Is this a Good Gaming Machine? (1 Viewer)

Hi all,

I'm looking to get a new machine but have been out of the gaming world for quite some time. I have no idea what I need nowadays. Here's a relatively inexpensive system ($1900 Canadian):

INTEL PENTIUM 4 3.06GHZ WITH HYPER-THREADING TECHNOLOGY
512MB RAM MEMORY
1.44 FLOPPY DRIVE
80GB ULTRA-ATA 100 7200 RPM EIDE HARD DRIVE
ATI RADEON 9100 128MB AGP
PERFECTLY FLAT SAMSUNG 19 INCH 0.20 HDPI MONITOR
48X16X48 IDE CDRW INT. OEM
SOUNDMAX 3D SOUND, SPX & MIC. PRE-AMPLIFIER
ALTEC LANSING AVS500 4 SPEAKERS/1 SUB
KEYBOARD PS/2 Microsoft INTERNET
MICROSOFT INTELLI MOUSE PS/2

Any advice regarding the above (either adding to or removing) for a decent gaming machine would be much appreciated.

Rick

First up. . . what motherboard? I don't see one in your list, so I think you'll be very dissapointed with your system is you buy what's on that list .

also I'm not really seeing anything for sound, if you plan to use onboard sound you'll be missing out on a lot.

I would reccomend is getting a better video card. since you don't seem to be so budget constrained with your purchase of a 3.06 P4 (very very pricey cpu) I would suggest getting a better video card. ATI9500/9700.

if you are budget constrained then you might look into a AMD solution. currently nVidia has a chipset out with onboard sound that is equivelent to creatives audigy line. so it's a real steal to get an nForce2 motherboard with the soundstorm as your getting a great soundcard at little to no extra cost.

anyway, fill in some of the blanks there and i can give you some more/better suggestions.

is there a pentium 4 proc without hyper threading technology?

i would get a radeon 9800 and 1 gig of ram, and get a viewsonic g90fb. cheap, but looks perfect ( i am using it for my computer graphics related work, and playing pc games in high res ).

yes the 3.06 is currently the only p4 with the hyperthreading (the 2.4ghz with hyperthreading is soon to be out though).

man I would love to have that computer.......

:frowning: mines a frickin compaq 700mhz

I'd go with a Radeon AIW 9800 instead, bump it up to 1+GB of RAM, get a 120+GB Serial ATA HD, 21" Monitor, nForce 2 based motherboard and Klipsch Pro Media 5.1 speakers.

I was about to buy I computer at the end of this month. i just read somewhere that Pentiums will be dropping in price (unconfirmed rumor) as of 05/11/03. I might as well wait 2 extra weeks. can't hurt. I am on the fence now Pentium or AMD.

IMHO the hyperthreading is not worth the extra bucks for a gamming box unless you plan on rendering video or other cpu intensive tasks while you play games.

The hyperthreading is like running dual processors.

If budget is a concern I would go for an AMD solution with a Nforce chipset MB.

I have been using AMD exclusivly for 6 years with no problems with any game or application.

Well it seems like budget is not a huge concern for you right now but out of the system I would recommend getting a little higher end video card if games are your main use. If you are near your spending limit you could drop your processor down to a 2.66 or 2.8 to afford the Radeon 9700 128mb card.

The chips will ALWAYS be dropping in price but unfortunately you just never know when that will happen. It will most likely happen with the next Hyper-threading chips that are released. They are planning on the 2.4, 2.53, 2.66 and up being Hyper-threading capable with the next release which should drop the 3.06ghz chip price considerably.

Moving from 512mb to 1gb will help you that much when you are talking about running games though Ram prices are rock bottom right now. I currently am running a 2.53ghz with 1GB of DDR400 and a 60gb 7200rpm drive.

You could also get some nice performance increases by going to with the Western Digital 120GB w/ 8mb buffer. The sound card that you are currently running is not exactly great for games (Built on?) so you could go with a Sound Blaster Audigy or other. Nice looking unit, I would have got the 3.06ghz but decided it would just be better to wait till the price dropped.

KyleS