Gaming desktop...

superscaper

tonyhague wrote: »

HD Games/graphics? 1920×1080 (1080p) is a high resoultion, but the latest cards can handle it without too much bother, go tri SLI or crossfire and you could find yourself looking for a higher res than HD

Yep, all depends on the monitor you have and the graphics cards. Modern games can already go well beyond HD resolution so long as you have the hardware.

Simon_M_2

Q6600, 4GB RAM, DVDRW, 500GB HDD and a 9600GT can easily be built for less than £500. I built gaming PC's as part of my business for many years until it became too unprofitable, and the above spec is without doubt the best value gaming PC you can buy. Google 9600GT reviews, when this card was released earlier this year the price to performance ratio blew me away.

Hope this helps.

Bamber19

tonyhague wrote: »

go tri SLI or crossfire and you could find yourself looking for a higher res than HD

I wouldn't advise it, it's overkill and a waste of money for the performance boost you get.

johng_uk

superscaper wrote: »

Yep, all depends on the monitor you have and the graphics cards. Modern games can already go well beyond HD resolution so long as you have the hardware.

So would your monitor and graphics card have to state that they were HD ready?

johng_uk

Simon_M wrote: »

Q6600, 4GB RAM, DVDRW, 500GB HDD and a 9600GT can easily be built for less than £500. I built gaming PC's as part of my business for many years until it became too unprofitable, and the above spec is without doubt the best value gaming PC you can buy. Google 9600GT reviews, when this card was released earlier this year the price to performance ratio blew me away.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the advice Simon.

I just wouldn't be confident building a PC though! I wouldn't have the time, patience (or know-how) to test each bit individually etc. Also, I like the piece of man a 2-3 year rtb warranty gives you. The warranty I have atm has been a godsend tbh, and I'd like that safety blanket again.

johng_uk

tonyhague wrote: »

blueray? readers/writers available now, but the disks (and writers) are prohibitively expensive. HD Games/graphics? 1920×1080 (1080p) is a high resoultion, but the latest cards can handle it without too much bother, go tri SLI or crossfire and you could find yourself looking for a higher res than HD

I thought they were available now tbh Tony.

Going back to my pervious post about waiting - It may actually be worthwhile. I'm sure the Blu-Ray technology and HD cards will drop sharply in price in the short/medium-term, making it silly to splash out on a non-compatible system now.

However, this would depend on how far into the future it will be before games which take advantage of this technology are actually built!

superscaper

johng_uk wrote: »

So would your monitor and graphics card have to state that they were HD ready?

No. As I said you can get ones capable of going well beyond HD resolutions so using the "HD" name is meaningless as it's only a single resolution. You can get monitors that have an HDMI cable as well which allows you to connect it to HD sources such as sky+, blu ray players etc but unless you're specifically doing that or conversely trying to connect your computer to an HD TV it's pointless looking for either graphics card or monitor with "HD" associated. Nice as a bonus but it has absolutely no bearing on gaming since games could play at lower resolution than HD or above HD resolution (and you don't see "super HD" labels or anything like that) and anything in between with various other technologies for the graphics besides resolution which is only one factor.

superscaper

johng_uk wrote: »

However, this would depend on how far into the future it will be before games which take advantage of this technology are actually built!

I think you've misunderstood. Games already can play at HIGHER resolutions than HD. So making games as HD only (which is pointless anyway since it's only a single resolution) is actually a step backwards. HD was brought in for video/TV viewing. Gaming is a separate issue and been "ahead" of that for years.

As for blu ray you can already get blu ray writers for pc and it also has no bearing as it's merely a larger storage solution than DVD, nothing more. It adds nothing in terms of capability other than being able to pop in a blu ray movie which again is a separate thing from gaming.

DatabaseError

johng_uk wrote: »

Going back to my pervious post about waiting - It may actually be worthwhile. I'm sure the Blu-Ray technology and HD cards will drop sharply in price in the short/medium-term, making it sailly to splash out on a non-compatible system now

my guess is bluray players/disks will drop price significantly in around 2 and a half to 3 years, enjoy the wait. HD cards?? guess everyone else has answered that one (as I did also)

bumpydog

I know this probably is the response you didn't want, but my advice would definately be to build your own. I completed my first desktop build a couple of years ago and it really was dead easy ( the whole build was completed in around 3 hours ). Plus you get a machine with exactly the spec you want for a price that is probably cheaper than buying a ready-made system, and the satisfaction of building your own is brilliant

take a look over at http://www.buildyourown.org.uk/ and maybe post the same question in thier forums. ( no offense to people on this board but the quality of tech knowledge over there is probably a bit better). If nothing else they will be able to give you advice on the best components, even if you decide against building it yourself.

good luck mate