Gaming System Recommendations

Hi all,

I don't know if this is necessarily the best place to ask, but if not, I'm sure you'll all tell me where to go.

I haven't put together a system from scratch in quite a while, or even looked at specs, so I need some recommendations for a
"decent" gaming system and/or recommendations of things to stay away from. Links to articles, etc., are welcome. There's just so
much information out there (and much of it out-of-date), I don't know where to start.

I'm not looking at the multi-thousand dollar uber-system, but something that's got more than enough kick for today's games and
should be able to handle most games for the next two or three years, give or take an upgrade or two along the way. I'm willing to
go up to about $2000, but I'd prefer closer to $1000 (Canadian $...but since we're above par these days, call it the same as US$).
So here's what I'm looking for:

In terms of hardware requirements, the only absolute needs I have on the motherboard are SATA-300, which I don't think should be
hard
to find, and dual-core (or more, if it's cheap enough). I lean very heavily towards the Intel chipsets, but I might be convinced to
look at VIA or whatever else is out there these days, as long I'm not likely to have any problems with anything. I'm not big into
tweaking, so I don't really need one of those tweak-everything BIOS's, but I'm comfortable making BIOS changes, so if it works well
outta the box, great, but if it allows a lot of changes, that's okay too.

For video, I've only ever used nVidia cards, so I'd *like* to stick with those, but I'm not too picky, so if there's a good reason
to go with an ATI card, I wouldn't object. I'd want something with a DVI output that can run modern games at 1680 x 1050
(widescreen) fairly well.

The system also doubles as my digitally-recorded-TV and CD/DVD player, so sound (be it on-board or separate) needs to have both 5.1
discrete outputs as well as optical output. (No inputs required, as I don't really need or plan to connect anything external.)


Any thoughts?

Rob

Check out some of the new HP multimedia systems @ www.hp.com.
I bought them8247c - amazing system, and I'm adding a 450 watt power supply
and a nVidia 8800 gts card. Amazing gaming, cheap comparable to the super
SLI tech stuff out there. A definite winner.

"Robert Morley" <rmorley DeleteThis @magma.ca.N0.Freak1n.sparn> wrote in message
news:ect7$4uIIHA.1204@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> Hi all,
>
> I don't know if this is necessarily the best place to ask, but if not, I'm
> sure you'll all tell me where to go.
>
> I haven't put together a system from scratch in quite a while, or even
> looked at specs, so I need some recommendations for a
> "decent" gaming system and/or recommendations of things to stay away from.
> Links to articles, etc., are welcome. There's just so
> much information out there (and much of it out-of-date), I don't know
> where to start.
>
> I'm not looking at the multi-thousand dollar uber-system, but something
> that's got more than enough kick for today's games and
> should be able to handle most games for the next two or three years, give
> or take an upgrade or two along the way. I'm willing to
> go up to about $2000, but I'd prefer closer to $1000 (Canadian $...but
> since we're above par these days, call it the same as US$).
> So here's what I'm looking for:
>
> In terms of hardware requirements, the only absolute needs I have on the
> motherboard are SATA-300, which I don't think should be hard
> to find, and dual-core (or more, if it's cheap enough). I lean very
> heavily towards the Intel chipsets, but I might be convinced to
> look at VIA or whatever else is out there these days, as long I'm not
> likely to have any problems with anything. I'm not big into
> tweaking, so I don't really need one of those tweak-everything BIOS's, but
> I'm comfortable making BIOS changes, so if it works well
> outta the box, great, but if it allows a lot of changes, that's okay too.
>
> For video, I've only ever used nVidia cards, so I'd *like* to stick with
> those, but I'm not too picky, so if there's a good reason
> to go with an ATI card, I wouldn't object. I'd want something with a DVI
> output that can run modern games at 1680 x 1050
> (widescreen) fairly well.
>
> The system also doubles as my digitally-recorded-TV and CD/DVD player, so
> sound (be it on-board or separate) needs to have both 5.1
> discrete outputs as well as optical output. (No inputs required, as I
> don't really need or plan to connect anything external.)
>
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Rob
>