buying gaming desktop?

Question

hi. i know that this is a very broad question, but my price range is from 500-600 bucks and i want a desktop that i can play games like final fantasy and similar on..

i will probably be playing a lot of them so i want a fairly good processor, etc. and at least 4gb of ram, i know at least that much. the things is...is that i dont know what processors are "good" and which are not.

could someone give me suggestions based on my budget? i have heard of people building their own computers (not by hand, selecting diff parts to be in the same machine). is that a good option? and if o how do i go about that...

ok well any info please
thx 5 stars

Answer 1

I use this for comparing CPUs.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net

You should be able to get a model with an Intel i5 processor and at least 4 gigs RAM but more at the $600 range.



not a good option to build your own because you could end up with a part that does not work with the rest (incompatible) and where you bought it may not refund your money which is not good when you have such a small budget for the computer



get one prebuilt so you get software bundles and warranty

Answer 2

i'd recommend the intel cores like core i3 especially core i7 if you have the money. generally, quad cores are better than dual cores. but if you cant find anything like that then any processor with over 2ghz should do fine, the more the better.



graphics card, look for something at least 512mb, either nvidia or radeon.

Answer 3

http://tomshardware.com



Tom's has comparatives for cpus, gpus, etc. they also build a $400 box every quarter, carefully balancing the components. Note that their $400 box does not have an o/s, so its just below your price range. And they tell you what that box is capable of -- by actual test.