I am looking into starting PC gaming.

Okay, I know my questions are going to come off as very general and basic, but that's because of my limited knowledge... I know nothing of PC gaming. I have played some games, such as Half-Life 2, on the PC, but I feel my PC is quickly becoming outdated. I'm going to give you my current specs, and what games I have played. I'm looking for any suggestions on how I could improve my PC in any way. I am also terrible with building things, so I will most likely have to look up a ton of guides on how to install a video card...

These specs are from SRtest. Sorry about the blue font.

CPU- 2 processors running - AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4600+

CPU speed- 2.40 GHz

Ram- 2.0 GB

Operating system- Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Edition, 32-bit (Build 6000)

Video card- NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS (GeForce 7900 GS)

The only notable games I have played have been Rome: Total War, Half Life: The Orange Box (and Half-Life one). I just bought the Witcher, but I'm a little hesitant to play it.

Really, any suggestions are welcome.

As for my budget... well, I'm not entirely sure. I can't immediently upgrade, but I will before the end of the year. I would say below $2000, but I would go over if completely necessery.

Check to see if your board supports PCI-Express graphics cards and what is your budget on an upgrade?com2006

I edited my post to have a budget in it.

And how do I check to see if my board supports PCI-express?

what brand is your comp? Honestly you could build a good gaming comp for $2000 or less. If you're a smart buyer. mrhankeydinks

HP Pavilion a1630. I bought it maybe 2 years ago.

[QUOTE="mrhankeydinks"]what brand is your comp? Honestly you could build a good gaming comp for $2000 or less. If you're a smart buyer. instantdeath999

HP Pavilion a1630. I bought it maybe 2 years ago.

That machine does have a PCI-Express slot, but with a $2000 budget you can build a far superior machine its up to you. However if you just bought a 8800GTS 512MB card you should be perfectly fine for gaming and it would only cost $180-$200.

[QUOTE="instantdeath999"]

[QUOTE="mrhankeydinks"]what brand is your comp? Honestly you could build a good gaming comp for $2000 or less. If you're a smart buyer. com2006

HP Pavilion a1630. I bought it maybe 2 years ago.

That machine does have a PCI-Express slot, but with a $2000 budget you can build a far superior machine its up to you. However if you just bought a 8800GTS 512MB card you should be perfectly fine for gaming and it would only cost $180-$200.

To be honest, I'm actually intimidated about building a machine. Is it a realatively easy thing to do with no experience?

Also, if my budget was below $500, would a simple upgrade, such as the CPU or video card, be enough to handle todays games well? Or would it be better to put a huge investment into it?

[QUOTE="com2006"][QUOTE="instantdeath999"]

[QUOTE="mrhankeydinks"]what brand is your comp? Honestly you could build a good gaming comp for $2000 or less. If you're a smart buyer. instantdeath999

HP Pavilion a1630. I bought it maybe 2 years ago.

That machine does have a PCI-Express slot, but with a $2000 budget you can build a far superior machine its up to you. However if you just bought a 8800GTS 512MB card you should be perfectly fine for gaming and it would only cost $180-$200.

To be honest, I'm actually intimidated about building a machine. Is it a realatively easy thing to do with no experience?

If you follow a guide you should be fine its not as difficult as it looks.

If you have up to $2000 to spare on a custom rig, you could easily build a awesome machine. I wish I had $2000 to spend on parts...

And don't worry about building on, its not that hard. It is actually kind of fun comparing and buying the parts, and learning how to put them all together at the end make a working PC. Just watch some YouTube video and you will get the gist of it in no time.

If you have up to $2000 to spare on a custom rig, you could easily build a awesome machine. I wish I had $2000 to spend on parts...

And don't worry about building on, its not that hard. It is actually kind of fun comparing and buying the parts, and learning how to put them all together at the end make a working PC. Just watch some YouTube video and you will get the gist of it in no time.

chandlerr_360

Well, I really want to avoid spending that much at all costs. Basically, if I have to spend that much, I will have to wait a lot longer.

Could I get a good upgrade for less than $1000? Or would it be better to wait?

[QUOTE="instantdeath999"][QUOTE="com2006"][QUOTE="instantdeath999"]

[QUOTE="mrhankeydinks"]what brand is your comp? Honestly you could build a good gaming comp for $2000 or less. If you're a smart buyer. com2006

HP Pavilion a1630. I bought it maybe 2 years ago.

That machine does have a PCI-Express slot, but with a $2000 budget you can build a far superior machine its up to you. However if you just bought a 8800GTS 512MB card you should be perfectly fine for gaming and it would only cost $180-$200.

To be honest, I'm actually intimidated about building a machine. Is it a realatively easy thing to do with no experience?

If you follow a guide you should be fine its not as difficult as it looks.

Yeah, really its not too hard just follow a guide and you'll be fine.

Building a pc is fun although I have never done it before still it can be fun. Juat as long as you use common knolage about what does what and make sure you read up on what all you would like to put in a pc and make sure you know what a word is or abreveation of one.

Like psu power supply unit that sort of stuff.

Also this is my first building a pc my self but I have installed a gpu and sound card and some cd/dvd roms and ram and almost a psu not quite and so I kind of know what to do to build a pc but still I come here and read everything I can get my hands on that could help me in building a pc.

Also if I don't know a word or know what it means I just go and google it and see what it means. I am on a very limited amount of money that I can spend and so there for I will take me like a couple of months to save up enough and I may just ask for money this Christmas instead of presents.

if your in aus

CPU: Intel E8500 S775 $349
Motherboard: EVGA 132-CK-NF78-A1 780i $322
RAM: 2 x 2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 (C4) $189
HDD: Western Digital 640GB 16MB SATAII $120
GPU: 2 x 512MB EVGA 8800GT OC $522
Case: Thermaltake Armor+ $235
PSU: Corsair HX-620 620W $146
Optical Drive: ASUS 20x BLT-2014 Lightscribe SATA $35
CPU HSF: Noctua NH-U12P Performance CPU Cooler $79

$2000 is more than plenty for an upgrade, especially if you're not really that much into gaming. You can easily get a very, very good custom build for less than 2k. A DDR2 Quad-core Q9450 with an EVGA 780i motherboard, 2gb Corsair XMS2Extreme RAM, and EVGA 8800GTX card with a 1000 watt corsair power supply costs $1769 (with a basic case) on ibuypower.com. The only reason why i left out the case is because it's a matter of personal preference. You can get a very good case for less than $50-$100 extra, still under $2k.

A system like this will be able to play every single game available today, including Crysis on high.

if your in aus

CPU: Intel E8500 S775 $284

Motherboard: EVGA 132-CK-NF78-A1 780i $221

RAM: 2 x 2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 (C4) $99

HDD: Western Digital 640GB 16MB SATAII $78

GPU: 2 x 512MB EVGA 8800GT OC $351

Case: Thermaltake Armor+ $196

PSU: Corsair HX-620 620W $105

Optical Drive: ASUS 20x BLT-2014 Lightscribe SATA $21

CPU HSF: Noctua NH-U12P Performance CPU Cooler $17

advent_kid

ive edited ur post with the prices of that stuff here... woldnt u like to live here ? :)

hell, im getting this for less than 1k:

Q6600 G0, NH-U12P, mx2, XFX 8800 GTS 512, 4 gb gskill mq 800 mhz, halfmman mid tower case (normal name = too long)

and all this in 1-2 weeks =) can wait

iwoldnt u like to live here ? :)

-_- yep you guys are to cheap -_-

2gigs of memory is fine in my opinion unless your running vista. Even then its probably fine

I just bought my system off newegg for $525 shipped with $75 mail in rebates so it will be $450. But it doesn't include a monitor(already have) and a harddrive(which i already have).

I got a

E7200 2.54 Intel dual core which can be overclocked to a lot highbecause of the 45 nm chipset $130

asus vapor bearing cpu upgraded heatsink fan(don't need unless you want to overclock) $40

Raidmax case with lots of fans cool looking with green LEDs with a 550 watt PSU $120

NVIDIA 8800 gt with company of heroes world conflict and upgraded GPU fan/heatsink $160

2 gigs of memory $45

GIGABYTE motherboard simple no sli $65

so with a harddrive $100 dvd drive $30 and a monitor $200 thats less then $700 after mail in rebates. If you buy OS's i guess you will have to add that in but damn cheap if you ask me.

Rather than make a new thread, I decided to dig up this old one.

To my (limited) knowledge, the 9 series has just come out? And, obviously, it would be better than the 8 series. So would this be a good card?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130350]]

I'm surprised by the price though... I assumed it would be higher.

My main concerns are buying the right card, and even moreso, installing it. I don't want to buy a card that wont fit, or break my PC while attempting to upgrade it...

I would save my money and just get a video card.

Get this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Description=4850&x=0&y=0

Just stick that in and it is all good.

As others said, I think your rig will be albe to perform decently if you only upgrade video card. Yor CPU isn't a top-notch, but should be enough for now. Go either with 8800GT 512 (150$) or Radeon HD4850 (200$).

Yor problem may be the PSUy, however. They tend to install some crappy Power Supply Units in pre-built computers, so it may turn out that you will have to spend additional 80$ to ensure safety of your machine. Could you open the case and tell us what's written on the PSU?

I wouldn't spend that much on my pc with those specs because they are good, you just need to upgrade the GPU for a 8800 GT or something of that range and you can easily run all games fine.cybercris16

Yes that's all he really needs and soon Nvidia 8 and 9 series will all have PhysX too.