So I'm getting a gaming PC for christmas

[Luigibro606]

Hard drive does 7200, yup. Changed to fan from liquid cooling.

Is AMD Radeon HD 7750 a good video card?

Switched CPU to a quad-core 3.60gHz processor.

[Navy4422]

Hard drive does 7200, yup. Changed to fan from liquid cooling.

Is AMD Radeon HD 7750 a good video card?

Switched CPU to a quad-core 3.60gHz processor.

Cool and never have used amd so can't tell you many other people have so I'm sure they can. If you switched CPUS make sure your motherboard supports it

[SkyHook]

From personal experience, neither AMD Processors nor Radeon Cards are best for gaming. Get an Intel processor and GeForce +60 or better graphics. Radeon driver support is terrible for all new releases of games. If you are stuck on Radeon then get x850 or better. Hope this helps.

[Luigibro606]

Gah. End of budget. I can't go for anything more expensive.

Would a GeForce 640M be better?

Edited August 25, 2012 by Luigibro606

[Tim_Barrett]

Dude... get a mac! They don't get viruses!

[Tiberion]

You probably dont see intel CPUs because of the motherboard you have chosen. Look for a cheap "Z77 chipset" and that will give you access to the Intel CPUs.

I just built a new system for right about $1000 USD, and that was for everything, includ. mice/kb, speakers, monitor, etc.

Z77 chipset ASRock motherboard (make sure it supports SATA 3.0 for y our hard drive)

intel i5 2500k CPU (the K means it can be overclocked if you want it to go faster and have the cooling system to manage it)

Geforce GTX 570 (half the price of the newer 600 series GTX, and still way better than the Gt610s and such - when in doubt check how many 'CUDA cores' a card has. Higher is better)

1TB Western Digital Caviar 'Black' series; SATA 3.0 which transfers data @ 6GB/s

16GB of ram (8 would be fine for now if you're short on cash)

540watt power supply (you don't want to get 'just enough' power - PSUs die faster if they run near capacity all the time)

When I got it built it blew my mind how fast it is, both ingame and loading times. I play Skyrim on max settings with an HD texture pack and it never drops below 45, and its usually north of 70; and it loads from desktop to ingame in less than 30 seconds.

Daddy likes.

[longbyte1]

An "entry level gaming computer" would be a Dell XPS, in my opinion. I use these to run most of my games at high quality. Beware of the overheating issues, though. Dust can clog up the GPU and make it crash. This happened to my GeForce GTS 240.

[Navy4422]

Dude... get a mac! They don't get viruses!

I really hope you are joking....... because there are so many things wrong with what you just said

[segaprophet]

I really hope you are joking....... because there are so many things wrong with what you just said

Even so, my 2011 21.5" iMac makes a fine KSP machine.

[Navy4422]

Even so, my 2011 21.5" iMac makes a fine KSP machine.

Thats good, and I am aware macs work for this(they have a lot of the same specs) but I have two big issues with his comment, they cost over the op's budget(to get one that runs ksp as well as his pc options) and the never get viruses comment, which is very untrue if anything they are at higher risk due to many users thinking such and therefore not using antivirus. The point of most viruses is to get as many machines as possible so which would I target the 10%(macs) or the 80%(windows)? There are actually a few viruses around that can get macs and besides my pc has only gotten one virus in the year that I've had it but I caught it before anything happened. There are more things that I could pick apart about macs but in the end its like this,

Do you like OSX or windows? If you like OSX better do you have the money for it? If you answered Windows or no then you probably should stick with a pc. Either at the end of the day works just as well as the other.

But @op tiberon gave a pretty good build as well and he did bring up a good point do you need the keyboard, monitor, etc.

[EndlessWaves]

Switched CPU to a quad-core 3.60gHz processor.

Which one though? I could sell you a 4 core 3.6Ghz system from 2003 and it'd perform as you'd expect a 2003 system to - clock speed and cores are only comparable within a specific design. Quote the CPU model instead, that'll give a much more specific idea of performance.

The 7750 is a reasonable entry level card. You haven't specified where you are or where you're buying from so I can't check your local prices but the problem with the 7750 here in the UK is that you can get a much faster card for very little extra so it's not worth it except on a very tight budget.

An "entry level gaming computer" would be a Dell XPS, in my opinion. I use these to run most of my games at high quality. Beware of the overheating issues, though. Dust can clog up the GPU and make it crash. This happened to my GeForce GTS 240.

I don't know what it's like where you are but over here the XPS 8500 configurations tend to be more multi-media focused with powerful CPUs but weedy graphics cards. They start at £600 and you don't get a decent graphics card (a 7770) until £1000 and at that price you'd usually expect at least a 660Ti/7950 on a gaming machine which are substantially faster.

So while Dell are worth checking don't assume they'll be doing good value gaming machines.

[Legal2k]

Alienware have great range for high end gaming

http://www.alienware.com/Landings/desktops.aspx

[KIWIZ]

Would an Intel i3 be able to run ksp and bandicam