How well would my computer run? A realistic gaming computer.

that's a bit of a waste of a pci-e x16 slot however, they make those for pci-e x1 they probably don't make them for pci, that is too slow. Audio is one of the best choices. for example I have an audio and lan card in my last Pci-e 16x slot, this takes a (puny) load off the cpu, it's funny as now when my computer lags, and I have terrible responsiveness on the desktop, the sound keeps going undisturbed. but really the best would be a revodrive (if you can afford it) I happened to have been given one so I was happy. Since (for example in the case of planet generation) PA offloads all memory storage that overflows from the ram capacity to virtual ram, having a faster hard drive is of great use. I realised this durring sxx's planet size contest where I put much effort toward freeing as much disk space on C: as I possibly could. (best answer to this, of course remains putting all of that money towards more ram, check how much you motherboard can tolerate)

all in all simple answer is sound and lan card. one that does both is a great optimisation of the slots you have.

i have 4 gbs ram and it runs fine on my 2 year old i5 laptop. think processor is more important than ram.

I never said 4 gigs wasn't enough read through the thread if you want to know what I was talking about.

i wasn't replying to you, someone earlier mentioned they struggled with 6 gbs.

it depends on what they were trying to do, if he wanted a full size planet I can imagine he and you would have to give up.

I know this was supposed to be more axed towards savings but under the 1000$ mark not for "playable" but "full experience" is something to look into especially since I see everyone buying half-assed laptops at the +1300$ mark
take a look at this and tell me if you would pay up given you earn enough to be able to spare 1250$.

well for most people the answer is yes and I've seen people pay much more for worse PCs

the thing is, while this PC is decent (i7-4500U CPU, 8gig 1600mhz ram and full HD screen), it has Intel® HD Graphics 4400; sufficent enough to play PA but flimsy and doesn't justify the price.

But looking at http://www.ibuypower.com/2013/Labor-Day-Specials.aspx today... random enconter, I knew about ibuypower, I didn't approve much of them because what they could do, I could do and better. But today it seems they propose better then I could come up with.

8 deals that could run the living begjesus out out of PA at around 1000$ i have to say the revolt at 1100$ has me sold because it's a quasi-full (because no sound output) system at that price which packs a severe punch. all of their builds are with 2+gigs of vram graphic cards, their top dog although a bit pricey has the second best graphic card on the market (hence 3gigs of vram).

For those who ABSOLUTELY cannot, could not, would not forgo the mobility of a laptop (which for the love of me I cannot understand, every single person I've ever met that games on the laptop never takes their laptop outside of their home or really really rarely, I've not yet discovered a better way to throw money out the window yet everyone does it), I would not recommend ibuypower's I think asus holds the throne with the G750JX-DB71 and their cheaper ROGs are also great on a bang for the buck scale but I am not a laptop expert.

There are better alternatives yet than asus ROG but those are for real enthusiasts : the crossfire solution deviltech has to offer going by the name of the hellmachine the Alienware M18x Haswell with apparently SLI GTX 780M, or the MSI GT60-2OD-026US, same equipement.

But if you want to stay in the "real world" this will give you a good pitch http://www.notebookcheck.net/Rating-price-value.2676.0.html