I need a new PC. Hardware recc's?
 

My old PC just died. The bad news: I have tons of old data on the old HD that will have to be saved. My problem, not any real concern; it'll get handled.:cool:

I am going to spend some $$ on a sexy fast powerful PC specifically tailored to handle games like SH3 and 4. I'm going for a package deal with a local computer shop, rather than a big-box store, 'cause I want XP pre-loaded instead of Vista. That's a road I just don't want to go down:down:

Any recommendations for hardware setups? Video cards that these games work best on? I'd like to avoid as many problems as possible.

Thanks for any help, Kaleuns!

It really depends on factors like budget and monitor size. Maybe checking out the homebuild section of the Tom's Hardware forums would give you a better idea of what will meet your needs. There will be many fine examples of well-balanced systems that are at the near perfect spot on the price/performance curve. If the package deal from your local computer store is reasonably close, then you should be okay. If they try to sell you a blazing fast 8400 GS... :nope:

I'm running a reasonably powerful machine ; Intel core2 2.2GHz, 8800Gt Alphadog, and 4gig of RAM. This runs SH3 with no problem, even with a harbour full of traffic.

I also recommended toms hardware for results.

But get Vista. Its way better than XP. XP is fading and soon dead.

Vista is getting better every day.

Many of the 3rd party driver companies are also comming in line making better more stable drivers.

SP1 for vista fixed many issues.

XP SP3 and Vista SP1 are equal in benchmarks for games.

Vista supports DirectX 10 and XP doesn't.

If your going to waist money on a super rig do it right. :up:

As I understand it Microsoft is going to support XP through to 2012, so I'm still not sure about Vista.

Microsoft is only going to support critical updates till 2014. Their going to stop general support around the coming april. :hmm:

If you have a version that can hold you over, wait until Windows 7 is released and give it a year to work out the bugs.

Honestly, there is nothing wrong with Vista. I recommend the 64 bit version so you can load up on plenty of memory. Most if not all the apparent bugs have been dealt with, and you can optimize Vista to work fairly lean. Also , the transition to Vista from XP was much easier than going from Windows 98se to XP. That was a real culture shock to me. It was completely different. Where at least Vista and XP share some core elements and configurations, the transition is really much smoother.

I agree with everyone else - DEFINATELY get Vista! I just finnished building a "Mega Rig" for my roomate - Intel Core 2 Quad @ 2.6ghz, 8GB DDR3 @ 1066mhz, 2x ATI Sapphire 4850 512MB GDDR3 (Crossfire linked), etc, etc... anyways he wanted XP PRO 64bit instead of Vista cause he "didn't like it"... nothing but headaches for a week straight!!! :damn: Couldn't get half of the stuff to work right! If you're going new stick with Vista... I endied up wiping the drive and starting over with Vista 64bit and the system was up and running in 3 hours!