Advice needed on purchasing/building a gaming PC

Crazy_Jamie

So recently I've been giving some consideration to picking up a gaming PC. I haven't really played the latest PC games since about 2005, and my MacBook Pro from June 2006 clearly cannot cope with the latest titles. It can, however, still provide more than adequately for my day to day needs, so I'm literally looking at a PC (or laptop, but I expect a desktop is the way to go) for gaming purposes.

I don't need some all powerful behemoth that is futureproof. Something that runs the likes of Left 4 Dead 2 and Team Fortress 2 without complaining would be more than adequate. In terms of price I was hoping for something around £500 all in, though I have no idea how realistic that is.

I also don't know what I need in terms of the more technical specifications. Which is why I turn to you fine people. I expect I'll be looking at buying more than building (because I would need to find someone else to actually do the building), and don't mind buying second hand for the right product, but I need to know what I need to be looking for first.

So, any advice? I'm more than happy for people to cover the basics for the sake of completeness.

Niv

Why do you need to find someone else to build it for you? Do you not have any hands? If not then sure you need someone to do it for you , if you do, you cam easily do it yourself if you wanted.

This is a very good site for self building and confirming specs:
http://www.buildyourown.org.uk/

Niv

JasX

one of the better places kicking around from a pre-built/gaming/budget point of view seems to be https://www.dinopc.com for a reasonable starting place -reliable from the point of view you'll get your PC 'eventually' just don't expect them to meet any promised shipping dates or do much by way of customer service (use a credit card for the extra purchasing protection).

Better value might be able to be had if you have an old PC you can re-use bits of in a self build (eg DVD drive, case, floppy,PSU etc).

a 'half way house' to self building is starting from a barebones unit (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/barebones.html also worth looking at the mnotherboard bundles)

For catching up on the latest hardware have a look over

here

http://www.pcper.com/hwlb.php

and use this for comparing specific processors / graphics cards

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/

finally if you get any choice in the mattter try and get a spinpoint F3 1TB (Model: HD103SJ) and put your OS on a reduced size outer partition to use the fastest part of the drive.

gonzo127

to be honest my normal cheap reference gaming system is this one http://www.dinopc.com/shop/pc/configurePrd.asp?idproduct=935 however i have never used this company so do not know what the customer service is like, i use this as a reference because it is a good basic spec at a good price. although take into account delivery is £25

now i dont know what your idea of all in is in such that do you need a monitor (or are you going to put it through you TV) - if so what size would you like? do yo uneed mouse and keyboard and speakers? do you need wireless? and do you plan on over clocking it?

now going with a few minor modifacations listed
change to X4 CPU (-£1.90)
change to piano black case (-£10.50)
add keyboard mouse and speakers combination (+£12.19)
add 19 inch monitor (+£78.99)
brings the full system to £477.78 + £25 for delivery

now if you dont need a monitor because you will put it through a TV (most LCD TV's will have a connection for a PC) this of course would free up more money for other upgrades but we need to know really what all in means to you

gonzo127

oh and this is a excellent starting point for a self build http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/buyers-guide/2010/11/03/pc-hardware-buyer-s-guide-november-2010/1 - this however does not include a copy of windows or monitor or keyboard mouse and speakers so once again is down to what a full system means to you

although please bear in mind this http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/2010/12/03/pc-hardware-buyer-s-guide-december-2010/

Crazy_Jamie

JasX and Gonzo; thanks very much for the information and links. All exceptionally helpful. DinoPC looks like the type of site that I need in terms of making the buying quite straightforward with some flexibility.

Gonzo; the idea of 'all in' probably will include a monitor and keyboard/mouse, though I'm not 100% certain yet. This really is only the starting point of an idea in terms of me buying a gaming PC, so I'm not getting in to the absolute specifics at the moment- just getting a general feel for things.

Niv wrote: »

Why do you need to find someone else to build it for you? Do you not have any hands? If not then sure you need someone to do it for you , if you do, you cam easily do it yourself if you wanted.

I have neither the technical knowledge (read: zero) nor the time to look into doing this myself unfortunately. So I think buying something pre built or customised rather than building myself is the way to go.

hubert_cumberdale

i bought a dell pc and slowly added bits graphics card is the main part I paid 480 for my card and its amazing for games full HD to my TV. Only down side is i had to cut the side of the PC tower with a saw to allow it to fit in. But will be getting a new motherboad and processor soon so will get a new tower then

the card i have has
Features:-
- Core Clock: 797MHz (Fermi GF110)
- 64 TMUs (GTX 480 had 60 TMUs)
- Innovative thermal design: Vapour Chamber (Quieter than previous generation)
- Memory: 1536MB GDDR5
- Memory Clock: 4050MHz (Effective)
- Memory Interface: 384-Bit
- Processing Cores: 512
- Shader Clock: 1594MHz
- Bus Type: PCI-Express 2.0
- Display Connectors: 2x Dual-Link DVI-I & 1x Mini-HDMI 1.4a (Includes HDMI & VGA Adapters)
- SLI Ready (Upto 3-Way SLI Supported)
- HDCP Capable
- DirectX 11 Support
- OpenGL 4.0 Support
- PhysX Enabled
- CUDA Enabled
- 3D Vision Enabled
- NVIDIA Surround Enabled

so it has loads of memory on board and a super processor and i can link 2 more to it although thats a bit over the top lol

the top end cards have processor built in so they dont rely so heavily on the actual computer processor

JasX

yes hubert but spending £480 on the card will probably stretch the remaining £20 of the OPs £500 budget somewhat to get all the other bits they need.....

I would also not be startiing from a Dell if i was adding that kind of card.

not to mention how well iron filings and delicate electronics go together after alll that sawing

hubert_cumberdale

Have a look on overclockers.co.uk they have some good stuff and there and good bundles

i only started from the dell as i was fed up with the xbox graphics and thought i would moved to pc gaming but the card transformed it into a great machine

just need to bin the quad core and 4gb memory for some full speed ahead action