Well I had to do some changes to my configuration due to budget concerns. I came finally with this configuration.

Here are the specs:

Case: Apevia X-Telstar Jr.
Fans: 120mm fan ( Qty: 3 )
PSU: Antec NeoPower 550 ATX12V 550W Power Supply - SLI Ready
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 @ 2.33GHz
Motherboard: GIGABYTE nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard
RAM: 2GB (2x1GB) CORSAIR XMS2
Video Card: EVGA GeForce 8600GTS 512MB 16x PCI Express (Only one)
HDD: Western Digital Caviar 320GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM
Optical Drive: LITE-ON 20X DVD DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER
Sound: Integrated 5.1 Sound
Speakers: Logitech (BLACK) X-540 70Watts 5.1 Configuration Speaker System
Network: EDIMAX EW-7128G PCI Wireless Card
Keyboard: Microsoft ZG6-00006 Black PS/2 Wired Standard Keyboard 500

All for a total price of $1075.33 after shipping/handling and mail-in rebates

Is it a good configuration for a low budget mid-range gamin pc? Are this specs still good enough to play almost any game out there in the market at least at mid stats?

Thanks for all your your replies and advice,
CircuitX

Quote: Original post by CircuitX
Well I had to do some changes to my configuration due to budget concerns. I came finally with this configuration.

Here are the specs:

Case: Apevia X-Telstar Jr.
Fans: 120mm fan ( Qty: 3 )
PSU: Antec NeoPower 550 ATX12V 550W Power Supply - SLI Ready
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 @ 2.33GHz
Motherboard: GIGABYTE nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard
RAM: 2GB (2x1GB) CORSAIR XMS2
Video Card: EVGA GeForce 8600GTS 512MB 16x PCI Express (Only one)
HDD: Western Digital Caviar 320GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM
Optical Drive: LITE-ON 20X DVD DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER
Sound: Integrated 5.1 Sound
Speakers: Logitech (BLACK) X-540 70Watts 5.1 Configuration Speaker System
Network: EDIMAX EW-7128G PCI Wireless Card
Keyboard: Microsoft ZG6-00006 Black PS/2 Wired Standard Keyboard 500

All for a total price of $1075.33 after shipping/handling and mail-in rebates

Is it a good configuration for a low budget mid-range gamin pc? Are this specs still good enough to play almost any game out there in the market at least at mid stats?

Thanks for all your your replies and advice,
CircuitX

You are making mistake if you are going to be wanting to play FSX and Crysis at decent framerates!
I have a 6600 cpu and 8800 gts and only run at 1280x1024 resolution and I cannot play either of these games at max or even high quality settings!
All other games are fine but FSX is cpu bound and crysis is gpu bound or both.
I suggest fastest cpu you can afford and 45nm intel preferable and 9800 nvidia card which will be out soon.
Oh and for your professors edification FSX can use up to 32 cores!

Thanks for your reply daviangel, then I should go with Intel E6750 and 8800GT, but wait until 9800 hit the market so I could get 8800GT at a lower price. Will I be able to play FSX at moderate framerates with those changes?. Remember I'm with a limited budget of $1300.

Quote: Original post by CircuitX
Thanks for your reply daviangel, then I should go with Intel E6750 and 8800GT, but wait until 9800 hit the market so I could get 8800GT at a lower price. Will I be able to play FSX at moderate framerates with those changes?. Remember I'm with a limited budget of $1300.

I was going to say to wait for the new intel 45nm cpu's to get increased framerates in FSX but from this review it doesn't look like it makes much difference if you go with a nice cpu like the q6600 which is probably ,the best cpu out right now price/performance wise, or the new 45nm cpu's!
<http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2208822,00.asp">
The oddest result is the Flight Sim X result, which was identical across all CPUs. Note that we did install the Flight Sim X service pack, so we expected some variation—but got none. While we did run at 1280x1024, anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering were not enabled, and the rest of the settings were set to medium-high. So we should have seen some difference in the results, but none were evident.
So maybe FSX is poorly coded alot of people claim or we'll have to wait for 5GHZ cpu's!
For graphics I still recommend waiting for new Nvidia cards or if you can't at least get a 8800GT card since it's like 2x the performance of the the 8600 for only a little more money.

[Edited by - daviangel on February 19, 2008 12:51:04 AM]

Thanks for the advice, I will go with EVGA 8800GTS(G92) 512MB and stay with the E6750 due to my budget limit.

The total cost after making those two changes is $1273.28 and $1203.28 after all mail-in rebates (s/h included).

I forgot to mention that I will buy a flat panel monitor so I can't spend all my $1300 budget in the pc itself, that's why I'm not going with the E8400 cpu.

As a side note I will pass my budget by $100 if I buy a $200 flat panel monitor.
But at least I will have a moderate gaming pc.

My system: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750, stock at 2.66ghz, GeForce 8800 GTS (320MB), 2GB DDR2-800 ram in dual channel. I get around 40FPS for battles on medium settings in Crysis. This actually isn't bad, and is perfectly playable. The game feels like it is running way more than that, with no graphics lag or stuttering.

Quote: Original post by CircuitX
Thanks for the advice, I will go with EVGA 8800GTS(G92) 512MB and stay with the E6750 due to my budget limit.

The total cost after making those two changes is $1273.28 and $1203.28 after all mail-in rebates (s/h included).

I forgot to mention that I will buy a flat panel monitor so I can't spend all my $1300 budget in the pc itself, that's why I'm not going with the E8400 cpu.

As a side note I will pass my budget by $100 if I buy a $200 flat panel monitor.
But at least I will have a moderate gaming pc.

Well I see that you are getting an EVGA vidcard which is another suggestion I was gonna make since that's what I got and another great thing they got is the step-up program so if you decide to get a 9800 vidcard later you got 3 months to trade up.
I did that with my 8600 card since it just didn't cut it for some games and ended up trading up to a 8800GTS.

Sorry for my late follow-up reply guys but I had some busy weeks at college and took some time to do some research on the computer parts I was going to buy.
I was thinking on buying the pc by parts and then assemble it myself but newegg and amazon didn't ship to where I live. So I decided to buy it preassembled due to not being able to find a site that shipped to where I live. The PC I bought has the following specs:

Case: Cooler Master Centurion 5
Fans: Default Case Fans
PSU: Rosewill 550W
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 @ 2.66GHz
CPU Cooling: Stock Cooling
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
RAM: 2GB (2x1GB) Mushkin Performance DDR2 800
Video Card: Foxconn GeForce 9600GT 512MB 16x PCI Express (Only one)
Monitor: Acer AL2016WBbd Black 20" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor
HDD: Western Digital 320GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM
Optical Drive: ASUS 18X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe
Sound: Integrated 5.1 Sound
Speakers: Logitech (BLACK) X-230 32Watts RMS 2.1
Keyboard: Microsoft Comfort Curve Black

All for a total price of $1270 after shipping and handling

I hope my system is good for midrange gaming and I can play FSX at least at medium settings. I choose the Cooler Master Centurion 5 because I read great things about that case and because I had to cut somes costs somewhere, that's also the reason why I choose E6750 instead of E8400 or Q6600. Any comments about my configuration are greatly appreciated. I will let you know about how it performs when I receive it if anyone wants to know.

Thanks for all your help,
CircuitX

Quote: Original post by CircuitX
Sorry for my late follow-up reply guys but I had some busy weeks at college and took some time to do some research on the computer parts I was going to buy.
I was thinking on buying the pc by parts and then assemble it myself but newegg and amazon didn't ship to where I live. So I decided to buy it preassembled due to not being able to find a site that shipped to where I live. The PC I bought has the following specs:

Case: Cooler Master Centurion 5
Fans: Default Case Fans
PSU: Rosewill 550W
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 @ 2.66GHz
CPU Cooling: Stock Cooling
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
RAM: 2GB (2x1GB) Mushkin Performance DDR2 800
Video Card: Foxconn GeForce 9600GT 512MB 16x PCI Express (Only one)
Monitor: Acer AL2016WBbd Black 20" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor
HDD: Western Digital 320GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM
Optical Drive: ASUS 18X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe
Sound: Integrated 5.1 Sound
Speakers: Logitech (BLACK) X-230 32Watts RMS 2.1
Keyboard: Microsoft Comfort Curve Black

All for a total price of $1270 after shipping and handling

I hope my system is good for midrange gaming and I can play FSX at least at medium settings. I choose the Cooler Master Centurion 5 because I read great things about that case and because I had to cut somes costs somewhere, that's also the reason why I choose E6750 instead of E8400 or Q6600. Any comments about my configuration are greatly appreciated. I will let you know about how it performs when I receive it if anyone wants to know.

Thanks for all your help,
CircuitX

Where do you live?
I thought newegg shipped everywhere?
Anyways as long as you install FSX SP2 that system is more than enough to play FSX at medium and even high settings. I just installed it on an old P4 2.8ghz with 1GB fast ram and a ati 850 graphics card and it was able to average about 15fps at medium settings. Definitely playable.
I have all the sliders in FSX at high on my system and average about 20fps most of the time. The things that will kill your FPS and that no system currently available can handle is if you set autogen and traffic to max levels. That will definitely slow you down especially in large cities. I slow down to 10fps sometimes in cities like tokyo and new york.

You'll have to post a follow up on how well the video card works. I've been curious to see how well the 9600s work.