First System Build Questions Take A Look

Ok all my life I have always been a console gamer, since nintendo, yes i played atari but nintendo was the hit system when i got into give me a break Im only 22 anyways this is my first build, well not my first build but first build with gaming in mind and would like someone to tear it apart and let me know what they think. I would like to be able to play newer games at a decent framerate and playing all the games on the highest settings arent a requirement. So heres what im looking at.Biostar TF720 AM2+ Ver. 6.0 74.99Athlon X2 5000+ Black Edition 69.99(X2) Crucial 1Gig 5400 667mhz 11.99And Im Stuck Video Cards Are Very Confusing And Numbers Dont Amount To Alot What Happened To Simply 16 bit is better than 8 bit and and 32 rocks. Anyways after reading lots and lots of reviews I think i have found the card that i wanted. Keep in mind i was trying to keep this as inexpensive as possible. PowerColor Radeon 2600XT 800 Mhz Core With 256mb Of GDDR4 Memory clocked at 2200mhz 62.99Games that i wanna play include Oblivion, Fear, Doom 3, Grid, Dirt, Unreal Tournament 3, COD 4, All the need for speed games so how would this system fair. Is it gonna be ok against some of the games comin out. As well as some of the games i listed.Please if you got some better suggestions on this then pass them along but for the dollar performance i thought it was alright especially the processor since the unlocked multipler easily allows you to overclock the processor to 3.2 ghz. Equaling the performace of a 6400 i think it is. Anyways please let me know any suggestions and comments.First System Build Questions Take A Look
wuts your budget n go for an ati 4870 or a 4850 if u have some spare cashFirst System Build Questions Take A Look
also need a lil more info psuand are u expecting to play on high res with that card along with high settings with aa on cuz u will need a better card if u are looking into that
why get ddr 2 667 when 800mhz is the same price and faster? as for video cards bascily the first number of the model number is the series, the second number is the important one; it represents what class the video card is in. anything under 6 ie gefore 9600gt is useless for gaming. the x6xx are fine for most games but may struggle on some demanding games. if you want to run everything on the highest settings then you want something with a 8 or 9 ie 8800, 4870. the last two numbers don't really mean much on nvidia cards but on ati cards they are the difference between the top card and performance card. 4850 is perfomance while 4870 is highend.
with nvidia you want to pay attention to the 2-3 letters after the numbers such as gs gt gts gtx. gs basicly means lowend, gt = performance, gts = high performance ****and gtx = highend. but don't buy a 8600gts over say a 8800gs as eventhough the 8800 has gs because its a 8800 its still more powerful. when buying a gpu the most important thing to pay attention to is the second number of the model number and after the last two number in ati card or the letters on nvidia cards. the serives is somewhat important but a 7900 beats a 8400 by a huge amount.the card you have listed is ok but it will struggle with some games at higher settings. if you on a buget I'd say get a 8800gt and that will run basicly any game on high settings fine, if you want more perfomance go for a 4870, there is also the 4850 which is a great cheap card and the 9600gt is great for the lower end.any of the cards it listed will play all of the games fine on the highest settings. the 2600xt will run them but will probably have to run grid dirt and unreal on med settings or low resolution.
Ok high resolution i could care less about i will play at 1024x768 for all that matter and anti aliasing im not to concerned about either the monitor im using is not lcd so really i dont care. But i want the ability to upgrade later hence paying extra for the dual pci e slots there were plenty of board in the 50 dollar range but none had more than two dimm slots. im looking to stay under 250-275 dollars though i already have a case a powerup tc3j just a cheap midtower and a chiefmax 600 psu. so those things arent taking into account. And as far as the memory is concerned the 800 mhz speed would not make a difference one way or another though i am intending to get the 800mhz when the black edition is overclocked to 3.2 it has something to do with the multipler being an odd value and only allows the memory to operate at 667 or at least thats what was said on one of the several reviews i read. i have been thinking about goin to a cheaper board but im afraid then that i wont be able to change the multipler all the way.By any means would this card be able to play crysis on say med settings and wouldnt the particular version i listed be better or equal to an 8600 as several of the reviews i read and benchmarks i looked at (this has been a long hard process) showed the 8600 adn this card as being close. I figure i could a different card later and mainly i want to know if this one can hold me in the game for say the next six months to a year.As im looking to drop some money come tax time but dont wanna wait till then to be playing games.Thnx for all the replies and the info about graphics cards was helpfulSo 8500 sucks because the second number is below six and as you said about the last two numbers like 3850 and 3870 i have figured that one out because i was looking at a 3850 and the review started talking about the addition stock overclock of the 3870
and also looked into a Aegis Physx Card does anyone have one can the illaberate if its worth it and if the game support will increase simply as a supplement not as a lone card.
It would be fine @ that resolution and will run crysis ok and medium in dx9. dual pcie slots isn't for upgrading but so you can run 2 cards in sli/crossfire to give increased performance, so unless you plan on going highend don't bother with dual pcie slots save you money or put it into a better gpu/cpu. a single 8800 will destory dual 8600 in any game, dual pcie is for dual highend cards. yeah the 8500 isn't meant for gaming, it can run games but not very well even on medium settings