Hey everyone, finally i've decided to upgrade my PC, but i'm a complete noob in hardware. So i wanted to ask few things:
-What processor can you advise, AMD\Intel? for gamedev and games of course
-How many cores should it have? 2 cores a quite popular now, but i've seen triple and quad core processors. As far as i know not many applications now are optimised for more than 2 cores.
-What about GPU? I've been thinking about ATI Radeon HD3850 512MB PCI-E

Thank you for attention

Just one hint: for gamedev you should choose a lowend pc

No, only for game testing you should have a low end pc to optimize it for such systems. For game dev you should always use a high end system because of the workflow.

No - not from my experiences.
If you develope a (casual) game on a highend machine you develope with specifications the lowend system can't support.
Many test cycles results in extra work on the performance.
Since we work with medspec laptops we save much time for performance optimization (thats our experiences).

Outside this Shadow969 will not buy a system for dev only but also for playing games so it's useless to discuss such a topic...

Well i already have a lowend machine and i'm tired of it i guess i will use it for optimisation later, but now many users want eyecandy screens, so shadermodel 3.0 is almost essential

- i'm an amd fan, but i cannot recommend their latest phenom chips, i'd go with an intel core xyz bla bla (be careful, their naming system is some kind of weird and you can easily end up with a chip that's not worth much). 2 cores will be enough for now and the coming year.
- i'd always choose nvidia for my graphics card. mostly because ati driver support on linux sucks, however, besides this, i guess it's more a question personal preference. either take a radeonhd 38xx or a gf 8800 xx.
- be careful with your choice of your mainboard, it influences your GPU and CPU choice (crossfire/SLI chipsets). and don't forget to check how many pci-e lanes are available in multi-gpu mode for each graphics card, esp. the second gpu.
- 2 GB RAM for winXP, 3GB for vista, decide for yurself if you really need a 64bit OS
- 2 HDDs for a RAID system

- 2 GB RAM for winXP, 3GB for vista, decide for yurself if you really need a 64bit OS

to be honest if i were you and getting vista i'd say get a full 4 since ram is very cheap right now and 4 gigs will take better advantage of dual channel setups unless you get 2 1gig sticks and 2 512sticks.

right. always go dual channel. but don't set xp on 4 gb.

Some things you also should think about:

1: When you say upgrading do you mean that you will fill your old system with some new stuff (GPU CPU, Mainboard, RAM) or will you buy a complete new PC? In the first case, be careful, the system has to fit in your old PC (that may sound odd, but ir isn't trust me!) and your power system has to be strong enough to take it.
2: Even if you buy a new system you should care about whether your system components fit together or not and whether you can place them together or not.
3: When you buy a new mainboard, choose it very VERY carefully!!! In my experience the mainboard is the most important component in a PC. Check the hardware forums out there for reviews and experiences made by others and also check whether the mainboard had problems with certain components (eg. GPUs so far)
4: Think about temperature. I myself have to downclock my GPU as it otherwise would be to hot for my system. Choose your GPU having this in mind and inform yourself about the coolingsystem of the GPU you want and also watch the textreviews, that show temperature behaviour of the GPUs. If you want to use an old system and want to upgrade it with new components think about buying some extra cool down systems or "system blowers".

Thanks for the advices!
I'm going to buy a completely new PC, so choosing fitting components will be rather hard. That's why i looked for some premade configurations, and found this:

- Quadcore AMD Phenom X4 9550
- Socket AM2+: AMD770 ATX
- 2GB RAM; 500GB HDD; DVD-RW
- CR x-in-1 //i have no idea what's that
- ATI Radeon HD3850 512MB PCI-E

not bad IMHO, but the price seems suspicious to me (only 550 euros). What do you think about it?