I am about to get a new computer and this time I will go for one with good gaming specs. Luckily my wife accepts the aspect of "money earned with computer can be spent on computer"
I'll wait until Windows 7 comes out so I won't have to reinstall everything.
This is some options I'm looking at. Comments are appreciated. On these packages and also about "Quad vs. i7", "ATI Radeon vs. GeForce", RAM and how much power a second gfx-card really adds.

Gamer Phenom II HD4890

Case: CM Storm Scout Gaming case
Powersupply: 700W Cooler Master Silent Pro M700
Processor: AMD Phenom2 X4 955 3,2Ghz 8MB Black Edition
Graphics card: ATI Radeon HD4890 1024MB DDR3
Motherboard: ASUS M4N72-E
RAM: 4GB DDR2 1066MHz Kit
Harddrive: Samsung Spinpoint F3 500GB 16MB


Gamer i7Killer High Performance

Case: NZXT Hush Black
Powersupply: 700W Cooler Master Silent Pro M700
Processor: Intel i7-920 2.6GHz
Processor-fan: Noctua NH-U12P 120mm
Graphics card: nVidia GeForce GTX275 896MB DDR3
Motherboard: ASUS P6T Deluxe V2
RAM: 6GB DDR3 1600MHz Kit
Harddrive: 1000GB 7200RPM SATAII 16MB


Gamer Unkillable SLI

Case: NZXT Tempest Steel
Powersupply: 700W Cooler Master Silent Pro M700
Processor: AMD Phenom II 940 Quad 3.0GHz
Graphics card 1: nVidia GeForce GTX260 896MB DDR3
Graphics card 2: nVidia GeForce GTX260 896MB DDR3
Motherboard: Asus M4N72-E
RAM: 4GB DDR2 1066MHz Kit
Harddrive1: 300GB 10000RPM SATAII 16MB VelociRaptor
Harddrive2: Samsung Spinpoint F3 500GB 16MB


They all have integrated 7.1 Surround soundcards.

im already saving up to get a new computer after Basic and AIT. Most of my money now is gunna be going to see my girl back here in Michigan after i finish. but... ya with that new computer ill try and get my seedage on.. I have no idea why my computer wont stay connected now..


Those comps are pretty sick looking to man

The kind of comments that can help me to decide which option I should go for, because I'm not an expert on these things.

i dont know much about computers either so my comment shall be "the third one is the shiniest"

may i ask how much do they cost?

BTW i think the second one is the best

Sure. Might not be comparable to prices in Hungary or US but here it's good prices if you wan't to shop over the internet. At least if you want to stick to trustworthy dealers with well known service.

#1 $1.530 (1.045 EUR)
#2 $2.090 (1.423 EUR)
#3 $2.169 (1.478 EUR)

Time for some serious reading:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cor ... ,2403.html
which CPU

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/bes ... 404-4.html
which graphics card.

I've been a fan of toms for a long long time. He isn't a fanboy of one manufacturer, he likes to test.

The new fastest card is this:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/rad ... ,2422.html

When it hits the stores in quantity, all the prices will come down - it should list for $379 US which is hundreds less than the comparable GX 295.

James

Thnx James. Spent the evening reading. Got some good general ideas to start with. I might end up putting my own stuff together after all. I got this big store in the town I work, with really good prices but no products on the web. So I'll have to go there after work and check prices and products.

WOOOO the third one costs 406450 HUF here...kinda 3-month salary

I am a huge fan of EVGA for gaming. After some recommendations from ESULU and others here i went with it and love it. well thought out board plenty of room to cram oversized components in and looks sweet. They also have som fantastic support and some of the programs available to tweek the settings are nice as well. good pricing. If you feel confident building your own as opposed to buyin the box type i would recommend it. Go for a minimum of 700w on ur power supply. I threw in a whopping 1100 and didnt regret it. think it cost $75.00 on sale. Minimum of 4 gigs ram. heard a rumor windows seven supports more (dunno) i would throw in as much as is affordable for you. I am a big Corsair fan, but have seen positive results and no complaints from kingston. At moment i would stick with geforce, as opposed to atx, seems to perform better overall and at better cost. Who knows how that will change in future. I also wouldnt go AMD for now if you were thinkin it. I stuck the 9300 quad core and have been pleased with the results, although i admit some of the sligthly faster duo cores and slightly cheaper would perform fantastic as well. I do have SLI 8800 vid cards (old now i know) but honestly unless ur playin some hard core games i dont see them as necessary, i use them for multiple monitors at moment. As long as you have the ability for future i think ur good. if i think of some more items i will let ya know. good luck

As for RAM, it depends on the OS version. In theory a 32 bit OS supports no more than 4GB of RAM, minus what the BIOS reserves (often 512 MB or more). To see more RAM, you need a 64 bit OS. If you have lots of old hw with old drivers, you may run into problems on 64 bit, but if its all new, you should be fine.

James

Well the provider I was looking at just upgraded their sortiment.
Now they have the combination of i7 and ATI 5870 I was looking for after the good input from you guys. And with a better powersupply.
This might just be it. And I can buy a second 5870 next year or something when prices fall further. Still going to check prices on separate pieces.

Case: CM Storm Sniper Black Edition Gaming case
Powersupply: 850W Corsair TX/ 80+
Processor: Intel i7 860 2.8GHz
Graphics card: ATI Radeon HD5870 1024MB GDDR5
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3
RAM: 4GB DDR3 1600MHz Kit
Harddrive: 1000GB 7200RPM SATAII 16MB

Same price as #2 in my first post.

AMD CPUs offer the best bang for the money, unless you want to overclock. If you want to OC then certain Intel procs are worth the extra bucks. I say look at the Phenom II x4 940 (or the 945 or 810) from AMD. From Intel the Core i7 920 overclocks to about 3.5 - 4 GHz and can be left there for the life of the CPU. Definitely go Quad core since more and more game support them, video editing gets a huge boost from the extra cores. Even something like unzipping a huge file is much quicker with the extra cores.

For video cards, hopesanddreams provided the easy link. It takes all the guess work out of it. Here it is again. The only thing to remember is the Radeon 5800 series wasn't included. Going with a 5870 would be a good idea or if you want more performance choose the two 5850s in CrossFireX (or a 5850 X2 if it becomes available by the time you decide to buy). BFG has provided excellent customer service to my friends and me. XFX and eVGA also have good reputations (I currently have two 8800 GT cards from XFX).

For RAM, the following brands should be fine: Corsair, Kingston, OCZ, Geil, Patriot, Crucial or G.Skill. Look for lower latencies: DDR2 800 --> 4-4-4-12, DDR2 1066 --> 6-6-6-18, DDR3 1600 --> 9-9-9-24

For a power supply go for 650 - 850 W. PC Power & Cooling's Silencer or TurboCool series, Silverstone's Decathlon or OP/Zeus series, Corsair's HX or TX series, Antec's TruePower or TruePower Quattro series.

I love Asus motherboards- great layout, quality control and support. eVGA, Gigabyte and MSI are also great choices. If you get a board that supports DDR3 RAM, make sure the board has 6 slots.

From my reading, if you want a 5870 card, make sure you get a big case with lots of cooling, its a big card.

If the money looks expensive, get a 5850, and buy a second one later on to go crossfire.

James

Checked a local dealer. There I can get the same things, but a Asus X58 P6T SE board instead of the Gigabyte P55 and with 6GB RAM instead of 4GB.
It will cost me $200 more but then I can pick it up myself and get better support if anything is wrong.

As far as bying "best priced" parts from different internet stores, won't save much and then some parts will probably get delayed and I have to put everything together myself. Not worth it.