Modest Gaming Setup?

[AC]

Looking for a modest gaming setup. Mostly Sims 3 and Mafia II. Maybe a few other games. Nothing that special. Under 450 maybe? Only other thing I'll be doing is Photoshoping and Video Editing for YouTube. Thanks. I might try my hand at a Hackintosh. Will probably Dual Boot 7/Vista. If I get OS X working, then OS X/Vista.

 

[essenbe]

Do you have any parts you can use? It will be hard to build a rig that can do video editing and gaming for $450.

 

[AC]

Do you have any parts you can use? It will be hard to build a rig that can do video editing and gaming for $450.

I've got a SATA hard drive, like 320 gigs. And I have a Intel Core 2 Duo, I doubt that'd be enough for some games though. But I'm ready to spend up to 600.

 

[essenbe]

Not a recomendation but a starting point. You may look for something along these lines, but you will need a graphics card to go with it.

 

[AC]

Hmmm. Not bad. I may get that. Is this a good card? I really know nothing about graphics cards. CPU's, RAM, and Photoshop are my level of expertise

 

[essenbe]

There is no graphics card or PSU in that package. It uses on board graphics, which you will want better. I just threw that out as a starting point. You can start there and substitute or remove some items and add others. Before you buy anything, I would suggest you look at each item and read all the user feedback on each item. It will give you a good idea of whether it is reliable and will suit your purposes.

 

[DeaconFrost]

Will probably Dual Boot 7/Vista.

What would be the purpose of this? All you'd do is add more variables for something to go wrong, and use extra disk space.

 

[AC]

Will probably Dual Boot 7/Vista.

What would be the purpose of this? All you'd do is add more variables for something to go wrong, and use extra disk space.

I'm currently doing it on a low end eMachines laptop with no problems. The laptop in my specs to be exact. Reason for Vista-I like it better Reason for 7-It's newer.
Problem?

 

[Victor S]

Do you have any parts you can use? It will be hard to build a rig that can do video editing and gaming for $450.

I've got a SATA hard drive, like 320 gigs. And I have a Intel Core 2 Duo, I doubt that'd be enough for some games though. But I'm ready to spend up to 600.

Since you're at $600,
Asus P6T + I7-920 + 16 Gb Kingston Hyper-X DDR3-1600 w/ SilenX Cooler + Fan | eBay
and
EVGA Corporation NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 1 GB 01G-P3-1158-TR 0843368011758 | eBay

You'll have what I have, but with more memory and less drive space.
Plays every game I've thrown at it.
Add a case w/psu and a DVD R/W. Cheap KB/mouse. Should be close to $600.
You didn't mention monitor, so that could put you past your line.
And you didn't even have to think much.
But you asked a question that has a million answers.

 

[AC]

^I'll look at that. I have already have keyboard, mouse, and monitor, so I'm good there.

 

[DeaconFrost]

Reason for Vista-I like it better Reason for 7-It's newer.
Problem?

It's your system, but that's incredibly redundant and wasteful. I didn't have any issues with Vista, but I think you'd have a tough sell trying to convince someone it was better in any way than 7. Dual booting is a dead tech and should be left to rot away into history. If you must cling to the past...virtualize.

 

[AC]

Reason for Vista-I like it better Reason for 7-It's newer.
Problem?

It's your system, but that's incredibly redundant and wasteful. I didn't have any issues with Vista, but I think you'd have a tough sell trying to convince someone it was better in any way than 7. Dual booting is a dead tech and should be left to rot away into history. If you must cling to the past...virtualize.

IMHO it's better than 7, but lots of people dual boot, and I doubt it will rot away.

 

[DeaconFrost]

IMHO it's better than 7, but lots of people dual boot, and I doubt it will rot away.

What's better about it than 7? 7 was an improvement in every way. 7 is what VIsta could have been if it had baked a little longer, and the major OEMs had decided to put some effort into prepping for launch.

As for multi-boots, no...they are definitely a dying, fading technology. Why reboot to use another OS? Check out the virtualization subforum, if you want to check my words. Hell, with Windows 7, Microsoft even gave people a free way of virtualizing XP, proving that was the direction to go in. I'm the IT Director of a small company, and none of our servers are actually natively installed....all are virtualized.