2010-08-22, 12:13 AM
Chewy, be careful about saying "For just $16 more, I can get this...". That's exactly what the manufacturers want you to think. It's a slippery slope problem. Be a machine and stick perfectly to your budget. If your budget allows for $300 on a graphics card, do not spend more than that. Otherwise, you will nickel and dime yourself into spending a lot more than what you had intended. Always, always stick to the budget.
You're correct about motherboards. MicroATX is the smallest kind of ATX board and trades upgradeability for small size. You want the full, standard ATX.
Since you're going AMD for the processor, make sure it supports AM3, DDR3, PCI-E x16 (don't bother looking for an SLI/CF board). Make sure the motherboard is RETAIL, not OEM. The motherboard being RETAIL is absolutely critical.
For RAM, the importance factor goes:
1. Interface (make sure it matches the mobo)
2. Brand
3. Size
4. Speed
5. CAS timings
Good RAM manufacturers are OCZ, Crucial, and Kingston, though Geil, G.SKILL, and Rosewill will work if you don't mind a budget brand. Don't bother too much with CAS latencies. It makes a negligible performance impact in real world applications.
For the graphics card, this is the ultimate place where you do not want to skimp on a gaming PC. For those who are saying, "It's guaranteed to be flashed into a GTX 470", these people are referring to overclocking, overvolting, or using soft-mods to unlock shaders/pipes on the card. I tend to shy away from doing this as it can cause system instability. Furthermore, unlocking these shaders may cause the card to overheat because the 470 might have a better cooling solution than a 460. If you only have a 17" monitor and don't plan on upgrading the monitor anytime soon, stick with the 460 as it will easily max anything and everything you play at the native resolution of the monitor.
You're correct about motherboards. MicroATX is the smallest kind of ATX board and trades upgradeability for small size. You want the full, standard ATX.
Since you're going AMD for the processor, make sure it supports AM3, DDR3, PCI-E x16 (don't bother looking for an SLI/CF board). Make sure the motherboard is RETAIL, not OEM. The motherboard being RETAIL is absolutely critical.
For RAM, the importance factor goes:
1. Interface (make sure it matches the mobo)
2. Brand
3. Size
4. Speed
5. CAS timings
Good RAM manufacturers are OCZ, Crucial, and Kingston, though Geil, G.SKILL, and Rosewill will work if you don't mind a budget brand. Don't bother too much with CAS latencies. It makes a negligible performance impact in real world applications.
For the graphics card, this is the ultimate place where you do not want to skimp on a gaming PC. For those who are saying, "It's guaranteed to be flashed into a GTX 470", these people are referring to overclocking, overvolting, or using soft-mods to unlock shaders/pipes on the card. I tend to shy away from doing this as it can cause system instability. Furthermore, unlocking these shaders may cause the card to overheat because the 470 might have a better cooling solution than a 460. If you only have a 17" monitor and don't plan on upgrading the monitor anytime soon, stick with the 460 as it will easily max anything and everything you play at the native resolution of the monitor.