unr3al

http://www.hwcompare.com Use that. You need to know which 8800GTS it is though. It's an incredibly old card by now (2006).

Firstly, laptops aren't upgradeable, you're stuck with what you have until you buy a new one. Second, back onto the sound topic, sound cards help relieve a little bit of taxation on the CPU. It depends on how much another 2% is worth to you. I've had a dedicated one for 7 years now across three different computers, and will continue to do so until can't find sound cards at a reasonable price anymore. I don't buy the $200 sound cards with the Fata1ity branding, but I do make sure to get a dedicated APU of some kind. Thirdly, since none of you helped me in picking out parts, I ordered what I originally posted with a couple of minor changes in the motherboard and case. It's a sad day indeed when the author of this topic can't get an answer to a question or a recommendation in his own thread on a forum board this big. I ended up with: Intel Core i7 3770K CPU Zalman CNPS5X Cooler GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD3H Motherboard PNY XLR8 nVidia GeForce GTX 670 GPU NZXT Apollo Black Case Wish me luck, I should have it built in about a week or so.

No, it won't work either. You're going to have to invest some cash into a desktop that's actually designed to run games.

GPU should be fine for todays games, I'm just concerned about scaling for the future, as my GTX 570 beats the 660Ti in several benchmarks, especially with FSAA enabled. The i5 you have certainly isn't a bad choice, but when I look for a CPU I don't have the mindset of overclocking something out of the box. I buy a CPU with a high frequency to begin with so I shouldn't have to OC it. OCing would only be something I do if I ran into money problems and I had to stretch my CPU's usefullness lifespan for another 6-12 months. Right now my PC is about 4 years old and it's just starting to show signs of slowing in the newest games like Battlefield 3, Sleeping Dogs and Crysis 3. Basically where I can't max everything anymore, or in Crysis 3 having to go to 'medium' settings. But I got about 4 years out of it, so I'm content enough that it served me well for what I spent on it. The GPU could use a slight bump, but the thing that's bottlenecking me the most is the CPU. In my case, my GPU happens to be bricked anyway, so that's going to need a toss too.

Because the new AMD CPU's are all terrible. A six core sounds attractive until you find out that because it's on a smaller chip size, each core is far less effective compared to its Intel counterpart. AMD themselves the other year said they are no longer attempting to compete with Intel, and it shows. Intels top brass always stomps AMD in benchmark tests and real world performance. Clock speed and core count mean nothing if the actual architecture (the way the processor handles instructions) sucks. Hell, even my old AMD 955BE Phenom II X4 can outperform the new AMD FX series chips in some tests. That's bad engineering if you can't at least match a product that's over 4 years old. AMD graphics cards are closer to their nVidia rivals, but only because AMD just simply bought ATI, kept on all the same engineers and firmware developers and re-branded a good company (which I also think they shouldn't have done, due to AMD's poor reputation in enthusiest level CPU's and their unknown brand status for general consumers). The last time AMD had any significant lead over Intel was from around 2002-2005. Once the Core 2 Duo's came out, it's been a slow ride downhill. The Phenom II's could compete in some capacity, but ever since then AMD has just been falling short. AMD as a processor company has refocused it's goals to be a company that makes extremely small CPU & Graphics Card combos called APU's which are fantastic for use in small portable devices such as phones, tablets and ultrabooks. The only problem is, not a single major brand phone, tablet or ultrabook carries one. And they probably won't for a while, if at all. AMD is dumping this technology into devices that don't use it or need it, like DESKTOPS and normal size laptops. I commend AMD for their work on what we are beginning to call the 'APU', but if they don't start making good use of what they develop, and if they don't stop wasting resources trying to play catch-up to Intel, they're going to go under. They've been on the verge of bankruptcy since 2006, and the whole company could collapse if one more major design or marketing failure is produced. If you really want to see how AMD is doing in real world tests, go check out their latest top end chip and how it benchmarks. It manages to beat the unlocked dual core Intel i3 in most tests, contends back and forth with a few models of i5, and can't touch any of the i7's. The "benefit" is that if you had no graphics card, the new AMD CPU's have an on board chip far superior to that of Intels, but any gamer will have their own graphics card, making that feature useless. Unless you're desperately strapped for cash, AMD just shouldn't be considered anymore.

1.) Can we put this on the correct forum at get this merged with the "Need help building your own PC" topic? 2.) An i3 is fine, but it's going to bottleneck a ridiculously powerful graphics card, and no, you won't be able to max everything out. 3.) A Core i5 and i7 are NOT basically the same thing. An i5 can either be a dual or a quad core CPU depending on the model, and often will not have the same amount of on-board cache. An i7 is the best type of consumer CPU to have, bar none. 4.) A Pentium Dual core is more or less an i3 that didn't pass spec at the factory, and has hyperthreading disabled for stability reasons, and less on-board cache. It's not for gaming, and is going to bottleneck a good graphics card. Don't waste your money. 5.) You also need to be aware of what your power supply wattage is to see if you can even power a new graphics card you might buy. But again, don't waste your money. That CPU is garbage and won't allow you to max settings anyway.

The materials to build that should only cost about half of what you quoted.

Should be pretty decent. I think it's a little pricy for what you're getting. If you're fine with what it costs, I'd ditch the SSD in favor of a better processor. A lot of CPU's are getting to 4.0GHZ now. 660Ti is pretty good, won't run Crysis 3 on high with a big monitor, and no idea how future FPS titles on the Unreal 4 engine, Rage/Quake V engine or Battlefield 4 engine will play, but it should be a home run for most of todays games. I also don't know if that motherboard runs PCIX 3.0 or not, that should be a big concern of yours. And for WillS1995; that CPU is mediocre and will do, but that graphics card is garbage, throw it out and get at least a 660Ti.

This topic has been done several times already. I would have said that much earlier but I didn't feel like raining on everyones parade. Glad you like it, though.

Buy a new computer.

NBVideoGameVids inspired me to check it out. "He freed the first of us." I made a few of my own videos for fun, then made the lengthy walkthrough videos to educate people on some of the new beta features. It made my account blow up with e-mails, personal messages and subscriptions. I'm still usually getting 1-2 per day even though it's been quite a while since my last GTA IV video.

Alright guys, this time I'm going to turn the tables a bit here, I'm going to ask for any input on a new computer I may or may not build. I recently ran into trouble with my install of Windows 7 due to the beloved Windows Update system, and in the process of trying to straighten everything out, may have ended up bricking my graphics card. If that turns out to be the case, I'll be looking at a $500+ repair, in which case I'll most likely just get a new computer instead. I might be jumping the gun here, but since I like to plan ahead a bit, does anybody have some recommendations for new PC parts for a desktop? I was thinking of going with: -Intel Core i7 3770K and some kind of aftermarket air cooler, and some kind of matching motherboard which I can pick out myself (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116501) -nVidia GTX670 of some kind (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130802) or something similar -NZXT Apollo Black SECC Case (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146025) or something similar -Re-use my current 6GB DDR3 OCZ Reaper memory -Re-use my current 2x 1TB HDD's -Re-use my current 1200W Thermaltake TR-Series PSU Working through a few configurations of that sort I ended up at just under a thousand dollars. It should be about $400 or slightly under for the GPU, $300-320 for the CPU, case should be anywhere between $50-80, cost of the cooler is a non-factor as all air cooler solutions are pretty cheap. I'm slightly concerned about not having a six core or higher CPU for future usage, but from what I'm seeing the 8-core AMD's are left in the dust because although there are 8 cores, they are not nearly as efficient individually as the Intel cores are. I'd love to spend the $1000 on the 6-core i7, but that's an excessive amount for just a CPU chip. I'm opting for the 670 since there's reportedly only a 2-5% difference between that card and the 680 in today's games, and the cost of the 690GTX is way too much to ask for a card that will be obsolete within a year and a half. I'm pretty sure this will be the parts I go with, but just in case a new part that I haven't heard of came out that offers great price and performance; Thoughts, anyone?

It was one of my favorite games to play at that time, if not my #1 favorite. I loved the classic NFS games. I'd say undoubtedly the Corvette, though I really do miss the Ferrari Maranello. From what I remember though, in both NFS III: Hot Pursuit and NFS High Stakes you couldn't use them in 'Hot Pursuit' mode without a hack/patch for the PC version, since Ferrari and Mercedes didn't want their names tarnished by police chases.

It's funny how game developers work with their software and how they word it. A lot of games these days have a 'Havok Physics' engine built into them, but sometimes it's just a matter of having a few sections of Havok's code inserted into their own. Or they might be given a bare bones engine and they do what they like with it. I've found with every Need For Speed game, (and I mean EVERY, since I've been a huge fan since NFS III) the cars look amazing, the surrounding area looks 'okay'. Battlefield 3 is sort of the opposite. The character models are above 'okay', I think, the environments look amazing though. It's hard to appreciate the beauty of it though since you're constantly busing jumping over things trying to avoid catching bullets to the skull. I've played Warfighter, it's not a bad game, But it could have been done better, even EA themselves admitted they missed the mark with it... again. They're temporarily retiring that franchise to get out of Battlefield's way. I think as IGN put it, regarding single player, the environment you walk around in feels kind of funneled, and the textures can sometimes be muddy. Lighting effects and sound is great though, an some of the action has that 'Call of Duty' feel to it. Though a lot of shooters play out that way these days. Even non-AAA titles.

It's most likely outdated version of by the look of it it. I'd call it more like 1.5, honestly. MOH was developed by Danger Close. DICE just lent them the game engine to make a game faster so they don't have to code everything from the ground up. Happens all the time with Unreal Engine games. Games like Rainbow Six vegas get a crappy copy because Ubisoft pays less for it.

No.

I hope you didn't spend the money yet. CPU is awful and will bottleneck the graphics card. The Pentium is an i3 that didn't meet spec at the factory, and has hyper-threading disabled because it didn't test stable. It's simply a cost saving CPU and nothing more. The name 'Pentium' doesn't belong anywhere near the word 'gaming' anymore.

They're different game engines. The Frostbite 2 engine is much more demanding.

Use that thread please. And GTA IV wont read the 2nd card.

I'd imagine you'd need to, but I don't know the wattage of the one that comes with it.

Depends. If you're trying to drift around a corner, the hand brake is fine, and tapping the brake is okay if you're just trying to maintain your line during a corner.

You'll need to fix the graphics card. Everything else is okay.