Advice on gaming PC please

xxdeebeexx

Hi DS1 wants to blow his inheritance from Grandad on a gaming pc. I can't talk him round.......

Granny told him that he could spend it on anything he wants, so that's what he plans to do.
All I can do now, is make sure that he gets good value for money and was hoping that someone would be kind enough to help.
tia

dx

This is his plan.....


For gaming and video editing
Computer
Dinopc.com
CPU: NEW! Intel Core i7 3770 - £203.30


CPU Cooler: NEW! Xigmatek Dark Knight Nighthawk SD1283 - £34.99


Operating System: No Operating System - I will install my own Included


Motherboard: NEW! Asus P8Z77-V LX2 - Included


Memory: NEW! 8GB Corsair 2133mhz Vengeance (2x4GB) - £48.50


Hard Drives: 120GB SSD S-ATAII 3.0Gb/s - £35.60


Additional Storage: 1TB S-ATAIII 6.0Gb/s - £56.09


Optical Drive: 22x DVD±RW DL S-ATA - Included


Graphics card: NEW! NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB - £239.79


Sound card: Onboard 7.1 Audio - Included


Case: NEW! Zalman Z11 Plus - £40.90


PSU: 700W Xigmatek - £53.10



Warranty: 3 Year SureCare Warranty - Included

Product Subtotal:


£922.90

Computer monitor
Byhunt.co.uk

Acer G245HQtbid –

LCD monitor - 23.6 - 1920 x 1080 FullHD

300 cd/m2 - 80000:1 (dynamic)

2 ms - HDMI, DVI-D, VGA – black

Product Subtotal:


£113

jaydeeuk1

The radeon 7950 is also a consideration, its a fair bit cheaper than the 660 yet near enough identical performance

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Graphics+Cards+-+GPUs/Graphics+Cards+-+AMD/Radeon+HD+7950/XFX+Double+D+Radeon+HD+7950+3072MB+GDDR5+PCI-Express+Graphics+Card+%2B+FREE+Games%21+?operation=shoppingBasketAdd&productId=52185&context=clearance

£216 and comes with some games too. Those prices are pretty extortionate considering it takes less than an hour to build a PC - they don't even need to install an OS. Everything should be covered by sales of goods act so 3 year warranty pointless - no doubt you'll have to pay to have it sent back too.

Edit - Considering Dell were selling the above spec last month with blu ray drive too and windows 8 (only a 640 card though) for £599 all in you can see how expensive the above is. Even adding £280 for a better GPU and really decent PSU (xigmatek = cheap brand) it still came in way cheaper

-TangleFoot-

xxdeebeexx wrote: »

make sure that he gets good value for money

Self-assembly or pre-built you'll be after quality components; don't be taken in by bright lights and flashy marketing.

The best computers don't necessarily glow in the dark.

Edit: this one looks particularly nice.

Lum

At this price level I'd spend a little more on the power supply and ensure that it's from a known high quality manufacturer such as Seasonic. A dodgy PSU can cause all kinds of stability issues and is one of the few things that can actually do damage to the rest of the PC.

I'm also concerned about that £35 SSD. It's very telling that they don't mention which make/model of SSD it is, and there is a lot of rubbish at this price level. Even more alarming is they state that it's an SATA2 model. SATA2 SSDs haven't been made for a long time so this is likely some ancient piece of crap someone found gathering dust in a warehouse somewhere.
If he doesn't want to do some research, basically go for one with a Sandforce 2200 controller, and avoid the 128GB models as they are less reliable than the 120GB models. I personally would also avoid drives made by OCZ given some of their previous shenanigans.

Ximian

That's a pricey PC OP.
I built a PC last year (Intel i7, new case, 8GB RAM, 1GB Graphics card - Gigabyte GTX 560 OC Edition 1GB, 650 w PSU, Noctua Cooler, 1TB Hard Drive, DVD Writer) and in total came to around £720

There's nothing wrong with not buying the latest and greatest, as you'll be paying a premium. The components I listed above are fine for most of the games available today.

xxdeebeexx

Thank you so much for your comments and suggestions.

I'm pretty sure that DS1 is too impatient to build his own pc. He wants it instantly.

I know, at one time, that pc components had to be 'compatable' I don't know if that's the case now. We don't have that kind of knowledge

I think I would rather encourage him to get a ready built one from, say, Dell, find a couple of discount codes and Topcashback to bring the price down.

He wants to play War z on the pc and do video editing.....

thanks

dx

System

a spec like that from dell will be loads of money!
also when you spec up a system like that, someone needs to build it so there is a time period for that anyway, it's always more fun building your own! (and cheaper)

kingshouse

Head over to Overclockers UK forum.

Carer

I second looking at Overclockers and Cyberpower forums. Guys on there are so helpful, can't recommend them enough.
I got loads of help when I was looking for mine. I ended up buying from Cyberpower as it had the better build/price for me in the end and I am extremely pleased with the system I now have.

-TangleFoot-

xxdeebeexx wrote: »

He wants to play War z

The War Z? Really?

• RPS
• PCG

Lum

You do not want to buy a gaming PC from Dell, seriously.

Most Dell's are made as cheaply as possible and are fine for home or office use, although their cost cutting has pushed out a few inherently faulty designs from time to time (hello GX280 and GX620 capacitor failure!)

Their gaming stuff doesn't have the same economy of scale so they don't have the savings, it also isn't their area of expertise, unless you go for their Alienware brand but then you really are looking at silly money.

Have a look at overclockers.co.uk or pcspecialist.co.uk as these companies are set up for doing build to order systems in the spec you want. If you are doing build to order then don't worry too much about compatibility as it's the suppliers problem to make sure they ship a working PC to you and they generally won't let you select a combination that won't work.

And seriously, do not cheap out on the SSD or the power supply. A cheap SSD is worthless and will probably be slower than a mechanical hard drive.