Hello new member seeking some help

[dannyboy]

hiya, im from the UK

Im looking at building a new computer that will be quite good for gaming as my current set up is quite out of date.

im looking ideally for 1gb of memory, around 200gb hard drive, and a fairly decent graphics card. I dont mean to sound stupid but i dont really know what im looking for (please excuse my use of english pounds)

say for example there is a 256mb 6600 graphics card for £50 or a 512 8000 for £250, how much difference is that really going to make (for me as i dont need it to be overly powerful) i just want to be able to play the lasters games, them working in excellent graphics is really a bonus. i dont see the point in buying something 5 times better than i need if i can save some money.

also motherboards, i dont really know what is compatable with what :(

my budget is around £500. For that ideally i would like a tft monitor, but i imagine that is asking too much.

Hope someone can help, have been looking all day for bits and its confused me and i feel like giving up :D

Thanks

[Freakitchen]

Welcome to the forums, and don't apologies for using ££s, some of us use them too :)

This would be my recommendation for a gaming computer.

Processor: AMD Athlon 64, socket 939. The 3700+ is the one to have now, but you might have to reduce this to a 3500+ or a 3200+ to fit in the £500 budget. Don't worry about doing so; it's the video card that will determine how your games perform more than anything else.

Motherboard: the ASUS A8N5X, or A8N-E. Both high quality boards, socket 939, with a PCI-Express slot for your graphics card.

Memory: Corsair Value Select; get a matched pair to ensure dual channel mode. 2x1GB would be the optimum, but you may have to reduce this to 2x512 to fit with your budget.

Case/Power Supply. Don't be tempted to cheap out here. Getting a quality ATX2 power supply is very important, and I'd recommend a 450w unit for an Athlon 64 system. The Antec Sonata II case comes with a quality 450w power supply.

Video Card. Nvidia 6800GS. That's merely a suggestion, and you should get the best you can afford for gaming. Stick with a 256MB card to keep costs down.

Hard Drive: Seagate 7200.9 SATA. Seagate is a quality manufacturer, and SATA is the latest interface. Get however much storage you need.

Optical Drive: Lite-on or NEC DVD-RW. Burns and reads everything, both are good manufacturers.

TFT: You probably won't be able to get a good one with a £500 budget for everything, but by all means try. I'd suggest Samsung or Viewsonic, and go for one with a 12ms or lower response time, to minimise the 'ghosting effect'.

That should give you something to start with, I'd price the components up from www.ebuyer.co.uk or www.overclockers.co.uk

My final suggestion would be to read as much as you can, both on forums and 'build your own PC' guides. There's one right here at PC Mech, and a couple of others at http://www.mysuperpc.com/build/pc_parts_list.shtml and http://www.mechbgon.com/build/index.html

FK