I figured I'd make another one of these threads since I see a lot of people giving the same "advice" again and again, and again, which really doesn't help people playing Cliffs of Dover. This is for people who want to build a system that will play CloD well, not for people who want to show off how much money they can spend on hardware they will never use.

CPU: The i7's gains over the i5 are marginal at best (like under 5% in most games) and given the cost difference not worth it. Most people who get i7's are either doing a lot of video, or audio encoding, running a database, or have money to blow for little to no advantage. Like was mentioned before, DON'T get an i7 unless you fall into one of the above categories. CloD will never make use of hyperthreading, and I'm not aware of a single game that does.

Most games being made today are still being written for 2 cores. Not that many actually make use of 4 cores, and that list is still quite small. If a game is running crappy on 4 cores it's because it hasn't been written poorly, so adding another two or four cores makes absolutely no sense.

Only a few games properly use 4 cores, and they're pretty much A+++ titles like Bad Company 2. Like others have said, put your money into your video card. Get one with more than 1GB of ram if you want to get the most bang for your buck.

Video Cards:Here is where you can go "balls out" and spend some money. This is where you're going to start seeing a difference. My advice is to go to Tom's Hardware and take a look at their GPU charts and compare it to your favourite computer hardware retailer. Pick a benchmark like one of the "3Dmark" benchmarks and do the following.

Price divided by 3Dmark score = #

The lower the number, the better. That's the dollar per "score point". A card getting a score of 4 is twice as good as a card getting a score of 8. That means you're only spending 4 dollars per score point rather than 8 per score point. You can do the same thing with FPS.

Here is a good one: (pick your price range) http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2...amer,2659.html

ATI/Nvidia. . . it doesn't matter. This isn't IL-2 1946, it's not made with OpenGL, so it doesn't matter what brand you go for. Get a DX11 card since I'm hoping they adopt it some day, and the performance gains should be worth it. Like has been mentioned before, get a +1GB card since you're going to want as much eye candy on as possible. Someone might tell you that ATI have horrible drivers, but that hasn't been the case since the late 90's. Actually most crashes in Windows Vista were attributed to Nvidia drivers. I'm not an ATI or Nvidia fanboy, I just get the one that has the best "bang for the buck". This has been switching back and forth over the years, so I have had a few of both. Just do that math formula I posted above and you'll be happy.

As for Xfire or SLI, unless you're gaming on multiple monitors or at some manner of huge resolution on your giand Dell monitor, don't bother. Dual GPU's have yet to give any worthwhile benefits to CloD, and I don't see that happening soon. If you're gaming on a regular monitor at a typical resolution with a 2 GPU card or two video cards, you're just going to see one of them being wasted and increasing your electrical bill.

Power Supply: Some people will tell you to get a huge one, and that's just a bunch of hype. Get a good quality one. Unless you have multiple video cards and a whole stack of Hard Drives and 10+ fans, you're not going to need any of the monster ones. Going over 600W is usually reserved for people who have full server-sized PC's with a ton of HD bays all being used and power hungry cooling options.

- 1 PCIe power plug on the card (GTX460, Radeon 6850): 400w
- 2 PCIe power plugs on card(GTX560, Radeon 6950): 500w

I recommend Corsair (non-Builder Series), Seasonic, Antec (Earthwatt series), and XFX PSUs. They're all quality units and you'll be happy with them.

Motherboards: Don't go out of your way to buy the biggest and best. Buy a motherboard based on the features you will use. If you don't need RAID/multiple PCI slots/firewire/etc, then don't pay extra for them. MicroATX boards are also as full-featured as full ATX boards and there's no reason to avoid them. Don't get one with onboard Video!!! That's just extra money for something you are not going to use.

Sound cards: Again, don't bother since this isn't 1998 and onboard sound is more than you'll need unless you're making and mixing music semi-professionally. Getting that Fatality SB Card is not going to be noticeable unless you spend $200 on your headphones, $500 on your speakers, or have the ears of a desert fox.

Hard Disks: Get a SSD Hard Disk if you want to cut those load times in 1/2 or if you want really fast boots. They'll give you the most "visible differences" on how fast things happen in your computer, but won't actually do much for gameplay. Stay away from High RPM drives, they don't actually give you any real performance gains and just cost extra and create extra heat. If you want faster than a 7200k drive, get an SSD.

RAM: 8GB is still all you're going to need, and DDR-1333 is fine for gaming. Going to DDR3-1600 is only going to give you (slight) increases in speed if you're encoding/decoding, not playing a game.

If someone says they are building a "future proof" system and that's why they are spending more than a $2000 USD, 1,279.83 GBP, 1,531.41 EUR, you can bet they are either rich and need to show off, or are a giant manchild who has nothing better to do than spend an excessive amount of money on a system that will be spanked by a system less than 1/2 that price next year. A third (and less likely reason) is that they use that system for some manner of professional purpose that requires total overkill.

Hope this has dispelled some of the myths that have been floating around the forums. The less money you have to spend on your gaming system, the more money you can spend on your HOTAS, bills or Girlfriend.