Is this a solid computer for gaming?

Question

If I change the graphics card to an NVIDIA GeForce 8800? Tell me of anything that might hinder rather high performance gaming.

http://www.gateway.com/systems/product/529668160.php

Answer 1

seem's good.  

Answer 2

looks pretty good. however just know that in a few months thatll probably be obsolete for gaming

Answer 3

tylery - hes saying that if u want to put a gaming card into it you will probably need a bigger power supply. 400-450 is usually the go for an 88 series card.

You will probably get away with the 400, but the way to tell is to check the specs of the card you are buying and see if it specifies anything higher.

as far as video cards go, though, the 8800 is not a very smart buy because nvidia is having some trouble with their board resulting in a lot of faulty products

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/n...

an ati card might be a wise investm,ent. the 4850 is a lot more powerful than the 8800gt and only costs about $170-180.

In terms of the overall pwer of the machine, you dcould have something with a lot more grunt for gaming built for the money you are spending on the dell.

A few other aspects to consider:

1. sli/crossfire - with a single 8800gt you will be needing to upgrade the card in about 12 months time (two release cycles in video card technology). With a single slot mobo you can only put 1 higher-end card into it. With a dual slot mobo you can slot another card in next to what u have already and get twice the bang for your buck.

2. faster ram, cpu and hard drive

- ram - can make a slight difference, not a huge priority

- cpu - can make a big difference to frame rates, quad core not a bad idea as more games will be using it released later this year

- hard disk - doesnt do much for fps but limits waising times between save/load during play

3. After-market cooling and overclocking

without a doubt the cheapest way to get better performance out of uyour gaming rig is to bump up the volts. You can do this a bit with standard cooling and get a nice no-cost performance bump. the thing that stops you going faster is cooling. after-market coolers give you more scope to overclock, resulting in a faster machine. Donty spend too much though - you may find the next model cpu/gpu up the range is only a few more bucks than the extra fan or water-cooler.

Answer 4

Yes if you add the 8800 you will have a killer gaming machine.

-InternetGeek http://coolpersonsearch.com/

Answer 5

that stuff is the $hit

Answer 6

any computer with good memory and good protection should do

Answer 7

change the graphics card to an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 or higher

Answer 8

It seems fine, you may have to upgrade the power supply too, the 8800 requires a minimum 400 watt power supply to run and that is what this system comes with so it may work but if other system components are pulling too much you may have to up the wattage on the psu.  

Also, just look at the specifications of the specific 8800 card you get. Some require different + 12 Volt ratings ranging from 22 to 30 Amps which alot of smaller PSUs might only have 18 amps which wouldn't work for a card that needs 22 or more.

Answer 9

its not the best on the market but thats really good for the price, a dual core processor and 3 gigs of memory should handle most games with no problem.

Answer 10

I just did a similar build except went with the same speed quad core as the dual this one has, chose XP over Vista and settled with an 8600 video card.

I think you'd have a fairly decent game system, not top of the line but it should certainly handle any of the new games for a while, without causing your wallet to melt down.  Currently dual core is best in bang for buck on gaming, I don't know of any games out yet that will use more then 2 cores.  Vista is a bit more a resource hog then XP, but the system gomes with 3G RAM, going to 4 isn't practicle with a 32-bit OS since it will only recognize 3G and the 64-bit OSes aren't ready for prime time gaming yet.  The 8800 should out perform the 8600 I put in my build and I have no gripes with the performance I've been getting with the 8600.