Building a gaming rig need advice pls!

[tigers131]

Hello all,

I want to build a gaming rig and need some input on what to get. I currently
play the new game world of war craft mmorpg game and need something thats ngoing to give me smooth gameplay. I will be purchasing a MB, memory, and heatsink. I will be using my amd athlon xp 2200+, HD, 128mb 9600xt VC, and other drives, let me know if i need a faster cpu or not. I have been looking at the epox 8rda6+. Its hard to decide what is going to get me the best performance, because there is so much stuff out there. I just need something thats going to give me the best gameplay and a reasonable price.
Any advice/input would help on my decision. I will not be doing anything else but gaming/browsing just to let ya know. Will be running windows xp home edition. Thanks

[SAOverclocker]

You're pretty much good with what you got, if you run the same rig in your sig. I would personally look into another 512MB of RAM, or 1GB of PC3200 w/a high OC. Also try OCing that vid card(with proper cooling), if you haven't already, or get a newer chipset. Now if you're looking into running on a 64-bit rig...I don't have enough knowledge on that to give you solid advice.

[RoadWarrior]

Yeah, spending money and KEEPING your vid card, CPU and HDD isn't gonna make anything much faster, only your wallet lighter. A barton CPU and more RAM is as far as you'd want to go with upgrading that I think, and then if you can do it for around $120.

Otherwise it's BIG SCAREY UPGRADE TIME, A64+ goodies.

regards,

Road Warrior

[tigers131]

The rig in my sig recently crapped out. The MB capacitors started leaking and quit on me. I need to send it off and have the repaired by epox. Im trying to stay away from OCing any hardware for my new rig. Will the 9600xt perform for me or do i need to look into getting a 9800 pro or something? What brand of ram is good to get at a fair price?
Also I didnt mention this but i need a good gaming case for this rig with good cooling and quietness. I will prolly upgrade my cpu to a barton 2500 or 2800 and need a good heatsink to cool it. Thanks for the reply guys, good input.

[YoMatta]

Not sure how much you're willing to spend, but I recently got the case in my sig and it's amazing (Link (http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=11-133-132&depa=0) ). It's very easy to use, my only complaint is that, while the usb & firewire ports on the top are nice, they made the organization in the case a little tricky and, while not entirely ruling it out, makes it harder to put a fan hole in the top of the case if I ever wanted to do that. Very solid case though with lots of room. Tooless features are pretty spiffy as well.

[SAOverclocker]

For socketA mobos, Abit's NF7/NF7-S (v2) and Asus's A7N8X Deluxe are 2 good mobos to look into...however, since you're not OCing, any mobo that supports 1GB of PC2700 RAM along with a 333 Barton would be good. As for VC...you can get a nVidia GeForce 6600GT for around $200...Just remember to look for one in AGP or get a mobo that supports PCI-E 16X.

[jonwessel]

i would first get a top of the line motherboard b/c then once u have that upgrading becomes alot easier. For instance, if u only but a medicore mobo and u wanna get a faster type of ram, then u gotta get a new mobo, or a faster cpu the same thing.

[alphasl]

What kind of budget have you allocated yourself?