10th February 2008, 2:19 PM
I have 2 gigs of RAM and as of yet I haven't had a single issue that was bottlenecked by that. However, with DX10 games coming out that may be reached. If you can afford the 4 gigs go with it.
I would recommend a larger hard disk. 250 is about what most gamers need, and if you are going for a major computer upgrade I imagine that's your basic drive in getting such an overhaul.
P5K sounds fine. Built in wi-fi on those is a bit iffy, and I think it require setting up an external antenna, but it's no biggy and works well if you aren't near your router.
That videocard is pretty much the current top of the line. The only issue is I might wait on that because the NEXT series of NVidia's video cards will incorporate an extra physx processor, and you likely won't want to miss out on that action. That processor is fine top of the line stuff.
As long as that moniter allows for older games to run in proper aspect ratio and doesn't "force" wide screen, it sounds great.
I don't know what a "cooler master ammo case" is, but my guess is it's a water cooled computer case that has some silly "camo" look. As much as I like some of the nice cooling tech they put in new cases, I'd really like it if they stopped trying to make them look "hard core". At any rate, sounds good so long as it isn't lit up like a Vegas strip to keep you up at night.
Home Premium is basically all most people need, and I think all versions you might buy let you pick between installing the 32 bit and 64 bit versions (well, maybe not OEM disks, those are pretty limiting). The one warning I'll give is that 64 bit can do 32 bit programs but they didn't bother adding in the ability to run 16 bit programs (probably would have taken a while to code that in I guess). As a result, if you have old 32 bit games that use 16 bit programs as installers, you're out of luck. You can always have a duel boot system though.
"Standard" DVD burner, well, okay. Those are all pretty much speed locked at this point (they had to slow down CD reading speeds to 48x on them you may notice, physics providing some trouble in exploding disks ya know).
That's a good cost for what you're getting. You may be able to knock down the value even more by shopping around, but in price vs trustworthy online merchants ratio, I think you got a balance.
I personally would wait until the HD-DVD/Bluray battle is finally over before getting either one. I see 3 scenarios. HD loses it's last exclusive company and dies. Bluray someone screws up (let's say the fact that you have to have an online connection and update every single time a new movie comes out, which I think mom and pop that don't know the first thing about updating their "firm's ware" is going to want to bother with) and it dies. Or, BOTH die because the average consumer doesn't see the point, relegating the high def movie experience to about the same user share as laser disk had. I will wait for a conclusion, thus (of course) aiding the 3rd option, but I don't care.
I would recommend a larger hard disk. 250 is about what most gamers need, and if you are going for a major computer upgrade I imagine that's your basic drive in getting such an overhaul.
P5K sounds fine. Built in wi-fi on those is a bit iffy, and I think it require setting up an external antenna, but it's no biggy and works well if you aren't near your router.
That videocard is pretty much the current top of the line. The only issue is I might wait on that because the NEXT series of NVidia's video cards will incorporate an extra physx processor, and you likely won't want to miss out on that action. That processor is fine top of the line stuff.
As long as that moniter allows for older games to run in proper aspect ratio and doesn't "force" wide screen, it sounds great.
I don't know what a "cooler master ammo case" is, but my guess is it's a water cooled computer case that has some silly "camo" look. As much as I like some of the nice cooling tech they put in new cases, I'd really like it if they stopped trying to make them look "hard core". At any rate, sounds good so long as it isn't lit up like a Vegas strip to keep you up at night.
Home Premium is basically all most people need, and I think all versions you might buy let you pick between installing the 32 bit and 64 bit versions (well, maybe not OEM disks, those are pretty limiting). The one warning I'll give is that 64 bit can do 32 bit programs but they didn't bother adding in the ability to run 16 bit programs (probably would have taken a while to code that in I guess). As a result, if you have old 32 bit games that use 16 bit programs as installers, you're out of luck. You can always have a duel boot system though.
"Standard" DVD burner, well, okay. Those are all pretty much speed locked at this point (they had to slow down CD reading speeds to 48x on them you may notice, physics providing some trouble in exploding disks ya know).
That's a good cost for what you're getting. You may be able to knock down the value even more by shopping around, but in price vs trustworthy online merchants ratio, I think you got a balance.
I personally would wait until the HD-DVD/Bluray battle is finally over before getting either one. I see 3 scenarios. HD loses it's last exclusive company and dies. Bluray someone screws up (let's say the fact that you have to have an online connection and update every single time a new movie comes out, which I think mom and pop that don't know the first thing about updating their "firm's ware" is going to want to bother with) and it dies. Or, BOTH die because the average consumer doesn't see the point, relegating the high def movie experience to about the same user share as laser disk had. I will wait for a conclusion, thus (of course) aiding the 3rd option, but I don't care.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)