Quake3World

My current system is about 4 years old, and that is really the last time I even looked at the hardware that is out there. Did some looking today and quickly realized that there are so many new processors out there, new video cards, new chipsets, new everything, that I don't know fuckall about what I should be looking for now.

What I do want is something significantly better than my current 4 year old config, but I don't need absolute top of the line. I'd like to keep it under $1000 if possible considering how little gaming I do with the PC.

Here is the current setup -

AMD 64 3500+ (2.2 ghz)
BFG 6800 GT OC
1 gig of ram
Asus A8V mobo


Was great 4 years ago. Is really showing its age with current stuff though.

Can someone who is up to date with the hardware that is out there give me any suggestions/recommendations so I can decide if it is even worth doing right now?

I got a new one in Jan 07 from ibuypower.com. Of course, everyone on this forum is going to tell you build it yourself it's easy etc but a few clicks from starting, I had a new machine on the way. Keeping it under $1000 shouldn't be too hard. I don't play games on it, it's really just a multimedia machine.

I built one in Feb. and it was $700 then.

Phenom quad-core 9500
evga 8800gt
2 gigs ddr2 dual channel
600 watt psu

Already had a case, keyboard, mouse and monitor.

Someone else would be better to get specific hardware info from than me, this was just for general comparison for well under $1000. I can give specifics if you want.

Tnf, there are a couple of threads in the ETQW forum about building rigs that are worth eyeballing. Both Nightsquats and I recently built ~$1000 rigs and posted all that crap in there. For $1000 or a shade under you can make a very nice gaming machine.

There's some posts in this thread that might give you some info.

also

I just built myself the following:

Antec Three Hundred Gamer case
Rosewill 550W PSU
Asus M2A-VM
ATI Radeon Sapphire HD 4850
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ 2.9ghz
Crucial Ballistix 2GB DDR2 800 (PC-6400)

Only $560 from Newegg (without shipping) and it runs all the new games extremely smooth with the highest settings.