Gaming Looking for a gaming PC!

[JBW]

Having played console games for the past decade or so I've decided to venture into the wide world of PC gaming. Problem is my little LG netbook just wont run all the latest games.

Basically im looking for a gaming PC with all the usual HD graphics, preferably something that will run games like Oblivion, Fallout 3, Just Cause 2 and MW2. A decent monitor would also be nice but not required. my price range is £400-£800 but if you come up with something good I can go a bit further.

thanks!

 

[Raki]

I don't know the prices at usual retailers in the UK, so I'll just sum up some components, which will be nice

AMD Phenom II x4 955 BE (can be easily raised to the level of a 965 by raising the multiplikator by one)
a decent CPU cooler (I ordered the arctic cooling freezer extreme rev.2)
AM3 motherboard(e.g. MSI 790FX GD-70/MSI 890FX GD-70)
4GB DDR3 RAM
HD5870 graphics card
a PSU of a good brand (e.g. Corsair/Enermax) with maybe 700/750W?
a case of decent size (the HD5870 is a beast in size) -> I like the Coolermaster HAF 932 a lot
some HDD (I prefer WD -> WD Caviar Blue is quite ok on transfer rate and not that expensive)
some cheap DVD burner (maybe you have one lying around?)

If you want to spend some more money go for a Intel i7 build, but it gives you not that much advantage in pure gaming. its overall performance is better though

I just ordered the Samsung F2380 screen, which I should receive by tomorrow. It's a 23" cPVA LCD, which is very adjustable and offers a Pivot Mode, but it's no gamer screen, since PVA panels are quite slow and will show some ghosting in fast movements

 

[Thoob]

If you're not looking to build then this is one of the best value PCs I have ever seen. Mind you it doesn't come with any OS installed, but you can always "get" Windows 7.

If you think you have the ability to build a PC though, go ahead, you'll save a lot of money and get far better components that you would in a pre-built PC.

 

[Rydian]

If you're not looking to build then this is one of the best value PCs I have ever seen.

Yeah, I'd go for this one. If you built custom you wouldn't be saving much over this.

 

[JBW]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions, i think ill look into building. If not then ill go for the £400 one.

 

[Raki]

If you're not looking to build then this is one of the best value PCs I have ever seen.

Yeah, I'd go for this one. If you built custom you wouldn't be saving much over this.

well custom-building has the advantage, that you know, what's build into your rig. Many of those OEM rigs use cheap PSUs and those can blow up easily. If you're unlucky your whole hardware is blown...even if you have warranty it will still need a while until you can use your rig again. If I do a self-build I can choose a PSU of a trusted brand.

 

[Delta517]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions, i think ill look into building. If not then ill go for the £400 one.

If you have a friend that knows how to build a PC, you could ask him too.

 

[Originality]

CustomPC Magazine have a selection of parts for the various ranges (budget, mid, performance, and extreme). I'll just list their budget system, which runs to £524.07 inc. VAT.

Case: Silverstone PS02B Precision (£40.89)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H (£74.67)
CPU: Intel Core i3-530 (£89.99)
Heatsink Fan: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 (£17.50)
RAM: 2x2GB DDR3 OCZ Platinum OCZP1333LV4GK (£83.99)
Graphics: Sapphire HD 5770 1GB (£129.24)
Power Supply: Corsair CX400W (£39.25)
HDD: 320GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 (£35.80)
DVD: Samsung SH-D162D (£12.74)

Obviously some of the parts can always be replaced. 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 is currently £60.72, which is the best 1TB HDD you can get. If you get a more powerful gfx card like the HD5870, you might want to think more about a 600W PSU, but between them you'd add another £150ish to the total price. Also if you want more than a dual core Core-i3, then you might think about getting the quad core Core-i5-750, which costs £158.63. Then there's the case... the listed cast is roomy and has enough fans to keep it cool, but the awesome looking cases tend to cost over £100. My favourite case, the Antec Twelvehundred, is huge but it has amazing cooling power, at £117.37. On the other hand, the Antec Ninehundred-two is only £89.82. In any case, the more you spend on the parts, the better PC you get.

One thing worth noting - Core-i3 and Core-i5 are both significantly more powerful than most AMD CPUs for the same price range, but if you're looking to save as much money as possible, there are some fairly cheap AMD CPUs. Also, for most games you'll be fine with a HD5770 or even a HD5650, which cost around the £80 mark or below, but if you want to play Just Case 2 with the graphics reasonably high or some of the new games coming out these years, it's always good get the best graphics you can afford - it's future proofing so that you don't have to upgrade again. My HD4870 still serves me very well (equivolent to the HD5770 in number of stream processors, aka cores).

 

[Megacherv]

Try www.pcspecialist.co.uk

Bought my gaming laptop off of there, best price I found.

 

[DQScott95]

Save up and get a nice alienware

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

Save up and get a nice alienware

alienwares aren't nice, they break easily and the support is crappy. heck its just as bad as buying a mac.
if you want a professional gaming PC of the quality alienware used to be, DigitalStormOnline is for you


as for the cheap PC thing, its pretty easy for newcomers to build a pretty decent PC using a matching service like this: http://www.lambda-tek.com/computing/pcdesigner.pl

 

[Cermage]

i'd wait a bit. thuban is hitting the market very soon. within this month if not the next - most are saying 26th of this month. prices should drop a fair bit for the current line of quads.

 

[Diablo1123]

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/value-gaming...view-31839.html is nice, not sure how that converts, but shouldn't be that much.

 

[JBW]

I found this online, can anyone tell me if its any good?
here

 

[Raki]

i'd wait a bit. thuban is hitting the market very soon. within this month if not the next - most are saying 26th of this month. prices should drop a fair bit for the current line of quads.

yeah, you're right. I totally forgot about this.

AMD Quadcores are quite cheap and AMD doesn't update their socket that often like Intel. Also the advantages of Intel's higher end processors are not that suitable for games (e.g. SMT causes problems in some games). Also a 955/965 Phenom II carries a lot of power which should carry you a long way until it breaks down. Heck, you can even play some mainly GPU dependent games with a Pentium D...

BTW: I got the Samsung F2380 today and it's really solid built, good colors (but not as good as the IPS panel of my 17" eizo) and ghosting is as bad as my old no-name 17" TN panel LCD, but I think it's okay, but I'm no hardcore gamer

 

[Rydian]

I found this online, can anyone tell me if its any good?
here

With the default specs, yes, but that's... "£1130 inc VAT and Delivery.".

If you mean specific specs, you'll have to tell them to us, it's not saved for other people to view.

 

[Raki]

I found this online, can anyone tell me if its any good?
here

With the default specs, yes, but that's... "£1130 inc VAT and Delivery.".

If you mean specific specs, you'll have to tell them to us, it's not saved for other people to view.

well it uses a H55 board with a i5-750. H55 doesn't give you any benefit over P55 since the i5 750 has no integrated graphics card...
it's overpriced as well if you ask me...

 

[Velveteer]

I found this online, can anyone tell me if its any good?
here

It's great. For gaming, you don't need any better. The solid state drive is probably overkill, as you'll pay a hell of a lot more for it, although if you get it, loading and botting times will be a hell of a lot better. As well as general responsiveness, but for gaming, you don't need it, by any means.

If you go with the Asus P57 board on that site (you can configure it) you can put in another 5850 at a later date if you want better performance in a year or so, when games are heavier.

See if you can get any pictures of the inside of their builds, because I lot of pre-builds have lazy, messy cabling that cuts down airflow, catches dust and looks like shit.