Bang for buck - gaming on a budget.

[Warbie]

I'm planning on upgrading in a month or so but want to spend as little as possible. So, the search for bargains continues. If anyone else is in the same boat, currently putting together a spec or just finished one, i'd appreciate any suggestions/experience. The aim is to get top end performance without breaking the bank.

I'm pretty settled on a e2180 for the cpu (comparison with full conroe in gaming and Tom's Hardware review) and GPU wise i'm leaning towards the not yet released 2900 pros (Some info) - which appear to be underclocked XTs - but am not 100% on that. Motherboard, ram, operating system, power supply, hardisk are all up for grabs.

Any ideas? A cheap, decent for overclocking mobo that will support Quad cores would be nice. Vista 64-bit, ram? Anything that will save some cash - even if its just a tenner - I want to know about

 

[The Brick]

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/09/10/the_500_gaming_machine_2007_edition/

 

[Warbie]

Nice one

//edit - i'm aiming for something with more grunt than that (6600 and 8800 gt levels), but found some good info.

 

[The Brick]

Note that the chip in those benchmarks you linked are oveclocked to the same speed (3ghz). You could do that too but you'll need a decent motherboard for that. Gigabyte ga-p35-ds3r is all good.

Then you'll want some cheap 2gb memory if you're going for a high end videocard. If you're buying now, the 8800gts 320mb would do perfectly.

You'll need a decent cooler to overclock comfortably. If you really want to push the chip you could invest in a high end cooler (thermalright extreme 120), but I think the cheap-as-hell Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 pro will do more than enough. It's quiet and very good, especially for the price.