PCTech Forums

My mother surprised me with ordering me my own PC from , but I'm kind of skeptical, because shes a frugal spender, and dosent know much about hardware. Before I ask some questions, heres what she put in it:

Motherboard ( Asus A7N8X-X w/Audio, LAN, USB 2.0 8x AGP Motherboard )
Processor ( AMD® Athlon XP 2700+ QuantiSpeed CPU )
Video Card ( ATI Radeon 9200-SE 128MB w/TV Out 8x AGP Video )
CD-RW/DVD-RW Drive ( 8X DVD+R/+RW + CD-R/RW Drive Beige )
Memory ( 512 MB Dual Channel [256MB X2] DDR-400 PC3200 Memory Module Major Brand )

Now...
Will games run well on this system? I dont mind not having perfect framerate, just as long as the game runs without any skipping or long load times. I'll be playing UT2004, Morrowind, EverQuest, Rainbow Six 3, Star Wars: KOTOR, and other older games.
Will the hybrid CD/DVD R/RW drive run/burn CD's and DVD's?
Can my basic TV(97' Sharp 17') with only a yellow and white socket be able to be used as a monitor?

I'm quite the ignorant newbie when it come to PC hardware, so bear with me. Thanks.

Sounds like an awesome set-up to me...

Maybe add another stik off DDR and your...


Cactus

yes, you can burn DVDs & CDs.

It says the card has TV out, so you should be able to connect to your TV one way or another, although you may need adaptors - does your TV have a scart socket, because you can get adaprtors which allow you to go in via this?

Older games will run fine, but the Radeon 9200 is by no means the best card on the market - it's very much in the budget sector. You will get much better framerates from something like a 9600, and they don't cost that much more

What problems can I expect with the video card? I can live with a lesser framerate, just as long as the games dont run skippy.

I can't see you having any trouble as long as you meet your game requirements.

A 128mb vid card should be plenty and your ram looks good but always nice to have more memory

Sweet. I cant wait for this thing to come in the mail, I've wanted my own PC for YEARS.