new gamer

[blazer_man3]

want to build my first computer and couldn't decide on pentium or amd athlon. Am i getting to carried away? Maybe celeron or pentium 3 set up just right would be more than i need? I like to play warcraft2 and hopefully warcraft3 with the new setup, this ones way to slow. Only other consideration would be to pick something that would give me the most advantage/options with photography.

[mjc]

"bang for the buck" would probably be an AMD based system....just about anything in 1GHz+ are would do what you need, but a Celeron has a smaller cache, so it would be inherently a little slower with intense photo work/gaming (but probably not so much that you would really notice).

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mjc
Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

[blazer_man3]

Thank-you mjc! i've been leaning that way myself so this is good news. I,m still in the win98 world and need to upgrade, maybe some of you good folks can give me the pro's and con's between win2000 and XP. I've heard win2000 is much more stable-should this be a concern? Should I just jump in with both hands and learn something new?

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DLN

[mjc]

XP can be very stable, expecially if using newer hardware and running recent apps. (and it has some items that can be very annoying, but they can be shut off).

So if you are starting with a clean slate it would probably be a good idea (some would say the only idea) to start with a new OS.

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mjc
Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

[iisbob]

Even if you only casually game; for the best performance for your money get an Athlon-Celeron's are crippled PIII's and the same could be said of Duron's, that they are " crippled " Athlon's. For only a few dollars more you can get the added larger L2 cache on a true Athlon and this , as well as a DDR standard board, will give you the best bang for your buck.

You can build a good gaming/graphic's editing ssytem for around $500; this includes a good cpu, video card, memory and a good power supply ( a component that is unfortunately overlooked far too many times ).



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iisbob

There is no such thing as a stupid question; just an improper one.-my own belief