I have an e8500 and x-48 motherboard. I've had it overclocked at 4 GHz since day one ( almost a year now ) and have not had one problem. Any higher though and it would start to get a bit unstable. I'm only air cooling, but it's a good case ( Raidmax Sagitta 2 - two huge fans plus one extra ) and a Artic Freezer 7 Pro Cpu cooler instead of stock because I knew I'd be overclocking. I get anywhere from 10 to 20 % performance boost in gaming and around 5 to 10 % in apps vs. standard clock. Keep in mind I got this a year ago and was looking for price vs. performance and I mostly game. Not one regret though.

I have a 4870 512 mb and love it, but am looking to go bigger and better. Should I get another one ( I have a X-48 motherboard ) and go crossfire or get a 4870 x2 2GB? Either way it's a win for me - price versus performance. Just wanted to get some opinions. Thanks for any input.

I vote for Valve. I have the utmost respect for Blizzard's past work but when it comes down to it I am an FPS man and Valve makes great FPS.Jade_Monkey

I agree. Plus the modding community for Valve's games gets you all that extra content for free. It's a no brainer!

Half Life 1, 2 + Episodes , Max Payne 1 & 2 , No One Lives Forever 1 & 2, Crysis and Warhead, Call of Duty 2 & 4, Stalker SOC & CS, Rainbow six Vegas 1 & 2, Far Cry 1 & 2, Star Trek Elite Force 1 & 2, Star Wars Jedi Knights 1 & 2, Oblivion, Bioshock, Fallout 3, Doom 3, Deus Ex. These are just some of the games on my shelf. Granted All FPS, but that's mostly what I play and I've enjoyed the hell out of all of them.

Check out some of the older titles if you already haven't, like Deus Ex, NOLF series, Max Payne series, Elite Force and Jedi Knights. Graphics are dated by todays standards, but gameplay and storylines ( i.e. is it fun ) are VERY hard to come by these days and these were all tops at their times.

My favorite of all time, though, would have to be HALF LIFE. To me, it brought PC gaming into the forefront and away from the Sega's and Nintendo's, although I still have my old Nintendo and still love to play Super Mario Bros. 3. This game pushed the envelope for FPS's so far that they still talk about what a fantastic game it is over a decade later. People still constantly make mods for it - amazing. Just my opinion so please no flaming.

Awesome! What realism! I'm standing in front of a door that won't open because there's a sniper off in the hills that I haven't killed yet, thus allowing the door to magically be unlocked!

Why not just put a POST IT on the door telling me such!

Thanks for the heads up guys.

I posted this in the Far Cry 2 forum, but the previous post was from six hours ago so I'll try here. I'm in California - where the hell are the gamespot servers located? No matter when I post it seems it's the slowest time of day for other users.

I'm currently on the mission that has me trying to rescue the captive at the fishing camp.

I get there, kill evryone, but I can't enter the bricked up building that it says he's captive in. When I check the map, I'm directly in the red circle of where I'm supposed to be, but I get no hand signal to open the door or anything.

Any help would be appreciated.

P.S. I have a love / hate relationship with this game. I love carrying out the missions, but absolutely HATE driving for hours on end and being attacked every other second. They're driving the same vehicle as me , but it's twice as fast? And shooting from behind at a far distance and nailing my engine? I know this has been hashed out a million times, but I had to get it out of my system, as I have retried this mission countless times thinking it was a script bug or something. I got Fallout 3 and Dead Space for Xmas, but I don't like starting with new titles before finishing the one I'm currently playing.

Just My two cents to all the flaming fanboys and trollers out there.

I searched endlessly on all the forums I could find ( Here , TomsHardware, Guru3d, OC'ersClub, etc.. ) when I was looking for the best price / performance for my new build. Here it is by the way:

3.16Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 6MB Cache FSB 1333
Artic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler Extremely Quiet
GIGABYTE GA-X48-DS4 (Intel X48 , 2xPCIEx, 8-Channel Audio, LAN, 6xSATA2, 1394, 1333FSB)
4GB (2GBx2) PC6400 DDR2 800Mhz Memory Lifetime Warranty
500GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache Serial ATA300
20X Samsung SH-S202N Lightscribe Dual Layer DVD±RW DVD-RAM w/Nero
20X Samsung SH-S202G Dual Layer DVD+/-RW/CDRW w/Nero
512MB ATI Radeon HD4870 GDDR5 PCI Express DVI/Tvout
850watt Antec TruePower Quattro TPQ-850

Approx $1650 with Windows Vista, case and a few extras - Should be here Tuesday...God, I can't wait!

Here's my current POS ( Try not to laugh - it lasted me 3+ years )- AMD Athlon 3400, Ati X1950PRO AGP ( Yes, AGP! ), 1GB pc3200 Ram

I've seen countless pros, cons, and you name it for every piece of equipment.

Here's why I choose these specific components

1. CPU - Yes, I could have gone Quad ( wanted to really ), but I mostly game and the E8500 OC's like mad even on air. And in a year or so if most newer games really take advantage of 4 cores, I can upgrade to a much better Quad then for much less than if I bought one now.

2. GPU - Could have gone with Nvidia ( 260 or 9800GTX+ ... especially since they're slashing prices ) but 4870 has best $/perf ratio and 6 months from now I can get another one for probably around $200 and be in Xfire heaven.

3. MB - This baby has it all, including support for DDR2 AND DDR3 and 1600Mz FSB. When DDR3 becomes resonably priced, BAM another cheap simple upgrade.

I hope this will help others who are confused or unsure as to which direction to go when looking for new hardware

I agree. The DDR3 is way too expensive right now, but the MB supports 1066 and 1200 DDR2 so I figure I should get pretty good life out of it.

And probably within a year I will get another 4870 ( should be less than $200 by then ) and be in CROSSFIRE HEAVEN - Driver optimization should be jammin by then!

After 3 Years I'm biting the bullet and whipping out the checkbook.I haven't posted in forever ( see: working like a dog ) but I will have plenty of free time this summer to start playing the newer titles the way they were ment to be played ( see: not playing CRYSIS at med/low settings).

I'm going from my ANCIENT Athlon 3400@2.4, 1 meg RAM, and ATI 1950PRO ( the only upgrade the last few years ) to:

NZXT Zero Aluminum Full Tower 420W Case w 800W power supply

Intel® CoreTM 2 Quad Q9450 @ 2.66GHz 1333FSB 12MB L2 Cache 64-bit

CoolerMaster Liquid CPU Cooling System

Asus P5E Intel X38 Chipset CrossFire FSB1600 DDR2/1066Mhz Mainboard

4GB (4x1GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory

ATI Radeon HD 4870 PCI-E x16 512MB DDR5

I know the Ram isn't that great, but this is one wicked Motherboard and will easily Overclock the CPU and Ram to very high levels of performance. With 500 Gb hard drive, 2 DVD burners and Windows Vista 64 bit, I think $1500 + tax is a steal.

What do you guys think?