Advice needed for a Gaming PC

Jarlawuk

I'm looking to spend £1000-£1200 on a gaming PC and have set aside a budget for around £200 for a monitor but having literally spent hours online looking at deals I'm getting further and further away from making a decision.

I originally decided on a HP Pavillion Elite HPE-083 but want to be absolutely sure that its the best thing that I can get for my budget as I don't want to change my PC for a good few years really.

Thanks for any help in advance!

tomfun

To pay that sort of money for a p.c that doesn`t even have a one of the high end graphics cards is a bad idea to me,
I would buy all your parts sepertly and build one yourself ,that way you will get a much better spec machine for less money,

As for monitors i just bought a Samsung syncmaster 2343nw 23" and it is a superb monitor ,bought from ebuyer for £150 ish .

Not sure if i`m missing something but this spec p.c would cost roughly

cpu = £200
Graphics card = £130
Harddrive = £70
Motherboard ?? £100 (at most)
Case ?? £60 (at most)
Windows 7 £70 ish
Bluray drive £70
8 gig memory £120

I get about £800 so a saving of about 3-400 quid

RobertoMoir

The badge alone must be about £200 of what they want to charge you for that!

justjohn

build it .....or get it built at your local computer shop ...big budget ..so no probs

BillScarab

Hav a look in some of the magazines focussed on gaming and see what they recommend. Companies like Zoostorm and Cyberpower seem to do well normally.

If you're after a gamingmachine I wouldn't be looking at HP.

How about this as an example for £765? Core i7, 6 Gb RAM, 1 Gb GTS250 and a 1 Tb drive. I'm not sure how good the graphics card is as I'm a little out of touch with them but that should do OK.

http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/system/mega_sales_IV/

You can also customize the machines on there to get it exactly how you want.

Jarlawuk

Thanks for the replies/advice so far - I've been out of touch for a few years as its been years since I got a pc, I just thought that 1798mb was quite an impressive figure for a gfx card so thought it was quite good

zonker84

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260506356207&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT


How about that? I know you have to be careful buying from eBay when it comes to computers, but all looks good and the feedback is exceptional by eBay standards. I don't see anything wrong with it, but I'm sure others might tear me to shreds!!

JasX

yes def avoid the big brand names in that price range, recently self built myself for £1500 and then couldn't find similar spec for less than £2500-2800 from a mainstream vendor so significant savings to be had.

if you're deciding between components googling things like "CPU benchmark", "graphics card benchmark" or "<component model number> benchmark" will take you to a few sites/reviews where those components have been tested and reviewed against a common set of tests and useful for comparing relative performance.

comments on the ones linked earlier

http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/system/mega_sales_IV/

looks ok hardware wise, note only has 10/100 ethernet and lacks a gigabit interface, graphics card is 'just about' still high end but should be good for a few years yet, no wifi, no OS!!!!! (hope they atleast supply drivers or you'll be googling those) and you might consider dropping a sound card in at some point.....

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...=STRK:MEWAX:IT
ok spec for the price.... can't see any obvious easy upgrades for when it might start to struggle in 3 years time but for £500 how far wrong can you go.

if self building i've posted the below before -its easy and nothing to be scared of

would allow further savings if you have an old 'half decent' spec machine you're scrapping and can re-use some components (eg CD-drive, Hard Drive if its SATA2, case if its a good one, floppy drive etc etc)

self spec is fairly straightforward
1-choose the type of processor you want -look at performance benchmark sites and see how far up the table you can go on your budget.
2-choose the graphics card you want -same idea
3-choose a motherboard thats compatible with 2 components chosen above, also check available card slots and type (PCI/PCIe) for additional cards you know you'll want (eg soundcard, wifi, any unusual ones you might have) also check number and typr oe HDD connections if you have/plan multiple hard drives in future.
4-buy some RAM compatible with the motherboard chosen in 3 -> can make some saving now here and upgrade later if you plan it well (ie don't buy lots of small sized RAM chips that fill all your slots)
5-Buy a PSU with enough power to supply all the above (5-600W would be typical these days unless planning multiple graphics cards or something else unusual -if taking a very cheap one check it has enough connectors for all hard/CD drives and motherboard connections you need)
6- get a case big enough to fit everything in without being too cramped
7-maybe invest an extra £2 or so in a few extra case fans

again some things you can put off buying to save cash now so long as you leave space for in future (eg sound card if motherboard has basic onboard sound)

RobertoMoir

zonker84 wrote: »

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260506356207&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT


How about that? I know you have to be careful buying from eBay when it comes to computers, but all looks good and the feedback is exceptional by eBay standards. I don't see anything wrong with it, but I'm sure others might tear me to shreds!!

I personally hate all the lights. I don't play games on my house's lights and I don't expect the games playing computer to light the entire house.

That aside, its ok... nothing bad nothing to get excited about. The graphics cards are a little mediocre though for someone who wants a high end machine - even with SLI you don't make an eagle by tying two turkeys together.

tomfun

Take a look at toms hardware, i think it`s the best way to copmare cpu/gpu`s

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/charts/gaming-graphics-cards-charts-2009-high-quality/3DMark06-v1.1.0-3DMark-Score,1533.html

Have a look at the differance between the Nvidia gtx 295 ( about £300 ) to buy easily beats the gtx 260 in all tests ,this 3d mark test the 295 scores 24000 compared to 17000 of the 260.
So basically i would want the 295 for that kind of money and it would be possible if you or someone else built this for you.

JasX

tomfun wrote: »

Have a look at the differance between the Nvidia gtx 295 ( about £300 ) to buy easily beats the gtx 260 in all tests ,this 3d mark test the 295 scores 24000 compared to 17000 of the 260.

I have that card -it runs very hot so make sure you have a nice big well ventilated case if going for it... and enough space/slots to have empty slots either side. I'd suggest looking at Radeon's offerings too as they seem to outperform the 295 on other benchmarks too