Gaming PC - Specific build

[Majorpile8]

Hello everyone, great site. I was going to buy a PC but I'm much more interested in building one now that I've read through this site. I have no direct PC experience, but I'm pretty handy so I feel comfortable building one on my own.

Anyways, I have a few questions. I'll be building a PC in about 3 months, and I'll be building it for one use only - gaming, specifically iRacing.com (a racing simulator). I have a fairly new Mac that I use for everything else, so I can be really specific in my purpose for the PC.

With that in mind, I want to get some advice on the best route to take in choosing the components for a specific build. I see the home page SuperPC has a dual core chip, but the most recent builds have quad core - will either of these be okay for gaming or can I focus on the strengths of one over the other?

Also, in regards to video cards, will there be any issues running my pc through a 40" LCD tv via hdmi? Does the video card have to work harder to display graphics on a bigger screen?

Finally, I'd like my budget to be around $1000 for the PC (since I have a tv/monitor already), any advice on where I should focus my efforts, I would think a video card would be #1 (but something tells me this may be a rookie mistake), but should I do something like buy less expensive RAM and spend a little extra on a faster hard drive, or vice versa?

Any advice is much appreciated.

Thanks!

[RickyTick]

Welcome to the forums.

For a gaming pc, you really want to focus on the video card, but you can't skimp on the processor, ram, and power supply. The hard drive is very important, but not nearly as critical as the other pieces.

We're really at transitional phase with pc components right now. The new Intel i7 stuff is out, but its still fairly expensive, but boy is it fast. It would give you the best performance and a longer life, but it's not going to happen within the $1k budget. I put together a i7 build on this (http://forums.mysuperpc.com/showthread.php?t=2395) thread, but it was over $1100 without a case or monitor. I'm sure over the next year these prices might fall a good bit, but who's willing to wait, right? I think I would build on a good P45 setup. Its very possible for $1k.

Games aren't really taking advantage of quad cores yet, so a good Core2Duo would be great. Something like a E8500. I'd be happy to list one out for you if you like.

[Majorpile8]

Thanks! Unfortunately, I don't know what a P45 is :) and any advice on the video card working with a 40" LCD?

[RickyTick]

With a monitor that large, you'll need something fairly powerful.
I would suggest either the Nvidia GTX275, or the ATI HD Radeon 4890.

A P45 is a motherboard chipset.

[Majorpile8]

Thanks! I'll be sure and post again when I get the build going!