Political Crossfire Forums

Also I was approaching this with the mindset you want a nice, future proof gaming and work machine.

Ya, should've mentioned what I plan to do with it sorry about that. I want to run multiple OS's but do not want to dual/tri-boot. I was looking for high performance and speed to be a factor in each virtual machine (basically why I wanted a lot of RAM and cores). Absolutely can't stand running a VM on a host machine with little or no ram assigned. Running a linux server won't take much but others might. I doubt I would get much performance out of a Win7 VM without assigning at least 4 gigs and a core or two.

Graphics are not a big deal but I do enjoy the occasional Blender 3D application and it would be nice to render things faster. I'm not a computer gamer so that's not an issue. The extent of my gaming would be like Supertuxkart. So a medium to low end graphics card for a dual-monitor setup (DVI or HDMI is fine) would be perfect.

If it helps though I know you're looking for a slightly different setup (i've just upgraded myself). I just got a PNY GT430 1gig at a steal at 40£, though i imagine you'll be able to get it on newegg for cheaper. Runs with absolutely no problem on my 300w psu which also has a AMD athlon II X4 3ghz and 4gig's of ram. Which all in is now proving to be a very competent system at under 450-500 all in.

Now run's skyrim looking shiny enough without a hitch. Frankly i'm blown away by the performance for the low cost and power demands. I'm convinced now anyone who spends hundreds of pound/dollars/whatevers of a graphics card just to have it outdated in a few months is an idiot.

Only downside is its loud as hell.

Thing is that graphics have essentially been frozen in 2007 for years now. Very few games are developed that can't be run on antiquated Xbox hardware (circa 2007).

So I've been running everything maxed out for over two years now on an HD5870. Graphics cards have gotten like 3 times as powerful since I bought that card, but there still aren't any games that can give it enough trouble to bother upgrading it. (GW2 has a supersampling setting that I can't take full advantage of without a large framerate hit. Other than that, everything gets cranked up.)

Hardware being outdated in a few months just isn't an issue any more. You can use stuff for years on end now. Until the new console hardware comes out, at any rate, and that is still a long ways off.

Sad but true. The xbox is a like a boat anchor on gaming.

Most companies I assume are just too lazy to come out with new supreme graphics, since, many of the video games people play today are as simple as an app and in 2-d. Where's the incentive? Heck, even companies are developing for linux because they realized people now don't want to pay for video games but are willing to pay for content within the game. Meaning, they need to branch out to as many people as possible.

Anyways, back to the hardware. I think I've considered going another route. I really like the Shuttle PC barebones kits. Probably going to do something equivalent to a Quad Core, 8 or maybe 16 gigs of RAM, and possibly update the video card for dual monitor output. I think that will be easier on the pocketbook. Plus I've had experience with the Shuttle PC's and they seem to work great. Though, I can't help looking at other cases/motherboards. (Sigh, too many choices)

I've built many computers over the years...

What Eric said, DO NOT skimp on the power supply.. Spend a few $'s extra and get a real good, bigger(higher rated) one.. Size dos matter.