PCA Forums

if you were to build a new rig for yourself or a friend today !
would you put more thought into a video card and $$$ or into a faster cpu .

here is my thinking the guys not a heavy gamer .but he likes high graph games like doom - unreal - mech warrier !
so im looking at a 256 video card -and then cutting back on a cpu from lets say a barton 3200 -and going with a xp 2400 or xp2500. save by spending little less on a motherboard and cpu . but more on video card . i dont think he will see a real lag . if he should do online gaming .
or am i thinking wrong !
im just giving the guy ideas not going to build this rig its all up to him.

Video card and ram I am thinking. Here is why. I recently went through a melt down of a mobo and a CPU. First the mobo died and I stole my kids putting my 2500 Barton in it and I tried my gig of PC2700. Well the kids mobo would only run with 512 for some reason. So anyway I used the 2500 and 512 or ram for a week or so waiting on new mobo. The thing felt sluggish to me. So then I get the new mobo and fry my 2500. So now I am on a 1700+ and the gig or ram. It feels snappy again. Game play was about the same on both using a 9600 Pro but load times and responsiveness were worse with the faster CPU and less ram. Anyway I would go with a mid range CPU and a power vid card and LOTS of ram.

mike, the speed of the video card and its chipset is much more important then how much ram the card has

128meg 9800 blows a 256 meg 5700 outa the water (I own both)