I'm getting a new computer from dell that I found that is the best deal. But I have one problem, should I go with the better proccessor or the better video card ( I play a LOT of games.) The OK proccessor and good video card is: AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core 3800+ with the 256MB NVIDIA Geforce 7300LE TurboCache video card. The better proccessor and the worse video card is AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core 4200+ with the NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE Integrated Graphics GPU. And if you want to even help me out more you can customize it the way you want(just tell me the specs) making it good with a budget of no more then $$520 dollars at http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=bdcwbbz&cs=04&dgvcode=ss&c=US&l=EN&m_1=S42A2B
If it was me I would get a better processor, and then wait and buy a better graphics card later after you get some more money. I myself have a HP with AMD Athlon 64 X2, 2GB of ram, and a NVIDIA Geforce 7300LE graphics card. I play a few games and I know the only reason I can't play alot of games is just because of my graphics card. So I wouldn't put alot of money into trying to get the best stock upgraded graphics card you can get. I would get probablly the cheapest one (unless it's going to be a while until you have enough for a better card). And then uprade your card later to something that is alot better. Thats just how I would do it though, other people might think differently.
It's got...... Expansion Slots PCI: 2 Slots PCIe x1: 1 Slot PCIe x16 (Graphics): 1 Slots http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/dimen_e521?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04
What games do you play and how good do those games look with the graphics card? I was told the card runs good with warcraft series which I play a lot. And also I mean if you think about it the two proccesors really don't make a diffrence and I think you can overclock the 3800 a lot. And the more money=June
I play alot of FPS. I can play a few of them on max settings especially older ones like counter strike. Then I can play most of them on atleast medium with some lag but not enough to mess your game up. Halo plays perfect on medium. And I tried to play Far Cry and could only play it on lowest settings. As I said BF2 plays perfectly on pretty much max settings (I think one or two things might be turned down a little). But that card should play warcraft perfectly. I don't play alot of RPGs but I would think it would play them pretty well. If you play alot of FPS and want high settings for all your games I would recomend an upgrade, but if medium and low settings are fine for you then that will get you by for a while. You could maybe tell me a list of some of the games you want to play and I could tell you how they would play if you liked.
I forgot to mention that my reasoning for saying that you might want a better processor was because some of the new games like FEAR, and the Tom Clancy games require either a pretty fast dual core processor or atleast a 3.0 P4 minimum.
sounds good to me here are some games: Day of Defeat Source Counter Strike: Source World of Warcraft, Warcraft 3. Half-life lost coast, Half-life 2. Battlefield 1942.
Well, the two proccesors that i'm looking at really don't seem to be a diffrence at all except for .2 ghz...
Yes, but I tend to think of AMDs processors compared like this. AMD 3800 = 3.8 GHz, 4200 = 4.2 GHz. I'm attemping to find the games you named, I can't seem to find a website with the requirements for Day of Defeat (which was the only one I wasn't sure about). Edit: Day of Defeat Source - Unsure about the requirements. Counter Strike: Source - Should run perfect on max settings. World of Warcraft, Warcraft 3 - Not possative but I think it should run perfect on max or atleast high settings Half-life lost coast, Half-life 2. - Should run perfect on max settings Battlefield 1942. - Should run perfect on max settings
Well day of defeat uses same settings as Cs:s pretty much. So what do you say? better AMD or better graphics?
Well, I finally found the official requirements for Day of Defeat and although they weren't very specific, I think it should be able to run on medium atleast if not high with the 7300 LE. I would go with the better graphics card since it's going to be a while before you can upgrade, and I think most of the games average minimum requirements are around 1.4 GHz and recomended are around 2.4 GHz. But without atleast that 7300 LE graphics cards I'm not sure how any of those games will run. However if you could upgrade soon and don't care to have crapy gameplay for a while you could get a nicer processor that will run the games better when you do get a new graphics card.
the 6150 is surprisingly comeptant for gaming (as intergrated goes) the 7300 will not give you good frames per second in some of the more modern games (fear and such) if i was you i would wait for the gpu. by june the newer midrange cards will be out from both camps and then you wont need another for a couple of years. buying a 7300 now as dx10 comes out realy seems like a waste of money to me. edit if i was you i would spend the cash on more ram vista eats it for breakfast. and dont expect to much of an overclock from a dell as its bios is locked and only leaves you with things like clockgen.
I was going to recomend ram but I was thinking he was only getting XP, I forgot about Vista being standard on there now. So I thought 1 gig would be alright, but for Vista I would also think that you would need 2 gigs atleast for Vista. Also, I am surprised that the 6150 would play very many games decently. But I guess out of the games he listed it would play those fairly decently since most of them are older games.
