Soon... very soon.

The Witcher? Mass Effect 1/2? Dragon Age? Morrowind? Some of the Total War's aren't bad either, though I haven't played passed Rome.

Deus Ex is a must if you haven't already, Neverwinter Nights 1/2 are interesting and then there's the obligatory Baulder's Gate/Planescape/Icewind Dale etc. If you're into space n' shit try X3, X2 or even Freelancer.

Lesser known games like Nox (great for its time) and Trine have a ton of charm if little depth if that's your thing too.

 

Get something that will really burn the specs on your new machine, like Age of Empires or Braid.

 

Planescape? Icewind Dale? I haven't been out of the loop that long... geeze. I pretty much played all the major titles up until 2007, and then played all the major titles that made it to consoles up until this past December.

Can't wait to get my paws on StarCraft II. I still vividly remember when I got the StarCraft Battle Chest for Christmas as a child... ah, the nostalgia.

 

Which brings me to another reason why I decided to go local: I don't trust the army mail system AT ALL.

 

Dawn of War 2 and Chaos Rising
Starcraft 2
Dragon Age Origins and Awakenings
Mass Effect 2

Those are probably the graphic intensive games that I'd start off with. Maybe some battlefield and call of duty if you're into fps games.

 

The deed is done, order placed, money has changed hands. I will have my machine in no more than one week. I should probably get my affairs in order this week, since I'll probably be lost in cyberspace for quite a while once it's ready.

Asus Rampage III Extreme motherboard

Intel core i7-950 3.06Ghz

6GB DDR3 1666 ram (will throw in another stick or two next payday, mobo has 6 rams slots)

ATI 5970 2GB video card

Thermaltake 1000w power supply

640GB 7200rpm HDD (for now)

SoundBlaster X-fi Xtreme

10x BLURAY burner

Acer 23" 120hz LCD

 

Sweet machine! I'm sure you'll spend many happy game-filled hours in its presence.

 

This is going to be a long week. I hate waiting.

 

Don't be putting any more RAM in unless it's another three sticks.

Your Intel CPU/mobo combo supports tripple-channel memory where each set of three RAM sticks runs at an effective 3x speed (IIRC, it's faster anyway). If you add just one or two sticks it'll be forced to scale back to either single or dual channel which is obviously slower.

Seriously, you'll never fill up 6GB gaming or doing anything else bar professional rendering so I'd save your cash. It might actually hurt performance a bit as the memory is forced to run at a lower speed despite not filling the initial 6GB anyway. Besides, by the time you need more it'll (most likely) be time for a new system...

Still, that's a beast of a machine. Enjoy!

 

4GB ram is more than enough for gaming.

 

Wow! Great rig.

 

Speaking of rigs, I'll need advice too, and I guess I shouldn't create a new thread when there is an existing thread on top. As I said before, I'll go to Canada and I need to buy a laptop that performs well, and is cheap. A friend recommended me this:

http://computershopper.com/laptops/revi ... mers-g73jh

Should I go for it?

 

That card is as good as it gets for a laptop, in the desktop world it's like an underclocked 5770 (you could probably overclock it to 5770 'stock' speeds) which is enough for practically any game on the market.

You'll probably want a set of headphones though, do me a favour and get something decent - I'd recomend Audio Technica AD700's over Alessandro MS-1's As the Alessandro's have cups that'll twist 360 degrees, constantly taking mine on and off meant that the wire snapped inside the cup within a year, AD700's sound better anyways.

Mind you, I wouldn't be using that laptop if you need long battery life.

 

Yeah, I know that. Only an Alienware laptop has a 2GB card, and that costs 4k$+.

I'll need to reserve the headphones for later it seems, as they bump the total price by ~%13 just for the sound. I'll heed your advice when I can buy one though.

That kind of bugs me as well. I think I'll be fine as long as I do not need to bring them to the lectures, or better, as long as I can find a power socket in the classrooms/auditoriums.

 

This weekend has been going torturously slow. I was supposed to have my new computer by Friday, but we hit a little snag. Turns out, the mid-tower case wasn't big enough to accommodate the Rampage III Extreme mobo and 5970 video card. And since this shop doesn't stock any full tower cases they had to order one, delaying completion till Wednesday. Hatred.