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As many of you know, due to increasing physical limitations associated with my condition, I'm going to build a desktop with the funds from the sale of my Macbook. It will be used for gaming as well as general usage and I'd like it to be somewhat "future proof", if that is even possible in these times and with my budget ($700-800). I've been out of the loop on hardware for several years and am utterly confused in my research. Quad-core vs. Dual-core CPUs, 32 bit vs 64 bit OS, AMD vs. Intel, ATI vs. Nvidia, and don't get me started on the video card model numbers which make no sense whatsoever. I need some direction.
FYI - I have access to MS XP Pro or Vista Business (32 or 64) through my institution and would like to invest in a widescreen monitor as well!
TLDR: Give this noob some rules of thumb for building a gaming rig on a budget!
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Socket 775 (Intel's Core 2 Duo) is dead. Intel is moving to two different sockets, i7 (1366) and i5 (1156) by the end of this year; don't get shafted like I did by buying an EOL CPU socket (mine was AMD's 939). And Larrabee is coming next year, which is a whole other deal.
Right now, AMD has their socket strategy for the next few years in place with AM2+/AM3, so any Phenom or Phenom II CPU you can get will work in an AM2+ mobo. AM3 mainly offers support for DDR3 giving you a longer lifespan for your rig.
Finally, the Phenom X3 720 (while odd in that it has three cores) is a gaming champ and a good overclocker for pretty cheap: overall it outperforms an E8400 for less money (see the TR article above).
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