Thank you very much for that neatfeet, was exactly the type of answer I was looking for. As for upgrading, like I said, I'm not really planning on it (adding another 480 is the most I would do at this point). I'm just the type of person that needs to know about all the newer products on the market xD.

Okay, so I've been out of the "know" graphics-card-wise for a good six months now, as I had taken a bit of a break from gaming. When I built my PC a year and a half ago, I built it with a GTX 480 and i7 930. At that point in time, the three best cards were the 480, the 5870, and the 5970 (if you had the money). CPU-wise, there were a few i7 models above the one I currently possess (950 and 980 methinks), as well as a few AMD chips.

Now, what I would like to know at this point is, which cards (and chips for that matter) are top of the line? I'm not exactly looking for an upgrade, as my 480/930 combo works well with almost every game, but it would still be nice if someone could give me a quick update.

Thanks in advance.

Okay so I recently decided I was going to buy a new graphics card to replace the integrated one on my brother's PC so that he can play WoW with me. The problem is, I recently tried adding a Radeon X800XL into the computer's motherboard (M2N68-LA), and it did not fit. I'm now looking into buying the Radeon 5450, so would anyone be able to tell me whether or not that card will be able to fit into the mobo or not? Thanks in advance.

I think I'm going to purchase all the Half Life's separately, and not the Orange Box. This is because I have little to no interest whatsoever in Team Fortress 2 and I've already played the hell out of portal on the console. About to go do this now actually.

And... should I start with Diablo or Half-Life? I know Diablo is supposed to be one of the best PC games ever created, but the fact that it is so dated makes me unsure of whether or not it is still worth playing (although, in it's won respect, Half-Life is also quite dated).

Okay, so far this is what I have listed as must plays:

-Half Life 2 (maybe 1 as well)

-Doom 3 (not sure about 1 and 2)

-Diablo

-Starcraft

-Far Cry (loved this game five/six years ago and want to play it again)

-S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (all three)

-Fable (before Fable 3 is released, but I will need GFWL for this one)

-and maybe some RPGs such as Baldur's Gate, The Witcher, and Neverwinter Nights

How does that sound?

Hmmm... good ideas so far. I'm really excited about going out and experiencing these titles. I think I'll do The Orange Box first because of how much praise it still gets amongst PC gamers. I have a question though. Should I go even further back and play the originals of these franchises (ex: Half Life 1, Doom 1, Diablo, Quake, etc.)? Or should I skip over that and simply play the newer (as in, not from the 1990s) games?

Also, on a side note, since I'm coming straight from FO3, I'd rather not play Oblivion right now (same engine and all). Besides, I've played the console version, so it's not something I urgently need to play again.

Hey everyone.

Not even three months ago I decided that I was going to take the step from console gaming to PC gaming, and I have to say, it is one of the best choices I have ever made. It took many hours of research and ordering, but, when all was said and done, I had built my very own (and pretty beast) PC. I went from being an ignorant xbox gamer to a well educated PC gamer, and took all the steps necessary to get there.

Now, that said, this is not my first PC gaming experience. About seven years ago, I played a few titles on my family computer (which wasn't very good at all), and got a taste of titles which were new at the time, such as Call of Duty, Far Cry, and the Sims. This actually served as my first "real" gaming experience. Unfortunately, not knowing any better, I ended up leaving that behind, and moved on to buy an xbox 360 (because playing on my TV with a controller seemed so much cooler). From that point until just recently, it was the only thing I gamed on, and I did have quite a good time with it. But, now all that is the past, and I am looking to re-new my bond with PC gaming.

Of course, the first thing I played on my brand new system was Crysis (being more of a means to performance-test than anything else). I then purchased the Fallout 3 GOTY Edition (store-bought), and played that for a while. Then we reach present day, where I am quite bored of Fallout and wish to experience something new (or old actually, depending on the way you see it). Yes, I have a PC and will definitely be playing many new major titles, but, seeing as most great gaming franchises originated from the PC, I feel that I am missing out on many classics. This lead me to look into Steam, where I have access to an excess amount of classics that I missed out on over the years. Some games which I would like to experience are Doom 3, Half-Life (one and two), Diablo, and Starcraft, but, I'm want to wait until I get some feedback on which games are truly worth experiencing before purchasing anything.

So, my question to any PC veterans is, what game(s) should I purchase? There are tons out there, and it really is too hard to make the decision(s) on my own. Thanks in advance for any feedback.

TT;DR: To be able to truly call myself a PC gamer, I feel that I need to first brush up on the system's history by playing some classics. Any recommendations will be appreciated.

^ Nice, that's very good. Man, I wanna see how this beast overclocks with water cooled systems.abuabed

Haha, that's next on my list of things to do.

Have you played around with your memory settings? Because as far as I know, both Intel and AMD chipsets don't put the right settings for your memory at first, so that could be the issue. Additionally, I've also seen situations where unstable memory causes screen tearing and the like. You could look into it and see if that's causing the problem (timings, speeds and voltages, specifically).

ravenguard90

Yeah, I've done this. When I first started up my system my RAM was only running at 1066 MHz even though it is supposed to be able to run at 1600 MHz. When my Crysis problem occurred, it was actually set to 1503 MHz. As for the voltages, I tried touching them once or twice and both times my computer crashed not even five minutes into Prime95. Timings... well that's where things get a bit too complicated for me.

Right now I'm running my system at 3.63 GHz (CPU), and 1654 MHz (RAM), with no changes to the voltages. With this configuration I am able to run Prime95 for a good two hours with no errors or warnings and with my lead CPU core temp maxing out at 80*C (average of all 4 is about 76*C).