new computer advice please

Hi,
So i need a new machine (off the peg).
Probably wait till the new year before i spend but would something like this be reasonable?

Intel core 2 quad Q9300 2.5GHz
4GB ram, 1000gb
geforce9600 768mb
… running vista premium.

Unsure about the card regards earlier thread posting warning on this model!
I am not very computer minded, though i guess this should be fairly ok by todays standards?
Thanks for any advice

The Geforce 9600 is not a very good video card. Get a 9800 GTX if you can afford it.

I don`t want to be flaffing about changing cards on a new off the shelf machine as it buggers up the warranty…..
Alternative is cheaper…

AMD Phenom 9550x4
4GB , 640GB
ati hd3650 512mb

Otherwise i`ll shop around till another one comes up with a different card….

Thanks for the help.

Originally Posted by JDR13
The Geforce 9600 is not a very good video card. Get a 9800 GTX if you can afford it.

In this price range, ATI has the upper hand. Better get the 38** card from them.

Also it might be good to go for two HD's -> A RAID0 (striping) is somewhat faster then just one HD. One thing to remind you: this doesn't mean you 're better protected against a HD crash, I would even say worse -> When one HD crashes, the other one might be corrupted to.

Originally Posted by Bartacus
In this price range, ATI has the upper hand. Better get the 38** card from them.

True, but Nvidia has the better drivers and less compatibility issues from my experience.

Originally Posted by JDR13
The Geforce 9600 is not a very good video card.

Are your sure about that? From a performance pov it's similar to 8800GT but with some PureVideo enhancements. Price may not be in it's favour but I wouldn't call it bad.

If you getting a gaming desktop, most important component is your video card. Get the Radeon HD 4870 512MB/1GB. For audio card Auzentech Prelude is highly recommended.
Check the links here:
http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/…le.php/3747766
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3415&p=10
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/articl…50aHVzaWFzdA==

I own a Prelude and can recommend it but only if you have the money to spare. It costs the same as a HD4870 if I'm not mistaken.

I've had a 4870 for a few months now and I can just say it's been performing amazingly, especially considering the price of the thing. Question now though is if a HD4850X2 gives you even better value for your money, can't find any very quick answers for that but may be worth looking into.

You only need a separate audio card if your speaker set is good enough to hear the difference.

Make sure the CPU cooler and especially the fan on the graphics card are silent. The days when speed and price were the only criteria are over.

Originally Posted by stealth
Are your sure about that? From a performance pov it's similar to 8800GT but with some PureVideo enhancements. Price may not be in it's favour but I wouldn't call it bad.

That depends on how much of an enthusiast he is. If he really wants to run the latest games with anti-aliasing at good speed, then he's better off spending a little more and getting something better.

Try not to get an 8600 card, because these seem to have problems (most likely driver-related) with older games.

I've got an 8600 GT (I think), and i have these problems (with the current beta 177.92 no more, though), but otherwise I don't have any problems.

I would propably get the new gtx260 with 216 core:

(1) Its silent even according to silentpcreview: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article870-page1.html
(2) With stock settings its faster than 4870 1gb: http://hothardware.com/Articles/Powe…-GDDR5/?page=8 AND you can overclock with air to a level of stock 280gtx and 4870x2.
(3) Its relatively cheap say between 200-300
(4) If you really want the best get two of these - they are faster than anything else (except gtx280x2 perhaps but that thing is noisy) and silent too - like deadly ninjas!

Ok.
Found a bargain so i bought a new comp today, at the moment downloading the witcher ee….

I like doing the opposite of what i originally say as it normally turns out better that way!
Specs: PH X4 9550 AM2+
ATI HD 3850 512MB
2X 2048M , DDR2 667
HDD 2X500GB
Was only 6oo€ , so not a bad buy i reckon….

Hopefully will serve a while

Looks like you got a good deal Londonchris.

Game on!

Nice deal.

Make sure to check every single piece of preinstalled software. Retail PCs often come with a lot of crap installed which considerably slows them down. Go through the list and rigorously uninstall everything you don't need. Especially the MS Office demo and, if you have a better one availabel, the internet security suite.