gaming pc

[mikeald]

hi all,

I am thinking of building a decent gaming machine. Limited to around £400 to £500

any suggestions?

cheers

mike

[shadowpr]

does that price include monitor, keyboard, mouse, os, speakers?

[Krazeee]

What do you mean by decent? Do you want to play the current games at medium/high settings, or do you want to have zero issues playing games at full graphics for the next year?

And forgive me, what does that budget come out to in US dollars?

In general you're probably looking at a Core 2 Duo CPU, P35 Mobo, at least 1gb Ram and an 8800 series Graphics Card.

Let us know what you'll be doing with the system (which games and apps you plan to use) and we'll be better able to assist in picking out parts.

[chuck4456]

Off of the top of my head, that means you've got about 1100.00 US. It can be done.
P35 chipset board - latest - gratest - yes. 150. - 200. (I'm using US)
C2D CPU - 200. probably an E6750
Memory - 2 gigs, at least - 140.00
Video card - doesn't have to be an 8800 series. There are plenty of DX9s under 200. Sapphire X1950xt is a good one. 8800s (320mb) start at 300.00
Power Supply - good one is a must - 120. -150.
Hard drive(s) case, monitor.
I don't know what's available on your end of the globe. Shop around and shoot your grocery list back here - we can tell you yay or nay.
P35 chipset boards by ABIT or ASUS are about the most tried and true at present.

[alpha33385]

Originally Posted by chuck4456 Off of the top of my head, that means you've got about 1100.00 US. It can be done. P35 chipset board - latest - gratest - yes. 150. - 200. (I'm using US) C2D CPU - 200. probably an E6750 Memory - 2 gigs, at least - 140.00 Video card - doesn't have to be an 8800 series. There are plenty of DX9s under 200. Sapphire X1950xt is a good one. 8800s (320mb) start at 300.00 Power Supply - good one is a must - 120. -150. Hard drive(s) case, monitor. I don't know what's available on your end of the globe. Shop around and shoot your grocery list back here - we can tell you yay or nay. P35 chipset boards by ABIT or ASUS are about the most tried and true at present.

I don't know about where you live, but at newegg, you can get 2GB of ram or $65 (latency = 4)
Its Patriot eXtreme Performance ram (and has a 50 rebate)
also, you can get 8800 gts 320 mb for around 250, and oc'ed 640mbs around 370 (non oc'ed = 360 ish)

[mikeald]

wow, thank you all for replies.

ok, the place I will get all the kit from is:

www.ebuyer.co.uk

I already have monitor, keyboard, mouse, a good sound card and speakers.

so the budget is just for everything in the case.

At the moment I love playing command and conquer 3.


And yes I want to be able to play this flawlessly at high settings.

Let's assume cost is irrelevant then (but as cheap as possible).

Thank you all,
cheers

mike

[freakitchen]

For good gaming performance, I'd say you want to be spending between £600 and £700.

Have a go at pricing yourself up an Intel Core2Duo system - based on an ASUS P5K motherboard and 2GB of Corsair memory. Go for an eVGA nVidia 8 series video card - preferably the 8800GTS, but you may have to go for a 8600GT in your budget. Try and spend as much as possible on the video card - it determines gaming performance.

Add a Seagate 250/320GB hard drive and a Lite-on DVD Burner (both SATA), and put all of these in the Antec Sonata III case - it comes with a high quality 500w power supply. Add an operating system, and you're all set!

Post a list, we can then tailor it if necessary.

[mikeald]

i actually have a nice case, can u recommend a psu which will plug straight into the m/b? Also i already have 2 gb of ddr ram in my current amd machine, could i use that? Do you strongly recommend intel? Or could i go down the amd route?

cheers

mike

[shadowpr]

if you get a new mb, you will probably need ddr2 ram, so the ddr ram wouldn't work.

a good psu would be the corsair 520hx

[mikeald]

ok no problem. Also, I have 2 x ide hard drives and a good dvd drive which i would like to just swap out of my existing machine and plug straight intio the new one. Is there a m/b out there with 2 x ide connectors as well as sata?

I really dont want the hassle of reloading windows etc onto a new hdd, and i have software on my existing hdd's that i have downloaded straight off the net, and have no idea how to transfer to a new disk! I am hoping i can just do a straight swap so that everything will just work? Is this possible?

please forgive my ignorance. it's been 3 years since my last build. And my god things have changed!!!

cheers

[Katreat]

Intel is the clear leader at this time so it is being recommended. If you really want to stay with AMD they are still good processors, just lagging behind a little in development right now. Check out Toms Hardware CPU charts and then make your decision. AMD is also about to change sockets again which makes it hard to recommend them because future upgrades might be limited.

I would recommend at least getting one new SATA HD to hold the operating system. IDE is definately on its way out, but you can grab an external enclosure and use them for back ups. The P5K also comes with a third party IDE controller so you could also use them in raid. You can likely even use them as your main HD but I think it gets a little messy because you would have to load drivers first.

If you have a retail copy of XP you should be able to load it on your new computer. If you just have a recovory disk it will not recognize your new MB and you will have to buy a new copy. In either case, you will have to load it fresh, not just plug in your old HD, because you have changed the MB. The rest of your software you could easily transfer over or leave on the HD if you use it in the system, but the OS will need to be re-loaded.

kat

[Negeva]

have a look at www.cclonline.com a company based outside of Leeds (UK). I've dealt with them for over 5 years now and never had the issues I've had with ebuyer.co.uk when returning goods.

Re: DDR. No, all new CPUs and motherboards use DDR2.

RE: Hard-Drives. Go for a new SATA drive as they're faster. Also consider getting a SATA optical drive, again they offer faster performance for no real price difference; I used one recently when installing Vista and saved over 10 minutes compared to a similar specc'ed machine running an IDE optical drive.

RE: Transfer of old Drive. This is not wise. You'll have to un-install all the drivers before transfer, then possibly do a repair install of Windows. And even then it's not guaranteed to work correctly. Plus, there's the issue of the XP licence. With a new machine install fresh - transferring data and settings across is quite easy.