Nifty. But we should get back on topic, science and it's magics should rather be discussed in it's own thread. ;)



When you have an idea of the budget, you should give the CPU and GPU the biggest slices. They are more important than the rest and cost much more too.

With €600,- you can build a decent machine with NVidia and Intel. Though, input and output devices are not counted because most people already have those.

One can also uncheck case, mobo and OS in some cases.

I figure that if already have a 500W PSU, HD, and case, you're looking at $450-500 for a really good gaming machine with dual cores running at 3.0GHz and a GeForce 8800GT. Throw in a case, 500W-600W PSU and a half terabyte HD and you're adding a good $180 to the price tag.

I think my pc cost less than..300$ all together which is a good price for something thats MINE and that handles all the games I currently have. The weakest section of it is probably the video card which I'm upgrading this summer.

You should make that a 8800GTS with G92 chipset. Runs faster than GTX, having those in SLI setup is ~<3

The 640 MB version is surprisingly more expensive than the 320 MB one, but I would go for the bigger vRAM simply for the future. Games are constantly using higher & higher res textures, add to that HDR/bloom, AF, AA, etc. and you got yourself a reason to get a 1+ GB vRAM card.

It's also suprisingly faster. That'swhy im luring on that card.

To reduce the cost of my computer, I always skip the soundcard step, I always use the sound from the motherboard.

Anyway, I have an insufficient sound installation so the sound isn't totaly great, but what I have is enough for me.

Since I never played any game with totaly great sound installation and great soundcard, I don't know what it feels like so I'm not addicted to it yet, lol.

I also have a Centurion Tower I really like, that's a small cost I can avoid too as well as power, fans, ... (all small things).

I can keep my 2gb RAM and my drives (DVD*2, Hard Drive)
In the end my computer is reduced to buying a motherboard, a graphic card and a processor which are still the most expensive part.

That is a terrible idea for gaming. Keep in mind that the mobo chip doesn't do any audio processing, the CPU does it. This will result in reduced performance in games that use lots of sounds and/or good audio-sub systems that require lots of processing power.

Audio cards aren't that expensive anyway, you can find a cheap XFi which will do the job well.

Well, I never had any problems with the sounds processed by the motherboard.

Well, even if I buy a sound card, I have a terrible sound installation, so wouldn't notice any real difference I think... The sound seems good enough for me

Huh? Just put the card into the PCI slot and install it's software. That's it.

Nope, it's not what I mean, lol

I was talking about the speakers.

Then we use the phrase 'speaker system' or simply speakers.

But as I said in my original point, sound cards' benefits aren't just improved sound quality, also improved in-game performance. You should take a look at the Serious Sam 2 tech support forum on seriouszone.com and see how many people have trouble because they are using onboard audio acceleration.

Yes, actually I was lazy to find the right vocabulary word 'til now, lol

I didn't knew this could affect game performance 'cause I never had any problems.
Never played Serious Sam though.

If you know the basic functionality of a computer, it is predictable that extra work for the CPU will result in other tasks getting less attention, such as physics and AI calculations. In a game like Serious Sam 2, that has up to dozens of bad guys on the screen simultaneously, each with their physics, AI, sounds, etc., it can be lots of work for the CPU. So if you had a separate sound processing unit, it would give the rest of the tasks much more attention.

Hmm, right, never really thought to it 'cause I'm not a hard-core gamer.

I just play once in while and I play more old games (and abandonware) than actual ones.

You're absolutely sure of this? So, my ALC883 integrated sound chip is not processing sound, but was stuck on the motherboard just for kicks and giggles?

Considering how crappy onboard audio is; yes, I would go as far as saying that. If you have ever compared Intel's onboard video accelerators to nVidia or ATi's video cards, you will get pretty much the same results as when comparing onboard audio to audio cards; the cards are lightyears better.

Here is a quote from wikipedia:

Yup, but for the use I have of it...

Mostly to listen music... The sound isn't that crap

But I'll think about when I'll buy a new computer (quad core maybe? or maybe the 8core will be already out )

How'd you get that generic quote box, Bjossi. I have always just clicked on the speech bubble button to use quotes, but you must have done somehting different to put Wikipedia in a quote box, right?

It's a tag.



Quote my message and you'll find out.

The octacores will be very expensive when brand new.

Hah Ill be saving up for em!

That is going to take some time.