System build for friend

[BubbySoup]

A friend has recently come into some money and wants to blow it on a very nice spec PC for games. I will be building and installing said PC but I need some help which is where you guys come in

He has fallen in love with my 2405fpw so I spec'd a pc around this screen, it being a Opty 175 under water and 2 x1900's. Everything was going splendid until he told me he really wouldn't be able to afford to upgrade anything for a good 2-3 years.

Now I am wondering if it would be better to scale the 24" screen down to 20" and drop one of the x1900's. This would save him a lot of cash or he can go up to an FX60 which under water, should get up to some very nice speeds.

I'm just worried about this PC being able to drive the 24" Dell screen for 2-3 years in that config. A 20" widescreen would be much more game-friendly when it comes to longevity.

What do you guys think? Go for the wow factor now and hope the games are still playable at 1920x1200 later on, or spec sensibly considering his financial circumstances?

Help!

 

[Explicit]

AMD Opteron UP 170 Dual Core San Diego 2.0GHz 2MB Cache (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-148-AM)
£317.19
Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-129-AS)
£82.19
Mushkin 2GB DDR XP4000 Extreme Performance Dual Channel Kit (2x1GB) CAS3 (991483) (MY-000-MK)
£170.32
Connect3D ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (3055) (GX-046-CO)
£381.82
Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-046-WD)
£71.62
NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-026-NE)
£32.84
Antec SLK3000B Midi Tower Case - No PSU (CA-027-AN)
£35.19
Tagan TG530-U15 530W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-008-TG)
£70.44
NEC MultiSync® LCD20WGX2 20.1" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-009-NE)
£411.19

Total inc VAT: £1572.80

 

[Monstermunch]

Perfect spec from explicit.... That's what you want. That should be able to drive that screen for 18months+. After that a simple gfx card update will stretch it probably another 12 months. Don't forget the opty will clock to at least 2.6ghz (fx60 speed)

 

[BubbySoup]

Yeah, seems the 24" dell would really need an injection of cash before the 2-3 year period I guess.

 

[Paul11]

hmm, i do agree with whats been said, but another way to look at it would be..

get the Dell 24" now, and build the best machine with the rest of the budget around it..

you have also not stated a budget , but was going to go for 2 x1900's, so even if you got the 24 and only one 1900, i think it would still be a super system.

just my 2p's, but i think the larger screen size would offer a nicer gaming experience.