what is the best gaming processor and video card?
446255
AMD FX60 (around 1000.00) a GeForce 7900 GTX EXTREME at $549 (which is far from the most expensive video card...)\nIf you don't really want the best, then a AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ is $630 and a Geforce 7800GTX 256MB is around $500.\nAffordable is relative...
1107007
I would suggest a GeForce 6200 from newegg.com
885742
Any card is fine, I suggest either an ATI card, or a Gforce card. You can find cards anywhere now from like $70-$300 that are good. \n\nFirst just check to find out if your computer has AGP, PCI, or PCI-E (PCI Express) ports. To do this look inside your computer. If you see little brown ports that means you have AGP, if you have PCI then you have just plain metal ports, and if you have PCI-E then you have gold ports. PCI-E is the best, followed by AGP, and finally, the oldest type, PCI. \n\nI suggest atleast getting a 256mb card, as that will work for most. If you are into extreme gaming then you might want to head up to the 512mbs. Also, be sure to check if your computer has dual capabilites. Which means you can have two graphic cards at once. \n\nFor more information be sure to check www.wikipedia.com ... Simply search PCI-E ports, AGP ports, or PCI ports, this will help to give you a picture of what your looking for, while looking in your computer. \n\nGood luck! if you need any more help feel free to email me.
696518
Dell has some great gaming PC's for that price range.  If all you want it for is gaming you can pare down on some of the other bells and whistles and just amp up your RAM, Video card, and CPU.
761059
Get the Pny Geforce7300GS. The Radeon X1300 is not nearly as powerful.
845536
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.html\n\nThe above link is a visual representation comparing "video card" performance.
696029
It depends on what you plan to do with the computer.  If you're going to run the games you but at the store, you will need the fastest CPU available, best video card (not integrated video) with minimum of 256 MB video RAM, and the most system memory (minimum of 1GB RAM), a SATA based hard drive, at least 160GB in size.  A DVD player is necessary much of the time now, also.
214648
I'd say a nVidia 6600 PCI is the best card out there for under that. It's $150 and pixel and vertex shaders included as well as full support for shader 3.0\nBest card for under 200. Oh dude if you want to play Quake 4 and Fear than you looking at $4-500.
532904
For $400 I would do the following get yourself a motherboard with PCIe with a socket 939 CPU slot.  Then get yourself an Athlon 64 3000+ ($111), the motherboard will be about $70 to $100 and then get yourself a Geforce 7600GT (about $170).  You're really splitting your budget into several parts here but you NEED a new CPU, you NEED a new GPU and you NEED a new motherboard.  At least you aren't as bad as some of the people running around here with Geforce2 and Radeon 7000 graphic cards.\n\nThe reason you shouldn't upgrade the GPU is that there isn't much stuff coming out for AGP anymore all the new 7 series and X1K GPUs are coming out on PCIe only.  Then we have the problem of your CPU, EVEN if you could find a motherboard to support it, the GPU would be held back by the processor so upgrading the graphics would result in a minor increase of performance but not as much with a new processor.
419850
probably the best out there would be the Nvidia 7900GTX, but they are about $600 a piece, and if you want SLI then of course you will need two. The 7900GT is $400, and the 7800 is pretty close in capability, although I'm not sure of the cost (probably around $300). Even the 6800 series is still damn good, and more affordable, at around $200-$250. Make sure you have PCI-Express slots available, though. (if your computer is new you should be fine) You could even run quad SLI with four cards if you can afford it, but I don't think it's worth losing the extra slots. Btw, Nvidia cards and Athlon processors are a good combo for gaming these days.
700624
Apparantly when he gave his "REAL" answer, he neglected to read the "REAL" question.  This best video card you can get for $150 to $200 is this:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814136001 a 7900GS, while not the absolute best card out, still a very good card that I am sure you will be more than happy with.\n\nAs for motherboard, you do need an nVidia chipset motherboard to run SLI.  nVidia chipsets work fine with Intel processors.  Here is the problem, currently there is only one nVidia chipset that will support true full SLI, that is the nForce 590.  The others will give you SLI, but the PCI Express slots will only run at 8x each, therefore not giving you the full bandwidth.  nVidia is scheduled to release new chipsets next week, so you may want to take a look at those.\n\nHere is what I would recommend however.  Next year the new PCI Express specification is coming out, which will double the bandwidth of each slot.  I would recommend just buying an inexpensive non SLI board now, and then upgrading to one of the new boards when they come out, especially since you don't plan on having two cards right now anyway.
23366
If you're looking for an inexpensive gaming computer, here are some things to consider (assuming you're not looking to overclock):\n\nGet an AMD CPU\n------------------\nGo with an AMD chip as they are usually more favored in gaming benchmarks.  AMD CPUs tend to be cheaper than Intel CPUs as well.\n\nDon't go with a dual-core CPU\n-----------------------------\nSome benchmarks have shown that dual-core CPUs don't perform that well in games compared to single-core CPUs.  That will probably change as more games come out that are aware of dual-core CPUs but that won't happen for years.  So stick with single-cores for now.  Besides, dual-cores tend to be more expensive.\n\nDon't go with RAID 0\n--------------------------\nRAID 0 is where you pair up two hard drives and data is read/written across both for faster hard drive times.  Hard drive times are not a factor in games as levels or maps are read from the hard drive and stored in RAM.  Loading a level two seconds faster than the other person won't give you good frame rates and what not.\n\nLoad up on RAM\n------------------\nFollowing the last recommendation, load up on RAM to have adequate space.  This means you won't have to hit the hard drive for data access because you didn't have enough RAM.\n\nGet the best videocard\n---------------------------\nAn obvious recommendation.  Get the best you can afford at the moment.  Right now, price for price, the Nvidia 6xxx series is better than ATI's X-series (X300, X600, X700, X800).  Same goes for Nvidia's 7xxx series versus ATI's X1-series (X1800), although the race is closer and can flip-flop depending on the game played.  \n\nMotherboard decisions\n--------------------------\nIf possible, go with a motherboard with a PCI-Express x16 slot.  If you can afford it get one with two PCI-E x16 slots (called SLI) as this opens more upgrade options down the road.  Otherwise, an AGP motherboard will do but can limit you in video card choices.  The best videocards are now made in PCI-Express forms.\n\nAlso, there are socket 754 and socket 939 AMD motherboards.  Main difference is that socket 754 AMD CPUs don't support dual-channel memory which can help a little with game performance.\n\nDual-channel is like RAID 0,  you get two of the same RAM and it enables fast read/writes.  Benchmarks have shown small increases in frame rate with dual-channel enabled.  Since it doesn't cost that much more for dual-channel (one 1GB versus two 512MB sticks) any help with frame rates is a good thing.\n\n****Here's some specs that I recommend****\n\n///Really inexpensive\nAthlon64 2800+ CPU (cheapest A64 available)\n1GB RAM (non dual-channel)\nNvidia 6600GT or 6800 video card\nSocket 754, AGP motherboard\nAny 7200 rpm hard drive\n\n///Still inexpensive\nAthlon64 3700+ or 4000+\n1-2GB dual-channel RAM\nNvidia 6800GS or 6800GT video card\nSocket 939, PCI-E motherboard\nAny 7200 rpm hard drive
477749
Like conradj213 said, you need to at least a 1.5 GHz processor to play good games, you also need upgrade your ram memory to one that at least has at least 256 MB you don't have to get rid of your old card you can buy another 128 MB and install it with out replacing your old car and you'll have a 256 MB RAM, harddrive is ok but you can upgrade it as well, 128 Mb video card, well it depends on what card you have, some are not compatible with some games, i remember seeing a 250 MB video card on amazon.com, the reviews said it was an awsome card for a low price.\n\nhttp://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=br_ss_hs/104-4431882-2600711?search-alias=aps&keywords=video%20card
945306
I know the dell gaming laptop is good it's called like the x factor or something/ or try ibuypower.com/ i just bought my gaming computer from them/ they are almost a good as alienware, but ibuypower has top of the line gaming stuff. For games you want to get at least a 256 MB video card and try to at least get a good dual core proccesor-3.0 ghz or up... but other than those companies i know/ i cant give you ten!
979390
First thing we would need to know - How much money are you willing to spend?\n\nI wouldn't worry about dual core's too much.  Sure they are extremely powerful but for just playing games you can get by just fine with just one processor.\n\nFor a gaming PC, you'll want:\n- Plenty of RAM.  Go for 2GB I'd say.\n- A graphics card with plenty of memory.\n- A good sound card.  5.1 surround sound at least\n- A good speed processor\n- A large hard drive.  Modern games can take up several GB's of space.\n\n\nI have a PC with a 3Ghz processor, 1GB of ram and a 512MB graphics card.  It can still handle most modern games (e.g. HL2) even though it's 2 years old.  So don't go too overboard :)
162308
One of the most important things for playing games is the hard drive (big and very fast )and RAM (fast 2 Gigabyte)and of course the video card (the best you can get/can pay). After this you must have a very fast monitor 4 ms refresh no more. You can take AMD or Intel they both are dependable.
947173
Video card selection depends a lot on your motherboard capabilities, so make sure you don't overspend your abilities.  Check out www.tomshardware.com for some reviews.  Good luck!