wondering mostly if it would really matter that much to go with a dual core instead of a quad core. I am definitely going to go all out on the video, and some good ram, with a nice motherboard, but does a fast HD really matter? i would think not since everything is going to be running from memory anyways, but lots of games load during playing i guess, so I fast HD perhaps 2 with a raid 0 setup might be a good idea?

i dont want to overdo my setup by getting all kinds of crazy hardware that most games dont even take full advantage of anyways. ya know?