Which of these PCs would better suit my needs?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/...


Specs I'm looking at:


AMD Athlon X2 5000+ 2.6GHz processor.


2GB DDR2 RAM


320 GB HD


ATI Radeon X1250 Integrated Graphics (w/ HDMI port)


This PC has the 2gb of ram I want, and a large HD. It also has a good processor and decent graphics for being integrated to the motherboard.





http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/...


Specs I look at:


Intel Pentium Dual Core E2140 1.6GHz


4GB DDR2 RAM


500GB HD


Intel GMA3100 Graphics


This PC has a larger HD and more ram, but a slower processor and I'm not sure the graphics are as good.





I use the PC for school work, email, internet and games. The games I would like to play are:


Sim City 4


Age of Empires III (And the War Chiefs Expansion pack)


America's Army


Mainly I'm concerned about AOE III having good graphics.


I will accept ideas on other PCs, but keep 'em under $600, at least 2GB RAM, and a minimum 250 GB HD.
Which of these PCs would better suit my needs?
the second one is way better... trust me.... even though the processor is kind of iffy... its comparable to the X2 5000+ since intel has a more effiecient architecture (design)





but in my opinion both have crappy graphics... their both integrated...... even though ati leads it by a tineey little bit... i recommend buying a graphic card separately and install it yourself... cause trust me its just plug it in and screw it in...





that way you get more bang for the buck











edit... o by the way... games depend on the graphics card more than the processor.. so yeah... just buy a 9600gt.. only aorund 150.. can play any game on the market
Which of these PCs would better suit my needs?
I would state for the record that despite Intel Core 2 architecture being somewhat more efficient than AMD 64, the 5000+ will mercilessly kick the **** out of the E2140.





That said to game on Vista, 4gb of memory is really recommended, the Intel board is probably more upgradable/future proof, and it has more HDD space. Both have garbage graphics, so you will need to upgrade to be able to game decently. I recommend the Radeon HD 3850. It's a fair bit cheaper than the 9600 GT and this overclocked version probably only lags by about 7%, and is a good investment.


http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/...


If you want a step up, don't bother with the 9600GT, just move directly to the 8800 GT:


http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/...


If either of those too much for you, you can move down to the 8600 GT GDDR3, but it's maybe 1/2 as fast as the HD 3850 at best, and represents a significant reduction in performance per dollar:


http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/...





The 8600 GT will play the games you want decently, the HD 3850 and 8800 GT will play them well. The 8800 GT is about 20% faster than the HD 3850.





One warning is that RTS depend heavily on both CPU and GPU, so you may want to upgrade CPU's at some point. One other note, the E2140 can overclock to like 2.8ghz easily, so that could really help you gaming.





Again, I recommend the Intel machine, the X2 5000+ isn't even the black edition, and the AMD machine has nothing else to offer as both integrated gfx will suck.