Hello I am going to buy a new computer for game development using PhysX engine. I have the following specs: Processor: Core2 Quad-Processor, 2.6MHz RAM: 4 GB HD: 500GB, 7500 rpm Screen: 19” Flat Monitor Graphics Card: GeForce 8800 Ultra, 867 MB RAM Is there anything I forget?

Quote: Original post by mohammedderhalli
I am going to buy a new computer for game development using PhysX engine.

What exactly do these specs have to do with PhysX? Physics isn't a big performance problem in your typical game.

Forget about the PhysX engine. And tell me: Is there anything to worry about with the above specs?

Quote: Original post by mohammedderhalli
tell me: Is there anything to worry about with the above specs?

They're good specs, they'll play any game if that's what you're worried about.

In the end it all comes to what you actually need. For example: Say you require a 20" monitor, the one you've picked out is 19", thus a reason to worry.

Of course, there are things involved in a computer that you haven't listed too, like the chasis (is it big enough?), the PSU (is it powerful/safe enough?), fans, etc.

Quote: Original post by mohammedderhalli
Forget about the PhysX engine. And tell me: Is there anything to worry about with the above specs?

Worry about with respect to what?

That looks like it will make a decent all-round machine, with enough horsepower to play a few games. Personally I like a faster hard drive.

Quote: Original post by swiftcoder
Personally I like a faster hard drive.

How much rpm do you suggest?

Quote: Original post by mohammedderhalli

Quote: Original post by swiftcoder
Personally I like a faster hard drive.

How much rpm do you suggest?

If you can afford it, put a mid-size 10,000 rpm drive as your primary, and add a redundant pair of 500GB 7,500 rpm drives for bulk storage. RAID-1 should be supported by pretty much any recent motherboard, and it makes your data a whole lot more durable.

Second monitor can be useful in many game dev roles....

Quote: Original post by mohammedderhalli

Quote: Original post by swiftcoder
Personally I like a faster hard drive.

How much rpm do you suggest?

Faster drives are noisy.

WTF do you need 8800 Ultra for game development? It's outdated card, and more importanly it would be useless in game development. NV 9600 GSO, or NV9800 GT would be better cards.

(in your case, because you are developing FPSes, the later would be better choice)

You forgot mainboard. Also power source, and case.

I would buy a GTX 260 right now; it seems to hit the value/performance sweet spot while still having good drivers. The ATI HD4850 also look good, at least for DirectX games (and their OpenGL is better than it has been in the past).

Any hard drive should be mirrored (RAID 1). Hard drives do fail after a few years, and you don't want to immediately lose all your data.

I go for 10,000 rpm drives, because building large software libraries is often very hard drive seek/latency bound. However, you could also look into some of the high performance flash drives that are coming out. Samsung has a 128 GB MLC drive for a few hundred with 90 MB/s transfer rate, which is not bad. And close to zero access time...