I have a dual core intel pentium d at 2.8 ghz, 1 gig of ram, and a saphire radeon x1600. Im thinking all I need is another gig of ram and a new video card. My budget is $500. Im in no rush.
well cyasis will run on that, so will vista. to get the best out of crysis you will want a dx10 cappable card, and vista.
to be realy honest tho the pentium d isnt the best cpu for gaming. for gaming you want an amd or core 2 duo. now depending on your mobo you migh be able to just drop a c2d into it but thats not realy what you wanted to hear.
if your in no rush wait till march and see waht happens when ati bring their cards out. nvidia should bring its next lot of cards out at around the same time so if we are lucky we will have a bit of a pricing war. live in hope anyway.
Um, why do you want to be Vista-ready? Are you in a rush for an untested, insecure, crippled operating system that hogs memory and CPU cycles while delivering less functionality?
If you what you want is for your current, much-better OS to simply look like Vista's Aero format, try the Vista Transformation Pack:
-Do you believe you own your computer and shouldn't be told what you can run and do? Then say *NO* to Microsoft Vista!
-Since half the questions here involve media problems, here ya go: Only use Verbatim or Taiyo-Yuden discs (get your TYs from Rima.com, not Supermediastore or meritline). Forget the rest, no matter what "brand" they sell under. Always burn at 4x speed regardless of the speed rating of this discs or your drive. If you have burn problems with these then you have to update your drive's firmware. For double-layer discs, only use Verbatim DVD+R DL and burn them at 2.4x speed.
let me clear things up half of what marsey says is correct now buying a core 2 duo WONT boost ure gaming experience y? cause the proc is mostly used while loading the game so changing that Pentium d isnt necessary at all now yes adding another gig would do u good now buying a dx10 card will set u back more than 400bucks and as dunker said getting vista as soon as it gets out is a mistake wait 1-2 months till some updates r released
Thanx a lot for the responses. I hope my dual core is good enough for the latest and greatest. I never thought of the proccesor as something integral to pc gaming.
i dont think that came out right, but thanks for saying i was half right.
what i mean is that you need to balance it out, a top end gpu in a older system will be held back by the rest of the system in the same way a bleeding edge cpu wont work wonders on a clapped out gpu. if you had a 8800gtx with 2gb ram all ran by the pent d it would be holding it back. if this is the course he takes he might be able to flash the bios and just drop a conroe into the board he has and use the full potental of the other componants.
i am waiting to see the mid range cards that both side bring out before i get a dx10 model, £450 is too much just for a gpu imo.
edit
check these 2 links, one for each end of the spectrum;
