PHoNyMiKe wrote:thank you h4tred, odditude, and sweener2001 for your advice, very insightful.
you're quite welcome. building PCs is my forte.
PHoNyMiKe wrote:ps,
this is the video card I'm so hyped up about (actually has 512 ram). newegg has open box ones for $52. it runs fallout 3 at 'medium' settings, and I'm just skippy with that. would that be cool for crossfire?
important thing to keep in mind: video card companies are well aware that people fixate on the amount of RAM on the card, and will happily sell you a piece of shit with 512MB of RAM because they know that's all you're looking for. there are many other specs to look at, and even then they're meaningless half the time. you need to see comparison reviews (or ask someone who reads them all!) to make an educated decision.
the current-gen 4650 is significantly better than the 3650 you linked to (not so much in raw power, but it actually has fully functioning hardware AA). the 4850 i linked to is dramatically more powerful, capable of running current titles quite handily at 1280x720 (which is 720p) or 1360x768 (which is the actual native resolution of many 720p TVs).
most times, you're better off going with a single card that's double the price than two cards in crossfire or sli. scaling isn't linear in even the best of cases, and it's not uncommon to see increases only in the 20% range. also, multi-gpu setups require more cpu overhead, so you'll generally need a slightly faster cpu to get the full benefit. also, you have to make sure to get a crossfire/sli compatible motherboard, which will carry its own additional price premium.
the 4850X2 (and 4870X2) cards are essentially 2 4850s (or 2 4870s) in crossfire on a single board. phenominal cosmic power, itty bitty living space. the nice thing about these solutions is you don't need to worry about having a crossfire-compatible board or anything.
anyway, fitting all this info back into the original topic - you had requested a system that clocks in at under $600, which my original suggestion does. the radeon HD4000 series cards all support video AND audio output over HDMI, so that will be no concern. (audio over HDMI is provided via an on-board 7.1ch HD audio controller.)
if you were to extend the system to include sweener's (valid) suggestion, you would need to also go with a higher-end power supply, adding further to the expense. given that you're currently running a 720p TV, i don't feel that to be necessary.
for reference, my current system (relevant specs) is a c2d e6300 (@stock 1.86GHz/1MB/1066MHz) with 2GB of DDR2-800 and a 512MB 3870 connected to a 720p TV. this machine will run bioshock quite handily at max settings. my suggestion for you has a dramatically faster cpu (the e8400 is 3.0GHz/6MB/1333MHz) and a better video card (same idea as between the older 3650 and current 4650 - minor raw power increase, but fully functional AA hardware which comes in handy at the relatively low resolution of a 720p panel).
if you have any further questions, feel free to ask.
Why yes, my shift key *IS* broken.
