Gaming system "Sweet Spots"??

[John Prophet]

As far as building a gaming system....to sell, (think "profitability", lol)

what are the "sweet spots" for video cards and cpu's?

I know basically nothing about video cards as far as the latest ones that teens drool over.

Looks like to me the XP2700 0r 2800 is at a sweet spot because it jumps like 50$ to the 3000.

But what are the good video card sweet spots?

For instance we ALL know that if you buy the TOP notch of ANYTHING that you pay thru the nose..so thats not an option....so what are the best values for good gaming video cards??



Also, same thing for good dependable power supplies??


oh yeah, and ram also, lol. I suppose 512 is good sweet spot? Is crucial as good as any as far as quality and value?


Think "links" lol.

Thanks, JP

[XxCowOfChaosxX]

Processor-AthlonXP 2500+, Athlon64 3000+, P4 2.4c
Vid-Radeon 9600 XT, Radeon 9700 Pro, FX 5900 NP
PS-omardeth's Achieve 500w HERE

[ironforge]

AMD 2500+ is a great deal processor wise... not sure about the graphics card..


Looks a little shady on that power supply...

http://store.yahoo.com/akidacomputer/companypolicy.html
still have a christmas graphic up? Must not update the page much? hehe

That and it lists:
"1. All sales are final."

no returns.. doh!

[I2n0ld]

ati 9600xt best bang for the buck

[mike_sanfil]

9600xt?? arn't thoes like almost $200?? You can get a 9700pro from built by ATI from www.zipzoomfly.com for like $207 last time I bought one. Toms hardware just did a review not too long ago on the best deal on a video card. The compared on average how many FPS a card gets to its price, and the ti4200 came out on top. It is a cheap card, and it's not bad either.

[Sixpac_XP]

The only problem with the older Nvidia Ti4 series is they can't do DX9 for the latest video games.

[slinky]

Barton 2500+ $85 with the 128MB 5900 (Free Call of Duty and shipping, and true lifetime warranty) $169.

Or the above combo with the P4 2.6C.

edit: 512MB DDR400 (Crucial)

[Optimus Prime]

Originally posted by Sixpac_XP
The only problem with the older Nvidia Ti4 series is they can't do DX9 for the latest video games.

The newest feature most games are doing at the moment is Motion Blur (Need for Speed: Underground, Deus Ex:Invisible War, Secret Weapons over Normandy), and they all seem to work fine on my AMD Athlon XP 2500+ Barton and Geforce 4 Ti4200.

You can get a 5600 Ultra or a 9600 for under £100 over here, i like the sound of that.

An AMD system is definately your best bang for your buck, the newest processors aren't, but think 2500 and 2600 and you're in, retail ones are about £70 over here that's including the fan and the stickers! (never forget the stickers ).

Many people have been saying on these boards go for an ASUS A78N*-* (*-*, the last two letters, e.g. x-x or d-x, i can't remember.) but my experience with them is bad, i might have just got a faulty board though. I went with a budget MSI board (MSI KT4AV) and it has served me well, not much for overclocking oppurtunities, but overclocking costs more if you buy a shiny new MOBO than it does to buy a cheap processor and mobo for the same speed as you would overclock it to!

[washe]

A7N8VX where the mainboards with issues, I have been using A7N8DX (Corsair ram) with out any problems altought this ones the price is quite high for a budget system, they have a lot of features that some users are not going ever going to use... I like the dual lan feature I use one for local area network lan games and file transfer and the other one to access the internet..

Im testing right now a Biostar MN7CD mobo that was like $52 bucks....

[ArcticFox]

I guess my suggestion would be:

AthlonXP 2500+ (because you can run them as a 3200+ no problems)
512MB Corsair DDR (twin DDR400 256MB sticks)
Asus A7N8X (Deluxe or not)
SB Audigy 2
Minimum 80GB 7200RPM drive (I have a Maxtor like that and it works fine)
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro/XT, or a 9800np if you have extra cash

That's my config which would work for almost all games. I run a 2500+ @ 3200+ on an Asus A7N8X Deluxe with an overclocked Ti 4200 and it works OK, but some games choke it. I can't run Homeworld2 like it should be, some games I find just don't hit the 60fps mark 100% of the time, like CS does at 1280x1024 4xAA 4xAniso.