Hardware Choosing Low-Profile GPU

[.Chris]

Is your dad just interested in it, or actually proficient at it? If he's just interested, then that seems like a pretty lame reason to get a new computer.

A keyboard and mouse, 1TB of HDD space, and 1440x900 low res pos monitor hardly seems worth 250 in my honest opinion, definitely not worth having to deal with the issues of a subpar rig for 3 years. No, it won't be sufficient for gaming; if you're unable to figure out what's sufficient for gaming, then you have no business helping anyone build a computer... For example, ATI HD 3000 is a GPU, not a motherboard.. Why bother mentioning Minecraft, UT3, and "other FPS's" when it hardly seems relevant to even mentioned, and they're hardly modern games (Minecraft doesn't count).



...Are you serious? trumpet-205, I'd love to hear about the unicorn of a CPU that is magically locked to running stuff at only 30 frames, lawl. If you're going to state stuff like this, be sure to hold Chris's hand on explaining that it won't run EVERY game in existence at 30 FPS, or do you even understand this yourself?



Chris, just because a CPU can average 30 FPS on one game doesn't mean it can on all games, I don't believe you have any idea about computer hardware.. Not to mention, the CPU is only one component, it requires a lot more than a good processor..

Also, please keep in mind that it takes a hell of a lot more processing power to emulate a game when compared to running a game natively on Windows, you probably wouldn't get 30 FPS, let alone 10 with just a decent CPU.

NOTE: Can someone please find this guy some documentation teaching him the basics of what it takes to play modern computer games, how emulators work, etc etc? It's going to be kind of difficult to give a guy advice or help him when he's obviously on a "budget" and lacks complete knowledge about computers.

He is interested in it, but I myself have an ability to some extent to 3D Modeling (in Blender/3DMaya). In the mean time, I'll be learning new material, and playing around with SFM and just playing games.

I meant the motherboard integrated graphics ATI HD 3000, my fault. (And irrelevant to the point, it was actually 1660x900. Doesn't really matter now, it's perfectly fine, as I have a 1080p TV screen. But I'm setting this computer up on an old 1024x768 monitor I have lying around.) I'm not having this computer for another 3 years, I said that I bought it 3 years ago. We bought this computer at a wholesale store, and I was completely tech illiterate at the time. Like most newbs, I though RAM was the most important thing, and we were just upgrading from an old laptop.

And I'm aware about the speed issue that you mentioned, that if one game gets 30FPS, it won't mean another will. I'm also aware that emulation doesn't just use the CPU, I just asked that if I stayed with my Athlon II X2 260, would it be fine for gaming?. I'm on an extremely tight budget, so I'll most likely be pairing this up with a 7770, ignoring the poll I created. Because of the new PC upgrade, I don't exactly want to spend too much on this PC, probably going to end up giving to my 12 year old bro. Aside from emulation, we'll just be playing some FPS's, and other co-op multiplayer games (graphics quality doesn't matter, I don't need a powerhouse).

(I do know my fair share of computer knowledge, I'm just asking what may be the best option for me under this budget. In that PCPartPicker link, I don't add a HDD or RAM because I have a few 320GB HDDs, and sticks of 2GB DDR3 laying around.)

 

[Duo8]

Not gonna help you but Intel CPUs are usually better at emulation.
Anw I don't even know what's the question now.