LTB New Computer - Suggestions please! [SOLVED]

Hey all,

My fiance is looking to buy a new computer, and just wanted to see if anyone could help him out with advice or suggestions as to what he might need in it. I recently bought him a 22 in LCD monitor and the computer he has now has a hard time displaying certain things (like World of Warcraft) on full res.

He wants to be able to play Warcraft, so he will need a good video card (any suggestions on which one?) And of course the ram (I'm thinking at least 2GB for things to run smoothly). He also wants to have a burner, and I would assume possibly a card reader. Basically just for general use and gaming, as well as the occasion time he uses his Mathematica program for homework.

Any suggestions on brand, video card, ram, or anything else are greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

If I knew the resolution of the moniter, then I could give you a fix right now. But current graphics cards, well... the cheap ones at least do not support anything above 1400 by 1050. Good video cards will cost in the range of $200 and up.. the one I really want to get, top of the line? At the time of writing this, on sale... $1,359.99, from $1,759.99. They are not cheap. The sub-$200 I'd like to get is a Sapphire Radeon which can be found here.

New computer have Vista (by the way, I might use it but I DO hate it) and 2 Gigs of ram, according to my friend that has a desktop with that much is like a slug. My laptop runs 3 Gigs, and while it's not flying, it's not too shabby either. So my best option would to be get as much as you can, but after you buy the PC. The prices they charge you to add ram into it, negate how easy and cheap it is to add it later. Just make sure when you open your computer, you put your hands on the outside rails for a good five seconds, to make sure you have no static on your hands. Static has killed machines, and while it's only taken a motherboard from myself, it's still.... a killer. Ram will most likely be DDR2, but look on the box or in the manual. One of them should tell you which ram you'll be looking for.

Burners are now mostly a standard unless you go though a small company. DVD burners/players are common as well. Don't worry about that. Same with card readers it seems.

As for anything else... the only other thing I can suggest is software for you, in case it comes with stuff you don't want but I wouldn't know what that is at this point.

Thanks Y_F! Much appreciated.

His current computer is about 5 years old, running XP with Intel Pentium 4, 3.00 GHz Processor, and 512MB RAM. His current graphics card is a GeForce 4 MX4000. The monitor res is 1680x1050.

As you can see a major issue is RAM. It wasn't too much of a problem until he got into Warcraft around Christmas then got the new monitor. Warcraft recommends Pentium 5 or higher (or AMD equivalent), 1GB RAM, and a GeForce Fx5700 card or above (where would that stand in comparison to his current, much higher?)

He has about $1000 to spend, and all he needs is the tower, he has everything else. I think if it comes with Vista he might opt into getting XP back on it somehow. Pretty much his main concerns are running Warcraft so it looks sensible. As for other programs, nothing super special just the usual, MSN, Word, AVG etc, nothing that requires a super large amount of RAM.

Would you recommend ordering one from somewhere or shopping around in stores? I'm in St.John's, so there are quite a few little places around that could customize if needed.

If you can't get too many places to shop around in, then I'd special order parts. $1000 will not get you a new PC that will fit that. Ram is needed, I'd boost it to 1.5 to 2 gigs. (Should only be around $200 to do so, maybe. Depends if it's DDR ram or not) I would also buy a new video card, more powerful then the one you have now. The one I had linked would be good, it's more then the minuim you need, and for the processor, even with it being a P4, it's not the end of the world. The P5s are newer, and while more stable, aren't that much different then the P4s.

Ram will make the PC overall faster, the processor will make more be able to go on at once, and the video card will make it look better. Try those, I think. I say I think because I do more software and whatnot, so hardware, I'll check with my dad. But I do think this would help his games out a little at least.

Ok, thanks again for all the information, I'll pass it on to him!

Alright :) Glad I could help