i was thinking of one of the ATI 4850 and an Intel Quad Core processor clocked in at 2.5 ghz with 8gb of system ram, Windows vista 64-bit, a 500gb harddrive, and a crossfire capable motherboard.

what are the things you guys recommend i use in my gaming PC that i will eventually buy the parts for and make?

bump

hey it will take me a while but I am writing up an editorial on building different PCs. If you can wait I might have it done by next week.

Also the 4850 isnt a bad card.

thanks ssj12, ill look for that editorial.

Whats your complete budget?

Are you building the whole thing from nothing or are you reusing some parts?

Are you interested in making it quiet?/Putting a good case around it?

What size monitor will you be using? - IE whats the max resolution if you know, otherwise just screen size is fine.

Those two things doesn't jive that well for a gaming PC. As if Vista wasn't bad enough as it is for games not built for it the 64-bit version makes things even worst. There's reports of games either crashing, not running at all, or running slower in the 64-bit Vista environment vs 32-bit Vista environment. If you want to reduce compatibility problems considerably the best choice is to go with the 32-bit version of Vista and live with 3.25GB - 3.5GB of RAM.

64bit will be a bit slower in the short term, but as more and more programs are designed to take advantage of it, it will be faster longer term.

Vista 64 is great for a forwards looking PC, but not so great if you want to run any pre xp era games. Games are going to have to switch to 64 bit because otherwise you run smack into the 2gb barrier for program ram usage and the 4gb address space limit if you install a 1gb graphics card especially.

just use both. i dual-boot Vista 64 Ultimate and XP Pro 32. I use Vista 64 when what i am doing is compatible, but switch to XP when playing a game or using a program which doesnt work well in Vista

The problem is when will Microsoft stop 32-bit support like they stopped 16-bit support. They plan on making Windows 7 32-bit as well as 64-bit. If they continue that plan developers will most likely stick with the 32-bit platform and 64-bit mainstream will have to wait until Windows 8.

Sounds good, but I would probably get a higher-clocked dual-core versus a lower-clocked quad-core - there will be few games, even in years to come, that actually use all four cores to exceed the performance of that dual-core. You may even want to go for a budget CPU (honestly, it won't make much difference to games or work; they're all good at the moment) and get a 4870 or GTX 260 when they come out.

Is 8GB of RAM necessary? You won't see any benefit above 4GB.

It would be wise to wait for actual reviews of the 4850/4870 vs. the GTX260/280. Although, prelimenary bechmarks and prices show the 4850 CF to exceed a GTX280 for the same price, so an ATI setup will always give the best performance at a given price point.