@ Morbo =>
The best things you can do for yourself here go to Falcon Northwest web site and use their build your own computer page.
Check out the prices of each piece of hardware and when you have a decent idea as to what you want, print out that page.
Then just look for a computer that comes closest to the things you want in your rough draft print out. It doesn't have to be exact, but with MFGR and Model numbers of each piece of hardware you can use to look up the specifics of each item.
Of course, if you are like me, you won't be able to afford all of that, but you can aim for it. With a few sacrifices in hardware quality you can find yourself a comparable computer that will meet your desires.
I myself bought an HP Pavilion A330N only because it had the AMD Athlon processor.
I disabled some of the chipsets and bought audio and graphics cards that I liked better. I also completely wiped my computer and installed only the software I wanted. If you do this remember to copy your Drivers folder for the future just in case you need them.
I’m bias, I prefer the AMD over the Intel due to their individual use of PIPING in their processors. Then after that I changed the jumper settings to a few things to overclock my computer. I wouldn’t advise this unless you know exactly what you are doing.
Anyway, I work on this stuff for a living and it all comes down to personal tastes.
If you are mainly into FPS games then you’ll need a better computer than what I got; because, in 3 years you’ll be at the bottom of the heap again. Try to aim for 7 to 10 years before your next computer when you buy a new one.
Oh well, I’m rambling.
Kyra_Ny <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/freak.gif" alt="" />
