Hello, I am wanting to buy a new computer and have a couple selections and would like to know what system would be best suited to play the new game Battlefield 2 and HL2 and others alike. I don't know a whole lot about computers so I am hoping you knowledgeable people can stare me in the right direction thanks. They are:

1) AMD Athlon 64 3000, Gigabyte K8NS nForce3 250 Chipset Motherboard, 512MB Corsair DDR400 (PC3200) DDR Memory, 256MB GeForce FX5500 8X DDR Video Card.

2) P4 3.2 GHz with HT 800 MHz FSB, ATX 800 FBUS Motherboard, 1 gb PC3200 400MHZ, ATI Radeon 9200 128MB Video Card.

Well, I hope I can get some insight if which would be the better choice for BF2 or HL2 and other games.

Thanks for you time.

Neither because both will run BF2 terribly. Hello... Requires Nvidia 5700 or higher. And ati, well it meets, but don't expect anything. I expect that gfx card to crash..
roger

ASPIRE ATXB4KLW-AL Antec 400W
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe
AMD 3700+ San Diego
Corsair 1GB 2x512
eVGA 6600GT
250GB Hard Drive
Sound Blaster Audigy
Windows XP HOME W/SP2

how much are you spending on each of these systems? if its the price of a "decent" computer then your getting majorly jipped with some dated graphics cards.

Doug

Windows Xp Home
Celeron 2.8 Ghz
768mb Ram
Geforce 5700LE PCI Card 128MB 128 bit

Everyone is good with those rigs outside of two things. Witht he AMD one you lack ram. Get a gig if you want to play games good, and the video cards blow. Go with at least a radeon 9600 XT if not the 9800 series both in which you can fetch for under 100 dollars online.

Here are the requirements for Battlefield 2. No question these rigs lack nearly the video card they should considering how powerful they are otherwise.

System Requirements

* Windows XP (32-bit) with Admin rights
* 1.7 GHz Pentium 4 / Athlon XP or greater
* 512 MB or more
* 460MB of HD Space
* DirectX 9.0c compatible (*video)
* DirectX 9.0c compatible (sound)

*Video
Video card must have 128 MB or more memory and one of the following chipsets:

* NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 or greater
* ATI Radeon 8500 or greater

Don't expect someone else to spec your new computer correctly. The reason is most consumers don't have the foggiest idea what they're buying. They think the CPU is the be all end all in performance, when it clearly isn't. Some consumers know about RAM and its impact on performance. Rarely do any know about the gfx card, or the speed of the hard drive, and how that effects system performance.

Consequently, system builders put good CPU's in systems, sometimes puts in a good amount of RAM, but puts cheap hard drives and video cards in. Why? Because it sells computers, plain and simple. :-/

You lack some info in these specs! What hard drives are being put in these?

"ATX 800 FBUS Motherboard"

Great! WHICH CHIPSET on the mobo? If it's anything but an Intel chipset, you shouldn't buy it, not that I'd buy either system anyway since their video cards would qualify today as barely able to Drive Miss Daisy.

Which socket type is the Athlon 64? If it's 939, you could upgrade to FX-57's or dual core CPU's down the road. Spend a little more money to be avle to do that.

Lastly, there's no reason on a new system build that you should go AGP over PCI-e if you plan to game. PCI-e video cards (good ones that actually run games well) cost actually a little less than their AGP counterparts last I checked, and your upgrade path is much better.

And hey, if who you are looking at can't put a good system together for you, build it yourself! It isn't rocket science!

"Republicans in Congress are moving to ratify a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning, thus ending the Iraqi insurgency."

Are these preconfigured systems or are you choosing the parts?

1) Increase RAM to 1GB. Choose a different video card...the FX5500 is weak. And don't waste the money on 256MB, it's unnecessary.

2) the Radeon 9200 is REALLY weak & doesn't support DX9. Definitely not a good gaming card. Choose another.

Asus A7N8X-X
1800+ @ 8.5 x 200MHz
768MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7
Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB
WinME/WinXP Pro

Hey, I appreciate everyone's comments/suggestions it will help me better choose a system.

@jam, they are preconfigured system's and I know what people think about them and because I lack a lot of money I cannot buy nice parts oh I would buy parts only.

And would this work out better 1 gb PC3200 400MHZ, NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 or greater, P4 3.2 GHz w/ HT 800 MHz FSB, ATX 800 FBUS Motherboard?

I wouldn't get a P4 for gaming. Go with the Athlon 64

Asus A7N8X-X
1800+ @ 8.5 x 200MHz
768MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7
Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB
WinME/WinXP Pro