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Hardware ranking for Gaming

J

JY24

n00b
Joined
Sep 10, 2004
Messages
5
I'm planning to purchase a new computer to replace my current dinosaur.
Gaming is the main thing I plan to use it for, but also running a few non-intensive apps.

I'm a programmer by profession, but i'm really ignorant about the hardware side of computers, so i'm pretty clueless about what I should be looking for.

What components would you say are the most critical to gaming performance, from most to least? From reading, i'm thinking: Video card, Ram, Processor, Hard-drive. Though i'm aware that all of those are somewhat dependent on each other. Basically i'm trying to decide what I should spend the most money on and invest the most in component wise to make gaming as smooth as possible.

Right now the few things that have me confuzzled are:
1) DDR RAM speeds (PC2200, PC2700, PC3200, etc). Do those make any real difference? Is DDR a very big upgrade over traditional SDRAM?
2) RAM size. 512MB or 1GB is what i'm trying to decide. I've heard that 1GB can make a big difference in performance in gaming these days and that 512 is about the minimum. Any truth to that?
3) Processor Cache (I see 512k on some of the newer processors, 1MB on others). Does it make much of a performance difference in gaming?
4) Processor Speed and BUS speed. (2.2GHz, 2.8GHz, 3.4GHz. 333MHz, 400MHz bus speed). Same question as above.
5) Harddrive RPM/ATA rating. (5800RPM, 7200RPM. ATA100, ATA133.). What would having a faster one mean performance wise for me? Do the new SATA drives make a huge difference in load times over ATA ones?
6) Video cards ~ 64MB, 128MB, 256MB memory size. I'll be honest here and say I have no clue what the memory on video cards is even used for. Should the memory size be one of my main concerns when looking into purchasing a video card, or are other factors in the card make-up much more important?

I realize this is kind of a long list, but I would really appreciate help on this if anyone is able to answer some or all of those questions.
My current computer seems about to bite the dust (video card and harddrive appear ready to croak), but instead of just running out to buy any old one I would like to make a wise decision on it with computer components which will last a solid 2-3 years before needing an upgrade as more and more demanding games become available.

Thanks :cool:

edit: Just realised I had two 2)'s on the above list. Guess it serves me right for posting at 4:00 in the morning :D
 
JY24 said:
I'm planning to purchase a new computer to replace my current dinosaur.
Gaming is the main thing I plan to use it for, but also running a few non-intensive apps.

I'm a programmer by profession, but i'm really ignorant about the hardware side of computers, so i'm pretty clueless about what I should be looking for.

What components would you say are the most critical to gaming performance, from most to least? From reading, i'm thinking: Video card, Ram, Processor, Hard-drive. Though i'm aware that all of those are somewhat dependent on each other. Basically i'm trying to decide what I should spend the most money on and invest the most in component wise to make gaming as smooth as possible.

Right now the few things that have me confuzzled are:
1) DDR RAM speeds (PC2200, PC2700, PC3200, etc). Do those make any real difference? Is DDR a very big upgrade over traditional SDRAM?
2) RAM size. 512MB or 1GB is what i'm trying to decide. I've heard that 1GB can make a big difference in performance in gaming these days and that 512 is about the minimum. Any truth to that?
2) Processor Cache (I see 512k on some of the newer processors, 1MB on others). Does it make much of a performance difference in gaming?
3 Processor Speed and BUS speed. (2.2GHz, 2.8GHz, 3.4GHz. 333MHz, 400MHz bus speed). Same question as above.
4 Harddrive RPM/ATA rating. (5800RPM, 7200RPM. ATA100, ATA133.). What would having a faster one mean performance wise for me? Do the new SATA drives make a huge difference in load times over ATA ones?
5) Video cards ~ 64MB, 128MB, 256MB memory size. I'll be honest here and say I have no clue what the memory on video cards is even used for. Should the memory size be one of my main concerns when looking into purchasing a video card, or are other factors in the card make-up much more important?

I realize this is kind of a long list, but I would really appreciate help on this if anyone is able to answer some or all of those questions.
My current computer seems about to bite the dust (video card and harddrive appear ready to croak), but instead of just running out to buy any old one I would like to make a wise decision on it with computer components which will last a solid 2-3 years before needing an upgrade as more and more demanding games become available.

Thanks :cool:
Click to expand...

Oh dear where to begin, IMO the video card is the most important item with regards to gaming, however all the high end solutions 6800 GT's X800's etc are not fully utilized fully by cpu's under 3ghz and seem to scale up in performance with increasing cpu power. 1gig of ram seems to be about right nowdays.

1 - You didn't mention if you were going to overclock or not, but assuming you're building something either based upon a Pentium 4 or AMD Anthlon XP or greater you'll be using DDR Ram. With regards to speed there's always been arguments for either less latency or greater bandwith (Tighter CAS Settings vs higher memory speed) Check in the memory forum for more info.

2 - No idea, it would make a difference in something like photoshop but not too sure about gaming
 
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