My laptop took a dive on me, it would cost more to repair it than it would be worth. It wasn't exactly powerful, as you can see here, but it did what I needed it to do for the three years I had it. Anything above those specs will be a huge upgrade to me, as I've grown used to them. I'm extremely out of the loop when it comes to building a new desktop, so I'm turning to you guys for advice.
I'm not even sure if what I want is feasible when you throw in the monitor and OS and all that. To be honest, as long as I can play civ4 and my Orange Box games I'll be happy.
APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: Piecing it together over the next few months
BUDGET RANGE: $500, maybe $600
SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Mainly used for browsing the internet, some games (Civilization 4 and, when it comes out, 5. The Orange Box. I'd like to be able to play Fallout 3 without any chop, even if I have to use low graphics settings.)
Thanks in advance.
PARTS NOT REQUIRED: Keyboard, Mouse
PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: newegg.com
PARTS PREFERENCES: AMD, graphics card needs to be relatively easy to use with Linux
OVERCLOCKING: Maybe
SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Whatever
MONITOR RESOLUTION: whatever gives me the best bang for my buck at this point
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: I want to get the basics for a more powerful system down the road in place, so an emphasis on mobo and CPU would be nice. Speakers aren't super important, I'll just buy some cheap ones and plug in my headphones. I plan on throwing a lot of RAM into it down the road so I probably want to go with a 64-bit OS right away. I have an HDTV I can use as a monitor so if what I want is too expensive, that should be the first thing on the chopping block.
EDIT: I did a little looking around and came up with this, which seems to be a complete build sans monitor and speakers. It's a bit more than I wanted, which was anticipated, but I'll look out for combo deals. Thoughts?
Power Supply
Case
Motherboard
CPU
RAM
Hard Drive
DVD+RW
OS
I'm not even sure if what I want is feasible when you throw in the monitor and OS and all that. To be honest, as long as I can play civ4 and my Orange Box games I'll be happy.
APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: Piecing it together over the next few months
BUDGET RANGE: $500, maybe $600
SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Mainly used for browsing the internet, some games (Civilization 4 and, when it comes out, 5. The Orange Box. I'd like to be able to play Fallout 3 without any chop, even if I have to use low graphics settings.)
Thanks in advance.
PARTS NOT REQUIRED: Keyboard, Mouse
PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: newegg.com
PARTS PREFERENCES: AMD, graphics card needs to be relatively easy to use with Linux
OVERCLOCKING: Maybe
SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Whatever
MONITOR RESOLUTION: whatever gives me the best bang for my buck at this point
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: I want to get the basics for a more powerful system down the road in place, so an emphasis on mobo and CPU would be nice. Speakers aren't super important, I'll just buy some cheap ones and plug in my headphones. I plan on throwing a lot of RAM into it down the road so I probably want to go with a 64-bit OS right away. I have an HDTV I can use as a monitor so if what I want is too expensive, that should be the first thing on the chopping block.
EDIT: I did a little looking around and came up with this, which seems to be a complete build sans monitor and speakers. It's a bit more than I wanted, which was anticipated, but I'll look out for combo deals. Thoughts?
Power Supply
Case
Motherboard
CPU
RAM
Hard Drive
DVD+RW
OS
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