Please help i cant decide

[drb4141]

Hi I'm a PC gamer and gaming will be the primary use of my PC. I mainly play FPS games. I have an extremely limited budget but I'm looking for and advice and assistance my budget is $285. please help me find the best performing PC I can for the money any help will be greatly appreciated as I will be ordering the final version on 10-27-09.
I will only be shopping at newegg.com

So far here what I'm thinking of getting


Cpu : AMD Athlon II X4 620 Propus 2.6GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103706

Motherboard : GIGABYTE GA-MA770T-UD3P AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128392

Ram : Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Dual Channel Kit http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148225

Video Card : ASUS EN9600GSO/DI/512MD3/V2 GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121320

please help

Thank you for your time.

 

[dirtmountain]

At your budget that's a decent setup. Use the combo deal and save $10
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.272067

Make sure you check Cleeves excellent article about $100 CPUs
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gaming-cpu,2439.html

For some games the PhenomIIx2 550 BE would be a better choice, but for others it's worse, with the combo deals they're about the same price. 2X1 GB of RAM is fine for XP, but will slow you down with Vista or Windows7, just upgrade when you get the funds. The same can be said for the GPU, it'll give decent performance at 1680x1050 and lower, but replace it later. Gaming on a slightly slow system is better then not gaming at all.

 

[drb4141]

thank you for the info. I will only be running games at 1024 by 768 on Win Xp pro. I'm just not ready to trust any of windows newer versions yet cause i herd the performance hit from vista can be as much as 10%.

 

[drb4141]

seriously please guys can i get some help here

 

[dirtmountain]

At your budget of $285 you made some excellent choices. There's not really much anyone can add. You may change your CPU and stay in budget with a PhenomIIx2 550BE which is better in some games, but overall what you listed is fine.

 

[drb4141]

thank you

 

[drb4141]

I'm really having second thoughts about the video card i just found out its the 8 rop not the 12 i need a good video card that wont put me over my budget

 

[dirtmountain]

Maybe a 9600 GT $65 after rebate.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125272

HD4670 $40 after rebate.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127440

 

[drb4141]

I ended up going with the 4670 and the PhenomIIx2 550BE I'm hoping to unlock the other 2 cores with that board cause many other people have had a high success rate with it

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

If you have not ordered yet and can up your budget by 20 bucks, you might look at the Phenom 2 720 Black Edition. If that's out of budget, look at the x3 710 maybe, not a black edtion, but maybe a little safer in case you can't unlock.

 

[drb4141]

well i ordered this setup on last friday and everything went as planned i unlocked the other 2 cores and have done a prime 95 test for 4 hours and everything is stable I will be doing further test but right now everything is good and I could not be happier with the results thank you all for your help.