Want to build a gaming PC Please help

[g335]

Hello

I am building a new system and want to be able to play good games on it. I am not looking for the best but something good.
I will have about $ 500-$1000 to spend.

Please help. I have seen the Q6600 processors and the new Nvdia gpu's. I want to stick with Nvdia unless ATI is better.

I will be playing games such as Starcaft, Diablo 2, WOW, Lord of the Rings online, War Hammer online, RPGs, and maybe COD or Farcry or something. I want to be ready for the new Starcaft 2 and Diablo 3 coming out.

Please help. Please tell me which motherboards to consider, gpu's, if I need a quad core or not, etc.

Thanks

Help

 

[chuccck]

need to know a bit more before the experts (ahem, not me) jump in and help:

what resolution will you game at?

Will you be overclocking?

as a primer, follow Proximon's guide and list of recommended parts:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/257075-31-what-parts-choose#t1861211

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/257547-31-personal-list-parts#t1865526

Reading through those gave me a great starting off point to get a general idea of what to put together. And everyone seems more responsive to strengthen or tweak your build rather than create a list for you.

it doesn't sound like you are going to need a quad core as many of the games (except MS flight simulator) don't benefit from it (Starcraft and other large scale RTS games however seem to benefit the most, but still its only 5 fps in the case of Tom's benchmarks on Supreme Commander, a rather cpu intensive game) See tom's charts:

Crysis
Top Quad - 143 FPS Top Dual - 139.1 Diff - 3.9

Sumpreme Commander
Top Quad - 33.85 FPS Top Dual - 29.35 Diff - 4.5

Unreal Tournament 3
Top Quad - 160.4 FPS Top Dual - 137.70 Diff - 22.7

World In Conflict
Top Quad - 158 FPS Top Dual - 153 Diff 5

Also, see the two System Builder Articles for this month for the $1250 rig and the $625 rig to pick and choose parts from those two builds to come to your $1000 budget.

Good Luck!

 

[lunyone]

Here is a similiar build that I just posted a bit ago. You can adjust whatever you like and we can make adjustments as needed. Some of the prices have changed, but this will give you an idea. I don't mind building up a system for someone, but it takes quite a bit of work to put it all together, so if you make an effort to show that you've done some research, most will gladly help you out!

CPU - $83 e5200, OC's to almost 4 gHz!!
Mobo - $120 - $20 MIR Gigabyte p45 mobo
RAM - $50 4gb's DDR2 800 mHz is all that you really need. Runs at stock 1.8 or 1.9v!!
HD - $70 WD 640 gb's HD AAKS version
Case - $54 Antec 300 (saving $ here to allow other parts to be bought)
PSU - $50 Antec 500w Earthwatts PSU, 34A on the combined 12v rails, >80% efficient!
GPU - $170 - $20 MIR = $150! 4850 512mb version would be a good selection.
OS - $80 Home Premium 64 bit
DVD Burner - ~$30 Just remember to get a RETAIL version, so you get the software to read/burn DVD's!

Total ~$700 - $40 MIR's = ~$660!!

Tom's Hardware build of e5200 OC'd to about 4 gHz w/4850 GPU