Hmmm I think we're mixing up a lot of stuff here people! 
- First of all, all current monitors can only display 24bit colors, commonly referred as 16million colors -> 2^24=16.777.216.
- Why Windows says 32bit is because that was a fault in the original Windows95, which was fixed later-on to 24 bit.
- Although games / Windows Aero interface these days -do- use a virtual 32bit colordepth, that is, 24bits for colors and 8bits for visual effects.
Anyway, about the memory and "HD stuff", is that for gaming or just watching HD resolution movies?
If he's only into normal windows usage and movies in HD resolution (1080p), make sure the videocard has 1080p hardware acceleration for movies.
If your friend is into HD gaming (1920x1080) with the latest games, well... all I can say... if you want to get smooth gameplay (60fps) with high detail and full anti-aliasing, that's gonna cost a LOT (300+ dollars alone for the vid card). You might want to consider buying a console instead of spending all your money on a new graphics card + new cpu + more ram + new motherboard + new PSU just for gaming, just to see all that hardware be ancient again in 2 years time...
But if it's only for "older" games (WoW, etc) in HD resolution + full antialiasing, a 256mb card of around 150 dollars will be more then enough, without the need to upgrade your whole PC system!
Interesting URL for you: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best...,2544.html
Tom's Hardware is one of the best site's on the internet for this kind of information! One of the reasons it's running for about 10 years now.
- First of all, all current monitors can only display 24bit colors, commonly referred as 16million colors -> 2^24=16.777.216.
- Why Windows says 32bit is because that was a fault in the original Windows95, which was fixed later-on to 24 bit.
- Although games / Windows Aero interface these days -do- use a virtual 32bit colordepth, that is, 24bits for colors and 8bits for visual effects.
Anyway, about the memory and "HD stuff", is that for gaming or just watching HD resolution movies?
If he's only into normal windows usage and movies in HD resolution (1080p), make sure the videocard has 1080p hardware acceleration for movies.
If your friend is into HD gaming (1920x1080) with the latest games, well... all I can say... if you want to get smooth gameplay (60fps) with high detail and full anti-aliasing, that's gonna cost a LOT (300+ dollars alone for the vid card). You might want to consider buying a console instead of spending all your money on a new graphics card + new cpu + more ram + new motherboard + new PSU just for gaming, just to see all that hardware be ancient again in 2 years time...
But if it's only for "older" games (WoW, etc) in HD resolution + full antialiasing, a 256mb card of around 150 dollars will be more then enough, without the need to upgrade your whole PC system!
Interesting URL for you: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best...,2544.html
Tom's Hardware is one of the best site's on the internet for this kind of information! One of the reasons it's running for about 10 years now.