I think both sides has merit; I’ve done the nickel and dime upgrades, (HD, GPU, PS) however I tend to lean on your side in that I usually build my systems to last so that by the time I need to upgrade I'm pretty much forced (by new technology) to upgrade motherboard, processor, and RAM.
In fact I’m currently in the process of researching components for an i7 system since I'll be doing an upgrade within the next 30 days. (hopefully) :)
RileyRandom,
As you can see there are lots of choices out there. Without a doubt, for $500 to $700 you can build a box that is going to accomplish what you want to do. And you can do it with either an Intel CPU or an AMD.
I'm not going to continue arguing about this in this post as we are hijacking this thread a bit.
Yes, I understand the differences. As I said, I have an E8400 at work and a Q9550 at home. For some tasks my quad core tears the E8400 to pieces. But I'll be honest, for the majority of my day to day tasks, boot ups and shut downs....there really isn't all that much difference. That was the point that I was subtly trying to make. So, if I would have purchased the E8400 at home and later upgraded to a Q9550...I feel that I would have felt a bit of buyers remorse for 95% of my home computing tasks. At the end of the day, I'm very pleased that I held out and just went with the Q9550 right form the start. This machine should easily last me another 12-24 months without feeling outdated in the least...even though we already have fancy Core i7's and DDR3 ram.
I do agree...and that's why I tried to stick with a nice case, a decent power supply and a solid motherboard. It's easy enough to change out GPU's and RAM down the road if the need arises. And that's why I went with the ATI Radeon 4770 as my suggestion. It's not a super-duper king of the hill card, but it will get the job down for now without spending a ton of cash. An upgraded GPU can come later once this one no longer meets his/her needs.
Everyone that's posting, please remember that he specifically wants to build a gaming rig. So going without a graphics card, or going with a lower end one just wouldn't be advisable considering how many of the newest games are pushing the limits of 4/9 series GPUs and only the latest or next to latest series are enough to handle them.
This is all about a gaming machine, and fact is, at one point he will need a new cpu and ram. A gfx card is always upgradable, but they rest not always solo. I'm just trying to realistically solve his problems for the future. Not all of us can afford to just buy a new pc every few years. We have mortgages and car payments and who knows what else could come up? But with new stuff coming he could go with AMD parts and buy a mobo that can go from athlon II to phenom hex. he could get lowly ddr3 1066 and be able to go to 1333 later.
He should definitly get a 5770 as the minimum. Ok so I saw a 700 max limit?
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Quad Core Processor & Diamond Radeon HD 5770 Video Card Bundle at TigerDirect.com
OCZ OCZZ550 Z Series Power Supply - 550-Watt, 120mm Fan, 80 Plus Silver Certified, SLI Ready at TigerDirect.com
Crucial CT25664BA1339 2GB PC10600 DDR3 Desktop Memory Upgrade - 1x2048MB, Non-ECC, Unbuffered, 1333MHz at TigerDirect.com
Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H Motherboard - AMD 890GX, Socket AM3, DDR3, PCIe, LAN at TigerDirect.com
He could get cheaper ram, he could get a cheaper mobo. But for the mobo this way when the phenom II x6 hits he can just pop it in and FLY.
He said he had all the trimmings, monitor, keyboard and mouse, speakers, dvd drive. So he could go to town on the core parts. He just needs to pick out a case.
Well nobody as suggested an after market cooler from what I've read so I'll push my latest favorite. it's not that much more than a really good air cooler so the Corsair H50 Newegg.com - CORSAIR Cooling Hydro Series CWCH50-1 120mm High Performance CPU Cooler It's a sealed unit and I know doesn't fit into a real budget build but it fits so many different boards and CPU's it could be used for many future upgrades. Fabe
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