Which gaming PC?

fabhartom

I am looking to buy a gaming PC for my son, it will have to be an already built system as I know very little about them. I saw the Lenovo Erazer X310 in John Lewis for £799 but contacted Overclockers for any similar priced PCs in stock with better specs who then directed me to
"Ignition Express" Core i5 4460 GeForce GTX 960 Gaming PC for £699. This PC seems to have a better graphics card to the one in John Lewis so I presume it is a better buy? Anyone else seen any off the shelf PCs for around £600 that will play the latest games before I buy the one from Overclockers that will be upgradable for future needs. Many thanks

Cycrow

The Lenovo has a better CPU and more ram, but for gaming, neither of these will really make a difference.

the Ignition Express is a better gaming pc

fabhartom

Thank you that is why I hesitated as it has less ram etc..

Cycrow

no game currently needs more than 8gb ram.

Infact, most cant even use that much if they wanted to (as most games are still 32bit applications)

And you can also add more ram in the future if you need to

Cisco001

£600

http://www.ebuyer.com/722003-cyberpower-armour-elite-iv-gaming-pc-ecc01284
http://www.ebuyer.com/718014-pc-specialist-vortex-venom-ii-gaming-pc-pcs-d828685

There is a zoomstorm with similar spec with £560. But it only have 350W PSU and 1 year warranty. I think it worth spending extra £40 for slightly better psu and longer warranty

edit: this seems good deals. But never heard of this company before.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/ADMI-Processor-Graphics-1600MHz-pre-installed/dp/B00WUF3H26/ref=sr_1_15?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1444233084&sr=1-15&keywords=GTX+960

fabhartom

Thank you Cycrow for explaining

fabhartom

Thank you Cisco001 will take a look

ArchangelEST

Just to add some more information:

A GTX 960 is a great entry level graphics card for gamers and should produce visual quality equal or somewhat better than what the latest generation consoles can do. However, it will not allow newer PC games to be played at the maximum settings in most cases. This will depend on the resolution of the monitor you have, but in all likelihood, a serious gamer will find this card lacking in power.

That said, it's no secret that better graphics cards get a lot more expensive. A GTX 970 is a much stronger card, but the price tag is equally high. Luckily, a video card can always be exchanged for a more powerful one if more funds become available. The old card can usually be sold fairly easily as second hand trade is quite common with computer parts.

As for RAM - 8GB is absolutely fine. The only situation where more RAM is necessary for ordinary folk, is when you desire to multi-tab while browsing the internet while also running other programs.

For example, I often play games and leave them running on pause, as I browse the web in the meantime. I also keep 20-50 tabs open in my browser most of the time, and that means 8GB of RAM is not enough.

But most modern PC's should allow for additional RAM to be added later. So 8GB is perfectly fine for starters. Your son can perhaps collect his own allowance to pay for an upgrade down the line.

For processors - any current or last generation i5 processor is quite fine.

Other bits and pieces like PSU, Motherboard and Hard Drives / SSD's are not as relevant to gaming performance. PSU's and motherboards in preassembled PC's should be up to snuff and with Hard Disks and SSD's - your wallet will dictate how much storage you can afford.

I recommend a 64-128GB SSD for the Operating System and 500GB+ for general storage.

fabhartom

Thanks again Cisco001 for the extra info off to look at them

fabhartom

ArchangelEST thank you very much, what a minefield it all is if you haven't a clue what it all means as I don't really....the information you have provided is very helpful. I would have preferred to upgrade his laptop as that seems easier but he has wanted a gaming PC for a while so am grateful for any input. I also understand the budget I have around £700 seems very low for a gaming PC already built.

Cycrow

£700 is plenty for a gaming pc.

those pcs with GTX960 should play all games pretty well (most at high graphics settings)
for a little more, the GTX970 is better, and is the perfect card for 1080p gaming

£700 wont get you much in a laptop however, and even the expensive ones are not that great at games