The PC Builder's Guide

[Xyvik]

That's a good idea... maybe Xyvik and I could work on a comprehensive list or something.

Perhaps ideal parts for certain categories?

Here's a start:

(the following list assumes a Mid/Full Tower ATX case)

Video Card:
Budget: Nvidia Geforce 9600 / ATI Radeon 5670
Mid-Range: Nvidia Geforce GTX 260 / ATI Radeon 5770
High-End: Nvidia Geforce GTX 460 /Radeon 5870

Just a minor correction

[Twilice]

But the Radeon 5870 is like double the money from a GTX 460, it is double the money if you don't count the discount.

[EvilGenius]

But the Radeon 5870 is like double the money from a GTX 460, it is double the money if you don't count the discount.

I suppose the 5870 IS a little more high-end, but they're both certainly high-end cards.

If you're looking to spend VAST amounts of money look at the Geforce GTX 480

[protoswarrior]

Athlon II x4 cannot be high end. If anything it is mid-range. High End would be anything Phenom II x3 and up. Just because of the L3 cache of 6MB, and higher clock speeds.

Also count the Phenom II x2 as mid-range, priced at the same price as the Athlon II x4, but performs much faster than one.

[Xyvik]

I suppose the 5870 IS a little more high-end, but they're both certainly high-end cards.

If you're looking to spend VAST amounts of money look at the Geforce GTX 480

Or the card which still cannot be beaten in every benchmark under the sun, the ATi Radeon 5970

Amazingly enough, in a lot of cases it is actually still cooler than the 480, despite having 2 GPUs on it. Still faster, still cooler, still better, a year later.

And protoswarrior, you are correct, I didn't notice those. In fact, a nice mid-range card is the Phenom X3, which manages to run pretty dang good. I'll put my recommends down later this week myself.

[EvilGenius]

Athlon II x4 cannot be high end. If anything it is mid-range. High End would be anything Phenom II x3 and up. Just because of the L3 cache of 6MB, and higher clock speeds.

Also count the Phenom II x2 as mid-range, priced at the same price as the Athlon II x4, but performs much faster than one.

Yeah... like I said, I was tired - I kinda just skipped over the phenoms - some of the X3's even have an unlockable core

[mikill]

Hey guys, I am having a big problem with my computer. I am having the problem when ever I start a video game. The computer will crash with BSOD error: 0x116 and will say something about ATIKMDAG stopped. Then it will do a memory dump and restart. I have tracked the issue to do with my graphic card, my ATI HD 5970. It has got so bad windows has a message in the slove PC issues. Any help, I have checked ATI help section and they want me to go into safe mode and fix the problem like that only I don't know how to do that. I have tried a system restore to no avail. Any help would be great.

[spychi]

uninstall the ATI driver, download a fresh new one and install it
I guess that there might be hotfixes for the 5970 cause I remember that 2GPU cards have issues with systems, so it's really nothing new

[mikill]

uninstall the ATI driver, download a fresh new one and install it

Thats the first thing I did, I did the whole express uninstall. I still have a problem it just did it again for the 63rd time.

[spychi]

Thats the first thing I did, I did the whole express uninstall. I still have a problem it just did it again for the 63rd time.

producent? Sapphire, Powercolor or HIS?