big boys vs. middleweights

Hey everyone. As I'm putting more and more dinero into my "big-rig fund", I've come across a dilemma of sorts, and without further ado...

Here's my situation, I love video games (FPS's and MMO's to be exact), and care nothing for photoshop or flight simulator or downloading bit torrents while C++ing while chatting while web-in-ar-ing" and all that jazz. Just games like Crysis and AoC, thats it. (including what lies ahead).

Lets say money wasn't an issue (reasonableness and common sense still are).

For me, the only difference between getting a $2500 middleweight rig which can definitely laugh in the face of anything today's games can throw and a $3750 nasa spaceship is a month or so of saving. And patience and time are qualities I possess.

I've read tons of articles saying that CPUs are surpassing game demands and 8gigs of dominator ram aren't really making a difference and SLI's are for folks with HDTV's. So could a $2500 middleweight computer keep me at the cutting edge for 2-4years w/o upgrading or should I just bite the bullet and drop that extra grand to secure my place in the leaderboards?

Thanks for your advice and input, and if you'd like to drop rig setups to convey your point, or (pretty please) use specific examples to better paint this picture. I understand where things are headed (like ddr3 will be the new hotness) but I just can't decide wether safe could mean sorry.

brad

I guess you'd have to call my DSO computer a middle weight. I went with a cheezy 8800 GTS with 360 Meg or RAM; not to be confused with the newer faster 512 Meg version. However, it's got a pretty fast CPU a big powersupply and TJ9 case. It's got the power, space and cooling to drop in much nastier GPU when it becomes necessary. Since I don't play games at resolutions higher than 1280x1024, I'm happy even playing Crysis.

pretty interesting, I'm glad (well, my wallet's glad) that there isn't much overwhelming push for a pricey rig.

A quick update to answer some of those questions. I like to have the best balance of eyecandy with zero drops of frames, which essentially is having my cake and eating it too, but isn't that why we buy custom rigs and not (what I currently have now) $500.00 "my old rig blew up and I need something to get me to gmail.com"

Also, I have a Hp w1907

I plan to buy within a month or two. (est date August 7th). But that date would put me at a cap of 2800.00 while waiting until early fall could open up plenty of doors.

Plug and play hooplah upgrading seems to be the answer, but aside from ram and wireless cards me and my previous motherboards haven't dated too much. Is it tough to switch processors or GPUs?

bjt


ps. some small part of me is still tugging at that bigfoot NIC has anyone heard anything positive?

Originally posted by ArmourBrad Plug and play hooplah upgrading seems to be the answer, but aside from ram and wireless cards me and my previous motherboards haven't dated too much. Is it tough to switch processors or GPUs? bjt ps. some small part of me is still tugging at that bigfoot NIC has anyone heard anything positive?