yes. ask yourself those questions Mahatma posted. never buy cutting edge stuff; you'll pay too much for little gain.
I take it you'll want to play UT and UT2003 on it.. look at UT2003's recommended specs and that should give you an idea of what your minimum hardware should be. if you play other games or use other software, take them into consideration too.
video card
ATI Radeon
9000/9200 < 8500/9100 < 9500 < 9600 < 9600 pro < 9500 pro < 9700/9800
- only look at Radeon 8500 and above
- Radeon 9800 and 9700 (Pros and non-Pros) are probably too expensive
- Radeon 9600 Pro and 9500 Pro are good buys (non-Pros are not nearly as good)
- Radeon 9200 and 9000 are basically the same (Pros and non-Pros)
- Radeon 9100 and 8500 are basically the same, they're about the same as an NVIDIA GeForce 3, and better than Radeon 9200/9000 overall
so, if you want ATI, go with 9800/9700 if performance is all you care, go with 9600pro/9500pro if you want to balance price and performance, go with 9100/8500 if price is most important to you.
NVIDIA
GeForce 4 MX < GeForce 3 < GeForce 4 Ti
GeForce FX 5200 < GeForce FX 5600 < GeForce FX 5800 < GeForce FX 5900
- only 3 to really consider: GeForce 3, GeForce 4 Ti, GeForce FX 5900
so, if you want NVIDIA, go with GF FX 5900 if performance is all you care, go with GF 4 Ti if you want to balance price and performance, go with GF 3 if price is most important to you.
between Radeon 9800/9700 and GeForce FX 5900, they're about the same. between Radeon 9600pro/9500pro and GeForce 4 Ti, the Radeon is the better choice. between Radeon 9100/8500 and GeForce 3, they're about the same.
motherboard chipset
AMD Athlon XP - NVIDIA nForce 2
Intel Pentium 4 - Intel 865 PE
processor
AMD Athlon XP - better price, good performance
Intel Pentium 4 - more expensive, better performance
memory
forget RDRAM, go with DDR. the faster the better. at least 256 MB if not 512 MB.
hard drive
your choice. do you find yourself deleting old files to make room for new files? if so, go for a bigger drive (150 GB - 200 GB or so). or perhaps your current hard drive still has plenty of space left? if so, a not-so-big drive should do you just fine. if you buy the drive retail, look for a 3-year warranty, such as those on the Western Digital Special Edition drives (these drives have 8 MB cache, or what they call Jumbo Buffer (JB)). get a 7200 RPM drive.
- clemmentine ( clem|IAmKamui! / Maiden_Arashi )
_________________ One day, one night, one moment,
My dreams could be, tomorrow.
One step, one fall, one falter,
East or west, over earth or by ocean.
One way to be my journey,
This way could be my book of days.
-- from "Book of Days" by Enya
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