buying a new pc!!! advise would be appreciated :)

[Faelinor]

Hello all!!

I'm wanting to buy myself a new Custom built PC. I am not loaded, being a student, but have managed to scrape together 3 - 400 quid to invest!

I am bang into my games, so i wanted something generally upto date, and something that won't need upgrading for a while...

after a bit gleg on ebay, i found this::
Desktop Gaming PC Quad 10.6Ghz 8GB RAM 500GB 8600GT 1GB on eBay, also, Desktop PCs, Computing (end time 18-Jul-08 16:41:54 BST)

it seems like, totally ideal ... but i didnt think you could get uber pcs this cheap now?? is there something fundamentally wrong with this machine?
or should i snap it up as soon as possible??..

havent bought a new pc in years so am not technically upto date on what it needs, but it seems pretty decent. could anyone let me know if it's worth buying for playing all manners of new games?

Thanks a lot in advance!!

 

[Helme]

That PC is 'alright'.

If you went up to the £400ish line however you could get a PC that will vastly outperform it - infact it will max every game graphically for the next year or two easily, and after that still play on high settings.

I would suggest something along the lines of;
CPU: E8400(or E7200, if money is tight)
GFX: ATi Radeon HD4850(this is really, the only proper card to get currently, it's top of the line but costs next to nothing)
RAM: 2x1GB DDR2 PC6400(800MHz) from Corsair/OCZ/Geil should be just fine, after a month or two you add another 2 sticks identical to the first for the full 4GB.
Motherboard: I would suggest the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L - have a number of friends who got just that motherboard with no problems at all.
PSU: Corsair 450W - without doubt the most priceworthy PSU out there, don't cheap out on this part. You could probably find a cheaper place to get the parts from, I don't really know of any UK price compare sites and the only reason I used Aria was because it was the only other place I knew off in the UK other than overclockers(who from my experience, are shit expensive).

The other parts all depends on what you want, 500GB HDD, 250GB and so on and a case - any case will do really(hell you can use your old one). What you want to pay is what limits you here.

I put a computer together on Aria.co.uk and it went up to £430 or so, but that's with a 500GB HDD and an E8400 so it could easily go down cheaper(especially if you skip the case and use your old one, including the DVD you have now!).


Another idea to be able to afford a better PC is to look at what parts you currently have, then upgrade it in portions when you get more money - even just changing your CPU would be a huge upgrade, make sure if you go this route btw that your other parts will fit!

 

[Faelinor]

Firstly, thanks for bothering to reply - sound of you...

just a few questions, erm - surely that quad core processor is better than the E8400?? As i said before im not technically gifted, but arn't they like - the upgraded versions of dual core's? like better newer versions?

and the problem i have with building my own PC, is that im sure i will fuck it up, and end up not knowing what i've done wrong, and ultimately having to grind and save for another :/ ... so although it's a good idea re-using old parts or whatever, would have to build it myself, and i'm a bit funny about it - what if it fucks up and i havent got it under warranty ? :/

so that ATi Radion outperforms the 8600GT?? i thought that the GT was one of the top of the range cards? read some reviews etc and they were all five stars.

so that PC won't say, be able to play multiple versions of daoc at once? or play say the likes of Diablo 3 etc when it comes out??

cheers mate!

 

[Helme]

The 8600GT card is from the 'old' generation of graphic cards, and even back then it was very midrange, ATi's new 4000 card series is magnificent, probably the most priceworthy graphic cards ever released. They've forced nVidia to cut prices on some of their cards by up to 30-40% just to stay competitive.

Regarding the DualCore vs. QuadCore, the E8400 is generally faster than most quadcores(except the Q9000's, which costs twice as much) because it runs on a faster bus speed, aswell as being built on 45nm chips instead of 65nm, another pro for the E8400 is that you can easily get it up to 3.8-4GHz with the standard cooler and a decent case, and yet another pro is that games are having problems as it is using DualCores fully - they are a long way away from using Quads

That said, the PC you mentioned will run Diablo3 with no problems aslong as you turn off some of the fancy graphics because of the card, one option I guess would be to get that PC and then in some months or so, just buy an HD4850(or HD4870, depending on how they are priced then) and it'll be able to go full out.

Regarding fears of breaking something; Only really shady stores will refuse to exchange parts you got from them and installed yourself, and chances of you actually destroying parts are fairly low, most stuff only fits in 1 place - and theres thousands of "how to" step by step guides on the net, including videos etc. this is not even mentioning the manuals for all the parts which also have picture guides(my old Athlon came with a 45 step guide on how to install the CPU, what it boiled down to was - put it in the socket and put the fan ontop and press down the fan secure lever). Not to speak about the silly sums of money you will save in the long run knowing you can do it yourself


- Ah just remembered another thing, apparently word got out a few days ago that all the 8600GT cards were shipped with faulty chips that were very prone to failure, nVidia being the immature little child that it is refuses to take blame and instead tosses it onto several, independant manufacturers fucking up rather than their chip being faulty -.-

 

[Faelinor]

cheers for the imput Helme

yeah, it may well be cheaper building it up yourself, but I really am still funny about it. the only experience i've had with that kinda thing is putting more ram into it .. which was a piece of piss tbh as all you had to do was put it in a slot and clip it in.

so your saying ATi Radeon HD4850 for a card ... is this like totally neccessary for a decent computer nowadays? or is it just kinda the "leet" card to have at the minute or whatever?

nice additional information about the 8600's, but theyre cheap as chips!!
are they really not that good?

and another thing ... is it really worth getting a legitimate operating system? or will a copy of xp pro do just fine?

i really don't want to spend more than £400 quid as well, as the girlfriend will go sick :/

 

[Helme]

XP will do just fine, you will need Vista or XP64bit(which I really don't recommend, it lacks drivers for most hardware) however if you plan on using 4GB or more RAM. Else there's... less legal ways to get ahold of Vista.

The reason I'm going on about HD4850 is that, it's not only a VERY VERY good card, it's also very cheap. If you go with the 8600GT, you may be able to play for a year or two at most with decent graphics(most of the new flashy stuff turned off however) and then you'll start to hit the low/very bad performance spot. The HD4850 will without a doubt let you go full out graphics wise on todays games, and next years games, and probably the year after that is the first time you might have to start turning stuff off, but it'll still perform well. The HD4850 has a longer lasting power so to say. Anyways as I said before, you will be able to play the games you mentioned fine with the 8600GT - but what about the games of next year that you don't know about yet?

As I said before, you could just go with the computer you linked - and then after a few months or so put in an HD4850(it's even easier to install than RAM).

And it's Helme, not Himse!

 

[Faelinor]

aye Helme!!! note my quick edit above lol :].

after having a bit think about it and stuff, i've decided to grow some balls and build one up myself, cos i've read up that the hardest part of building one, is getting components that are compatible with each other .. the rest is like an adult jigsaw apparently so im gonna give it a go!!!

im gonna go with the card you've said .. gonna order it on friday.. will also go with the processor and motherboard that you've suggested, unless you think that theres a processor say, 40 quid cheaper that works nearly as well as that one? the problem is, is that when im going on price comparison sites etc with the components you gave me, by the time i've got the Motherboard, CPU, PSU, graphics card and RAM its already £398.. plus theres the HDD to think about, can use my rewriter and dvd drive from my old PC so thats a plus ... still gonna be quite pricey though :/

so aye, gonna buy the motherboard and Graphics card first, and buy individual parts on a weekly basis until i've got it sorted ...

one more thing sorry Helme - wanna get my facts straight before i give it a go!! what is the jist with fans and such like? does the cpu and graphics card come with fans included? or do you need to buy fans and randomly put then inside the case? and how do you know how many fans/what type of fans you need to put in? sorry for the constant questions, just a bit nervous and don't want anything to go drastically wrong!! :]

 

[Helme]

All Intel CPU's for home use to my knowledge comes with fans included, graphic cards fans depends entirerly on the model and maker, but the more powerful ones always have fans, you could always go for the E7200 - abit cheaper but still a very good CPU.

If you could list your current computer parts I could help you get better performance with each upgrade; CPU-Z this is a good program to get motherboard/cpu/ports info, I would be mostly intrested in what type of RAM you have, if you have PCI-E and what CPU socket you have, or just go to the about tab and press registers dump(.txt) and put the text here

edit: list not link oO

 

[Faelinor]

jesus christ that'll be quite embarrasing tbh! lol. My PC is like 3 + years old, has an Athlon XP2600+ in it, and thats as much as i know :E
i don't have the internet at my flat at the moment,
am using the net at work so can't download that freeware and get you the socket info etc :/ is there anyway to do that like in system tools or whatever?

will find out as much info about me pc as possible tonight and post it tomorrow morning, for you to reply to at your own leisure if you don't mind!!

i think however the motherboard will be too old and shit to support any kind of decent upgrade :/ will try though.

so yeah, if you don't mind check this thread tomorrow at some point Helme!!
would be nice of you .... aye and thats very much for your help, legendary.

 

[Helme]

It's quite hard getting socket informations without having the handy manuals or a program made for retrieving it, see if you can grab ahold of a floppy and put the program on that? or just an mp3 player or whatever.

Else, I guess try get a motherboard model number, that'll be enough(if you have the manuals that should be quite easy, else they usually either put a lable on it or it's printed on the motherboard itself).

Problem with the older AMD's is that they are either Socket A(very likely) or Socket AM2, Socket A motherboards are very unlikely to support PCI-E, which makes upgrading in portions very difficult, as you can't go for graphic card first as it won't fit, and if you go for motherboard+cpu first - your old graphic card wont fit in the new motherboard.

 

[old.windforce]

one should never upgrade more then 2 components, and certainly not on 3+ year old systems.

I would certainly go with Helme his advice in the indicated price range

 

[Faelinor]

wey aye ... gonna have to spend about 400 quid getting an alright system. gonna go with Helme's spec he mentioned above, but im keeping my old dvd drive and cd rewriter and case ... will be able to buy all the parts for about 360 quid!! pretty decent, considering i haven't found anything as good as that for like 500 or less on the internet.. will be saving loads of money by building it myself :] just hope i don't bollocks it up!! lol.

is it easy to install windows etc? never done it before :/

 

[old.windforce]

i would replace your power supply

 

[Faelinor]

how come? what do you think's wrong with the 450W corsair?

 

[Bahumat]

how come? what do you think's wrong with the 450W corsair?

It wont be powerful enough, you wanna get a 600w psu minimum as graphics cards these days are using more a more power.

Just regarding the 10GHZ CPU!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You probably already knew, but if you have a quad core cpu @ 2.5ghz it does not mean you multiply it by 4 to get a 10ghz processor

 

[confused]

It wont be powerful enough, you wanna get a 600w psu minimum as graphics cards these days are using more a more power.

Just regarding the 10GHZ CPU!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You probably already knew, but if you have a quad core cpu @ 2.5ghz it does not mean you multiply it by 4 to get a 10ghz processor

Bahu I love ya buddy, but a 450w Psu will be fine aslong as its from a decent manufacturer, i've got the corsair 520w powering alot more than is being recommended here

 

[confused]

For the price that pc isn't bad spec tbh.

Personally I'd build it myself as you'll be able to pick each item individually and not just use whichever is cheapest at the time.

Also if you're wanting a budget gaming pc, assuming you're capable of overclocking you're going to get more out of having a more powerful gpu and less powerful cpu .

The E2180 is a good example as its capable of running at over 3ghz easily on the stock cooler

The HD4850 atm is a brilliant card that unless you're running at 1920x1050 will be capable of running all but crysis at max settings.

Case wise the one one the bay looks like it was designed by someone who probably has help dressing themself. I'd personally go for the Lian-Li PC7. Generally concidered the best budget case about.

PSU- with a single gpu and 1or more hard disks you'll be fine with 400w, aslong as its from a decent manufacturer (Corsair/BFG/Antec/Seasonic/OCZ/Enermax). Options of modular designs are good for case tidiness, but if thats not a worry a decent single rail of high ampage will suffice.

Ram - as long as you get DDR2 and get 2GB anything will be sufficient. However if you're going to be overclocking 6400c4 especially of the corsair/crucial variety will cut the mustard.

MOBO- As mentionned before for easily overclockable cheap mobo's the Gigabyte P35 boards are all very capable and
PSU- with a single gpu and 1or more hard disks you'll be fine with 400w, aslong as its from a decent manufacturer (Corsair/BFG/Antec/Seasonic/OCZ/Enermax). Options of modular designs are good for case tidiness, but if thats not a worry a decent single rail of high ampage will suffice.

Ram - as long as you get DDR2 and get 2GB anything will be sufficient. However if you're going to be overclocking 6400c4 especially of the corsair/crucial variety will cut the mustard.

MOBO- As mentionned before for easily overclockable cheap mobo's the Gigabyte P35 boards are all very capable and due to their dual CMOS' they're perfect for beginner overclockers. Also on the cards is the Abit IP35 pro as some of the highest overclocks on the 65nm cores are from it. due to their dual CMOS' they're perfect for beginner overclockers. Also on the cards is the Abit IP35 pro as some of the highest overclocks on the 65nm cores are from it.


This is what 2mins speccing from OCUK came up with:

Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail £38.99
(£45.81) £38.99
(£45.81)
Abit IP35 Pro (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £79.99
(£93.99) £79.99
(£93.99)
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £23.99
(£28.19) £23.99
(£28.19)
Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £98.99
(£116.31) £98.99
(£116.31)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3250410AS) £28.99
(£34.06) £28.99
(£34.06)
Lian-Li PC-7B PLUS II Aluminium Midi-Tower Case - Black £49.99
(£58.74) £49.99
(£58.74)
Corsair VX 450W ATX PSU (CMPSU-450VXUK) £39.99
(£46.99) £39.99
(£46.99)
Sub Total : £360.93
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £65.08
Total : £436.96

Many of the parts will be cheaper at different retailers, and overclockers is one of the ones that doesn't do price matching.

 

[Bahumat]

Bahu I love ya buddy, but a 450w Psu will be fine aslong as its from a decent manufacturer, i've got the corsair 520w powering alot more than is being recommended here

You say you love me, but you never put out!

 

[Helme]

The 450W Corsair power supply actually gives exactly what it says on the top, the system I recommended won't need more than maybe 300-350 during full load, if even that so you'll be fine.

I would agree that you need 600W+ if you go for a shit brand, but I know people running 8800GT's in SLI on a 450W Corsair

And if you want to reduce price of the package and going by what Confused said, I would personally go for an older Athlon XP 6000+(3GHz) instead, they are practically giving them away free nowadays.


edit: Also sorry I wasn't able to reply earlier, my net has been down for about a week
edit2: And yes, it's very easy to install Windows - you basically start the computer with the CD in and it's like installing any other game, you put in some information(name, user accounts and serial, and which harddrive to install it on) then it pretty much installs itself. One of the worst things with the PC market I think is that companies live on the hype that installation is too hard for the costumers, when infact anyone can do it with minimal help.

 

[confused]

And if you want to reduce price of the package and going by what Confused said, I would personally go for an older Athlon XP 6000+(3GHz) instead, they are practically giving them away free nowadays.

Although they maybe giving them away these days. An E2180 can overclock well past 3Ghz, making it a more preferable option... Assuming you are capable of overclocking

 

[Faelinor]

thanks for all the input people!
sorry I havent replied earlier, work clocked on that i was fannying about on the net all day and i got moved next to my team leader :E mint!

what is a GPU ?? is that the same as a PSU?

 

[Overdriven]

Graphic Processing Unit.. GFX Card...

 

[Fafnir]

What you think of?

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8500-processor (3,16 Ghz, 1 333 MHz FSB, 6 MB cache)
4 096 MB 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
640 GB Serial ATA non Raid (7200 Rpm)
DUAL SLI 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT card

 

[Faeldawn]

What you think of?

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8500-processor (3,16 Ghz, 1 333 MHz FSB, 6 MB cache)
4 096 MB 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
640 GB Serial ATA non Raid (7200 Rpm)
DUAL SLI 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT card

Looks good, are you planning on overclocking that 8500? If so you might benefit from a better CPU cooler, but if not the stock should be fine.

Should eat any game you can throw at it with ease.

Out of curiosity, which mobo and PSU are you planning on using for that?

 

[Faeldawn]

This is what 2mins speccing from OCUK came up with:

Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail £38.99
(£45.81) £38.99
(£45.81)
Abit IP35 Pro (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £79.99
(£93.99) £79.99
(£93.99)
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £23.99
(£28.19) £23.99
(£28.19)
Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £98.99
(£116.31) £98.99
(£116.31)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3250410AS) £28.99
(£34.06) £28.99
(£34.06)
Lian-Li PC-7B PLUS II Aluminium Midi-Tower Case - Black £49.99
(£58.74) £49.99
(£58.74)
Corsair VX 450W ATX PSU (CMPSU-450VXUK) £39.99
(£46.99) £39.99
(£46.99)
Sub Total : £360.93
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £65.08
Total : £436.96

Many of the parts will be cheaper at different retailers, and overclockers is one of the ones that doesn't do price matching.

hats a nice spec for the price, personal choice i know, but the Antec 300 case is cheaper and equally as good.

 

[Fafnir]

Looks good, are you planning on overclocking that 8500? If so you might benefit from a better CPU cooler, but if not the stock should be fine.

Should eat any game you can throw at it with ease.

Out of curiosity, which mobo and PSU are you planning on using for that?

Well bought from Dell, so not sure at the moment, last dell i upgraded 1 year after i bought it. Got a Corsair 750 PCU at home i'm gonna put in, get rid of alot of loose cables. Never had any direct problems with my dells, just had to mod the chassis a bit to fit my gear. And not planning to overclock yet, that will happen later, when i upgrade the mobo.

But got a nice call from Dell around 30 min ago now, they giving me 2000SEK discount and upgrading to Vista ultimate for free Good returning customer that has not recived anytihng from them and birthday comming up.

 

[Tallen]

Well bought from Dell, so not sure at the moment, last dell i upgraded 1 year after i bought it. Got a Corsair 750 PCU at home i'm gonna put in, get rid of alot of loose cables. Never had any direct problems with my dells, just had to mod the chassis a bit to fit my gear. And not planning to overclock yet, that will happen later, when i upgrade the mobo.

But got a nice call from Dell around 30 min ago now, they giving me 2000SEK discount and upgrading to Vista ultimate for free Good returning customer that has not recived anytihng from them and birthday comming up.

I think you'll need the 64bit Vista to make the most out of that 4 gig RAM, but im still on XP atm so im not certain of this

The corsair PSU is very reliable, but is there modular version of the 750w? Not that im aware of.

 

[Fafnir]

I think you'll need the 64bit Vista to make the most out of that 4 gig RAM, but im still on XP atm so im not certain of this

The corsair PSU is very reliable, but is there modular version of the 750w? Not that im aware of.

Hmmm have to check it then, got the 750w sticker on it, and the cables is in a pouch on the side.

And the Vista Ultimate is the 64 bits, the 32bit only use 3.2 gb ram.

 

[Overdriven]

What you think of?

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8500-processor (3,16 Ghz, 1 333 MHz FSB, 6 MB cache)
4 096 MB 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
640 GB Serial ATA non Raid (7200 Rpm)
DUAL SLI 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT card

Replace the GPU.. Crossfire 4850s.