PC Upgrades - Advice Please

[PH]

I know there is a building a new/buying a new/upgrading a PC post almost every month, but as the PC market changes so quickly i thought i would start a new one.

Righty, i've been wanting to build a new PC for a while now, i was going to wait until HL2 was released but if i wait that long i may never get a new PC! Don't really have a budget as such, but i would rather not buy cutting edge just out components which cost an arm and a leg. I guess i'm looking for something that will play the latest games (Far Cry for example) with most of the graphic options cranked up without having to put up with a tortoise frame rate.

So, advice people please. Defitnely going to go with an AMD processor, but after that i haven't got a clue. What video card, etc, should i buy?

[Ciaran]

Abit NF7-S motherboard - very fast and stable motherboard with excelent sound card built in

ATI 9800 Pro/XT - Currently the king of graphics cards and is going to stay that way till the next line up arrives. The XT is about ?320 and the 256mb Pro is ?240. Go HERE for a good review of the current line up of cards.

[PH]

Thanks for the advice Ciaran.

Ok, i am going to make an order later today. I would appreciate any final advice from anyone before making the order.

I've pretty much decided on :

AMD Athlon Barton XP3200+
Abit NF7-S Motherboard
Asus or Sapphire 9800 Pro 256MB
1 GB PC400 Branded Memory

Opinions? Purely for playing games is their any advantage going for a AMD 64 CPU? Worth getting a SATA HD?

[Montaver]

Hmm, if I was you, id get an Athlon 64 3000+, cotss nearly as much as the 3200+ Barton your buying, but is FAR superior in games and memory performance. No games can utilise the 256 meg of video ram, but if you feel you need it go for it! Get a VIA based chipset as the nforce3's have poor hypertransport (but they do have PCI AGP lock if you want to overclock). Athlons are far past their peak, better to go for a nicely speced P4 or A64 now.

[PH]

Ta for the advice Montaver.

Decided to go the route you suggested. Just ordered:

Athlon 64 3000+
Asus K8VSE MB
Sapphire 9800 Pro 256MB
1 GB PC400

[Ciaran]

I completly forgot you could buy the 64-bit chips