[Shadowneko]

I'm in the process of desiging a gamer machine and I may be able to build it in a month or two if nothing comes up.(espc. when I get my $300...that should buy the motherboard I have my eye now ^^)

I just have some incendental quesions:

1. I've heard the certian high-end Nvidia and ATI cards aren't compatable with FFXI. I want to run FFXI on it but I aslo want to pull things like Gears of War and Crysis...plus plan abit ahead. I wasthinking about the Geforce 9000 series that came out a few monts back but could you sugest a killer video card that works with FFXI?

2. What's a good monitor? I still don't like LCDs much because they have issues, but I have no choice really if I want DVI and the higher resolutions. I'd also like it if it supported HDMI so I can use it to make my Playstaion 3 look better as well. I'm kinda looking for an opinion....

[Mhurron]

The latest drivers, at least for nVidia, have no problems with FFXI. Any recent nVidia will be fine.

A good monitor is one that has high contrast ratios, low response time. Use a DVI cable. You may have a hard time finding a computer monitor that has a HDMI port, and you might really want a HDTV for that anyway, but if the monitor supports HDCP you can get a HDMI/DVI adapter and it should work fine with your PS3.

[TheGrandMom]

I think you'll be surprised at the new LCD's. I use an LCD tv for a monitor for my pc and have other lcd's in the house. LCD monitors are absolutely stunning. Take a look at the Dell's because some of them are rated highly by many top PC mags.

My son currently vamped his comp and uses this graphics card:

Newegg.com - BFG Tech BFGE88512GTSE GeForce 8800GTS (G92) 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

He plays Crisis and Gears of War on the highest settings and it looks stunning. He said if you want to go all out, he would have rather had this card:

EVGA | Products

LOL

[Mhurron]

Dell doesn't make LCD's, they rebrand them. I've seen rumors that they rebrand Samsungs, (it was Sony Trinitrons when they sold CRT's) so you might be able to find a Samsung without the Dell price markup.

[TheGrandMom]

Ok...went digging round on my husbands computer because last year I sent him a "I want this computer" list. LOL I had a good laugh as I read it because there was no way in hell I would get that but it was worth a try. I believe I pilfered the setup from MaxPC. Here it is:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850
Memory: Corsair Dominator 10000
Motherboard: EVGA nForce 680i SLI

Cooling: Custom Water-Cooling Traditional CPU/GPU loop 1) Swiftech Apogee GTX water block (CPU) - 1
2) Swiftech VGA water blocks (GPU) - 2
3) Laing’s D5 pump, Danger Den part number DD12V-D5
4) 1/2 inch tubing
5) Danger Den reservoir
6) Swiftech radiator
7) blue glow coolant (custom)
Ya Ya I know...In my dreams...but this is a Dream Machine is it not!?? lol

Videocard: XFX GeForce 8800 Ultra XXX Edition - 2 (pleeeease)
PS: PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750 Quad
HD: Hitachi 7k1000 Terabyte Drive
Drive: LG GGW-H10NI Super Multi Blue (BlueRay baby <3)
Speakers: whatever high end Klipsch ^^
Monitor: Dell 2707WFP
Soundcard: Creative Labs Soundblaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro
Periph's: Logitech G5 Version 2 (yes I STILL want that!)
Case: Cooler Master Cosmos

So have fun building your extreme machine! Remember there's nothing wrong with having a dream. LOL

[Feba]

Originally Posted by Mhurron

so you might be able to find a Samsung without the Dell price markup.

I had a friend tell me that they were in fact Samsungs, but they have higher quality stands. I've seen a Samsung that looks like it's the same as the Dell monitor I bought recently, but the stand looked pretty cheap and flimsy, compared to mine. Still, if that doesn't bother you, or you're planning on using a custom mount anyway (doubt this, since you're against LCDs, but still), they're great little monitors.

TGM's list looks pretty good for being a year old; only thing I'd recommend is replacing the 1TB drive with multiple 500GB or so drives ($<180 per TB instead of $>200) for file storage, and getting some fast drives (RAID 0 10k/15k RPM drives, for example; maybe SSD) for games and other programs you want to run quickly (for example, your OS, especially at boot)

[Aeni]

Actually, the brand that Dell will use is dependent on availability of the particular model in question and at the price point which the manufacturer is willing to sell to Dell. This has been their business model long before Compaq and HP merged.