Better deals?

Xephys

I'm trying to get a top quality gaming PC with good specs, but most of the PC websites are coming out with prices in the range of £1500 to over £2000. I've found one website which has the things I want for £1200. Specs:
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™2 Duo E6850 (2 X 3.00GHz) 1333MHz FSB/4MB L2 Cache
Memory (RAM)
4GB CORSAIR DDR2 667MHz - LIFETIME WARRANTY! (4x1GB)
Motherboard
ASUS® STRIKER EXTREME: DUAL DDR2, S-ATA II, 2 x x16 VGA, 2 PCI
Operating System
64 BIT WINDOWS® VISTA Home Premium (inc CD & License) (£69)
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS (4 REAR + 2 FRONT) AS STANDARD
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
320GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7200rpm)




1st CD/DVD Drive
20x Dual Layer LightScribe DVD Writer ±R/±RW/RAM


Graphics Card
640MB GEFORCE 8800GTS PCI Express + DVI + TV-OUT


Sound Card
Sound Blaster® Audigy® SE with 7.1 Surround Sound: £15
Modem
NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND
Network Facilities
WIRELESS 54Mbps NETWORK CARD (£9)




Case
CoolerMaster CM Stacker 831 Aluminium Case
Power Supply & Case Cooling
700W Quiet Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£79)
Processor Cooling
ASUS SILENT KNIGHT II PURE COPPER ULTRA COOLER (£36)
Firewire & Video Editing
2 x IEEE 1394a FIREWIRE PORTS (1 onboard, 1 at back panel)
TV Card
NONE
Monitor
19 INCH TFT Silver/Black 1280 x1024 8MS D-Sub, DVI, Audio (£99)








Keyboard & Mouse
Logitech® Cordless Internet Pro Desktop Keyboard & Mouse (Black) (£16)
















Warranty
1 Year Return-to-Base incl 1st Month Free Collect & Return




Sorry for the spaces, can't make them go away. So, I wanna see if all of this would work, and better recommendations. I'd like to price to be closer to £1000.

BillScarab

You'll struggle to get aa really good gaming system including monitor, keyboard and mouse for £1000.

My advice would be first of all ditch the lightscribe DVD writer and go for a standard one. That will save a couple of quid.

You could drop the memory to 2Gb to save a few pounds.

You could also look at putting a cheaper CPU in and overclocking it.

Do you need wireless network connectivity?

Do you really need a 700w PSU?

That cooler looks a bit expensive to me, you could buy it with the standard one and then get a bettre one later.

I owuldn't use a cordless mouse and keyboard for gaming, not that using a wired one will save you anything.

Also the 8800 GTS is the bare minimum graphics card for gaming, I think you'd be better with a 8800GT but they're in very short supply at the moment.

Why have you specified 64 bit windows for a gaming system? You'd be better off with 32 bit in my opinion.


BTW where did you spec it up? It looks like it came from pcspecialist, in which case why not just go for their £1000 gaming system that comes with the 8800GT, a 22" monitor, the E6750 CPu and a 500Gb hard disc?

Xephys

Thanks, and after looking around a bit more I can see I'm not going to get deals which are any better.

I thought 8800GTS was a pretty darn good graphics card, with the 640MB of memory.

Also, I didn't see that deal, I'll look for it now. Thanks again.

map200uk

700w psu, prob not needed-i have a huge watt psu, but thats for several tb of storage!

a normal cheapo dvdr will be fine-dvdrs are dirt cheap now and there wont be much between brands imo

altho i am a fan of pioneer (still cheap compared to when the a01/a02 was first out at 200+ when dvdrs were new)

as for the 64bit OS, ther eis really no need, due to the fact that most games/apps cant fully make us of the 64bit OS - is the windows 64bit os even final release? Thought it was still in beta-there are also still driver issues with 64bit OS's

map

ormus

check out the dell site. xps range (quad core) for between 600 and 2600 quid. 4 models.
the basic model has a 8600gts card and the others have a 8800gtx card.

BillScarab

Xephys wrote: »

Thanks, and after looking around a bit more I can see I'm not going to get deals which are any better.

I thought 8800GTS was a pretty darn good graphics card, with the 640MB of memory.

Also, I didn't see that deal, I'll look for it now. Thanks again.

The 8800GTS is a good card, but the 8800GT has just been released and basically makes pretty much every other graphics card redundant, it's cheaper than the 8800GTS and faster. Even though the 8800GTX cards are still faster, they cost far, far more. Have a read of this review.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3140&p=7

There are lots of other similar reviews on the web as well.

If I was buying a gaming PC today that's the card I would buy, unless I had an unlimited budget and could afford a pair of 8800GTX Ultras of course!

Xephys

Har, I would think a pair of them would set you back way over £1000 by themselves. If I had unlimited funds I would just go to Alienware and buy the best they have, which I think is over £5000. Hehe. Thanks everyone btw, been a big help.

Another question though, the GT having only 512MB of VM isn't bad is it? I still don't understand what GDDR3 is, is it like a multiplier?

I don't personally like Dell, nor do I like XPS since I've had my bad moments with both.