will this system be ok for gaming

lexi

ok, i have a reasonable budget & understand a gaming pc is expensive, so saw this system & wanted to know if anyone had any thoughts on it: ( i need it for my OH to play COD!

• Intel® Core™i3-550 Dual Core (3.20GHz, 4MB Cache) + HD Graphics
• ASUS® P7H55-M SI: MICRO ATX VALUE MAINBOARD,USB 2.0 & SATA 3.0Gb/s
• 4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
• 1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GT430 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
• 1TB SERIAL ATA 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 16MB CACHE (7,200rpm)

JasX

looks perfectly ok to me for a mid range / not OTT gaming system, little weak on the processor but more than sufficient, hope you're not planning to pay more than £600 for it, a good buy would be closer to £500 -assuming you're buying it 'ready to go' with OS included.

lexi

thanx for that. yep it is £500 well £503 to be exact! as previously said my OH plays games & i just went for the latest COD game to check min specs. He goes online mainly to play the games but we wanted an option to get a decent pc game too. It does come with windows 7 ( if that what you meant by OS) .
Looks like i will go ahead & het it then! thanx again

gonzo127

to be honest if gaming was the main use of the system i would probably be looking at spending more on the graphics card and a bit less on the processor, as the GT430 isnt massivly powerful - but then again it does depend on your budget

lexi

gonzo,
budget is a priority really. I know a proper gaming pc comes a lot more expensive & the graphics card is also very important. However i guess i want the best of both worlds, a fairly powerful pc with a fairly good graphics card all for around £500 quid. I just need the the graphic card to be better than Geforce GTS 240 or ATI radeon HD 3870, which i am hoping the system i have mentioned will be.

gonzo127

to be honest i think it would be 'tight' as to if it is better or not as the 250gts (the next one up from the 240gts) is the previous version of the 450gts which is more powerful than the 430gt (god i hate nvidia's naming conventions)

this is a good review for COD
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=26843&page=4

as you can see on a normal (non full hd) 22 inch montior (1650 x 1050) you get just barely playable frame rates (playable frame rates are above 24 fps) with 2xAA, which to me, as a gamer, wouldnt be totally acceptable - although it might be for your OH, i just dont like to be that close to a juddery screen for the more intense parts of a game

for this however you might be better with something like this
http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/system/weekly_sales_II/
or
http://www.dinopc.com/shop/pc/configurePrd.asp?idproduct=1023
which although have a slower CPU have a much better graphics card

Mr_Thrifty

What do you want to play computer games for anyway?

Get out there, play in the great outdoors and make some friends.

lexi

Gonzo, many thanx. Oh the world of Pc's is very confusing.the graphics cards are a nightmare! Are you suggesting i go for a full system, as currently its only a bse unit that we require, due to the fact thats the only part that has 'died'. I will certianly check out the links you posted when my OH & i get home from work! If you feel you have anything else to add please feel free, i am genuinely very grateful for your help thus far!

gonzo127

a base unit would be what i would suggest getting as you already have (i am assuming ) the montior keyboard etc so seems silly to spend money getting them again when you can spend that money on a better specced base unit

what you will see on those links is that they are customisable, so you can play around till your heart is content, the cyber power one i would however suggest removing the water cooling aspect as unless you plan on overclocking your system it is a un-nessesary expense, and risk, there are as ever other things you can play with, such as the case.

as to other things to add, i would only say to be realistic as to what the system will be used for, yes its great having the latest and greatest parts throughout the system however they will add more to the costs, for example, CPU's - most normal CPU's these days do not get fully used unless you are doing massivly intensive work such as video encoding, yes the more powerful CPU the quicker everything will run, however the average Joe will probably not notice much difference in the day to day running of the system - whereas having a graphics card which is not powerful enough for a gamer is a bit of a deal breaker as it will be massively noticable if the game jumps from one frame to the next

just note i am not suggesting you buy from either of those companies i have posted links to as i have not used either since i always build my own systems, i am just using them as examples of the sort of spec you might want to think about for your budget - also just remember to buy with a credit card from where ever you do buy from so that you get the extra consumer protection

JasX

lexi wrote: »

Gonzo, many thanx. Oh the world of Pc's is very confusing.the graphics cards are a nightmare! Are you suggesting i go for a full system, as currently its only a bse unit that we require, due to the fact thats the only part that has 'died'. I will certianly check out the links you posted when my OH & i get home from work! If you feel you have anything else to add please feel free, i am genuinely very grateful for your help thus far!

ack, googling benchmarks gonzo is right to pick up that graphics card is a little on the light side..... hadn't updated myself since the earlier days of the 400 series before they started slipping underpowered cards into that range. would probably be 'ok', for COD but you might want to see if you can find something a bit stronger to make sure it can cope with other games that come out over the next 2 years or so......

JesseJames_2

FYI Got the same graphics card and the Windows Experience Index shows 6.5 for both graphics scores.

Saying that I would probably spend £30 extra for a better graphics card if I was more into PC gaming.