Looking for a cheap, affordable, gaming rig

Well since I don't know what else to do to better my Dell Dim 3000, I figured to go ahead and try to get a new PC altogether.

I heard its best to just build your own, but I wouldnt know much about that sort of thing. So what I'm asking here is where can I buy a good gaming PC that can run most games well on maxed out settings or can actually be upgraded(video card, cpu, etc) later(unlike my current computer) on to perform even better.

The best place to buy computer parts from is www.newegg.com.

These are the requirements for the only game I play on my PC(Phantasy Star Universe:

Required
Windows 2000 (SP4 or later)
Pentium4 1.6Ghz
256MB
VRAM 64MB,
NVIDIA GeForce4 series,
ATI Radeon 8500 series

Recommended
Windows XP (SP2 or later)
Pentium4 2.6GHz or better
512MB or more
VRAM 128MB,
NVIDIA GeForce4 series or better,
ATI Radeon 8500 series or better

All I need is something that will run that at max setting with no frame skip. It's the only game I play on my PC at all, and will probably stay that way so I just need to appease to this game only.

It is very easy to build your own system, dont let it intimidate you. If you can color code and follow some simple directions you can build a PC.

We are also here to help.

Another alternative would be to purchase all the parts you want and take them to a mom and pop computer shop for assembly. I guess it would only cost you around $150. Thats what I charge anyways.

But first things first would be to set a budget and we can help you pick out some hardware to meets your needs and budget.

Other than that I cant really reccomend a really reliable vendor that isnt going to kill you with a huge overhead on a gaming machine.

Plus if you build your own, or have someone put it togeather with your parts, you get a much better warranty on the parts. Most OEM makers only offer a 1 year warranty on their systems, most componants that you can buy have a 3 year minimum now a days and a ton are offering a lifetime warranty on parts.

The choice is yours and we are here to help.

What I recommend:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+ Brisbane AM2 CPU
Biostar tForce 550 AM2 ATX Motherboard
Corsair Valueselect 1GB (512MB x2) DDR2-667 RAM
eVGA e-GeForce 7900 GS 256MB Video Card
Seagate Barracuda 160GB SATA-2 HDD
Apevia Turbo-Link 500W Power Supply
Lite-On 20X DVD-RW DL Drive

Get the X1550 you talked about in ur other thread PSO Gamer. It will play Phantasy Star Online and most other games (even Oblivion I think) very smoothly.

Yes rage, the X1000+ series runs Oblivion pretty well, I have a X1650XT pro AGP x8 in my rig and I run oblivion on Max with 30-40fps when walking around and 26-32fps when fighting :)

Well TP I said run, not run with all graphics settings maxed out. Ur X1650XT has 24 pipes, versus the X1550's 4 pipes, so there really is no comparison. :D

Hmmm... :haha:

Well I guess the x1500 cant run Oblivion :D

It might run it, just not with all the eye candy.

Yeah, What's cool about the x1600+ series is that you can run AA x6 and HDR! Muahahahaha :evil:

Personally, do research. depends what kind of games you are trying to play. Me im in the same dilemma but i wat to build a high end PC. Go with a cheat mobo, tigerdirect.com or newegg.com has good stuff. Asus has been around some time and have good quality stuff. I would find out wat kinda mobo you want first and find a videocard that fits your budget and us that as your foundation. Case,HDD memory and RAM dont forget sound card u should consider next. All kind of things you can take into consideration but depends exactly what kind of game you ar building it for. Like company of heores omg, one of the reasons why i am going to build, something like that deserves a decent Video card because if you want graphics to shine your gonna have to put in that "bang for your buck". Go to Tomshardware.com and howstuffworks.com if you want additional info on building, also the is a recent PC building guide on this site http://www.techspot.com/guides/41-highend-pc-buying-guide-200701/, there are a few take away cheap considerations that you might want to ponder about. Hope this helps :D