Is this processor and graphics card up to the job?

[911motorsport]

I'm looking to upgrade my little boy's PC as his current one is not up to the job. For £425 I have been offered a machine with a 2.9ghz dual-core processor and HD55-70 1gb graphics card. Is this capable of handling some of the larger games? as that is it's intended use.

[Thorburn]

Do you know which CPU it actually is?

I reviewed the Radeon HD 5570 a while back, for 720p gaming its 'alright', but not fantastic.

I'm gonna guess that's £425 excluding monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc? What resolution is his current monitor as that'll help work out what you need graphics card wise.

Edited by Thorburn on Monday 13th December 17:01

[TheD]

I would say the graphics card and processor came to around £120 so where does the rest of the cost come in. I would say it isn't worth it. Try building your own over at pcspecialist to give yourself an idea.

Edited by TheD on Monday 13th December 17:03

[Drive Blind]

what the cpu type/model?

I've got an Intel Core2 E7500 @2.93Ghz + ATI 4670 + 2Gb ram

Plays COD4 + COD5 + Battlefield Bad Company 2 at 1280 x 1024 although I feel this is close to the limit of what it can handle.

[va1o]

Okay but for the money you could probably do better. What will it be used for?

[911motorsport]

Thanks guys. It will be mostly used for gaming. He's 10 and likes Age of Empires type stuff. Apart from this it will be used for school studies and internet browsing.

He also has an interest in programming in Visual Basic and editing videos: Here's one he made earlier (bless) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDX3DIeOOqc

[911motorsport]

This looks pretty good for the money, non?

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/2307135.htm

[911motorsport]

Thorburn said:

Do you know which CPU it actually is?

I reviewed the Radeon HD 5570 a while back, for 720p gaming its 'alright', but not fantastic.

I'm gonna guess that's £425 excluding monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc? What resolution is his current monitor as that'll help work out what you need graphics card wise.

Edited by Thorburn on Monday 13th December 17:01

Includes 19" monitor, keyboard and mouse

[Drive Blind]

911motorsport said:

This looks pretty good for the money, non?

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/2307135.htm

The LED's will impress a 10 year old but that's about it.

From the pics it looks like mismash of 2nd hand parts thrown together in a cheap case.

The 8600GT was considered a low-mid range card over 2 years ago.
The cpu is the older pentium type.

Worth 200 quid tops IMO

[911motorsport]

Drive Blind said:

911motorsport said:

This looks pretty good for the money, non?

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/2307135.htm

The LED's will impress a 10 year old but that's about it.

[mikef]

TheD said:

I would say the graphics card and processor came to around £120 so where does the rest of the cost come in. I would say it isn't worth it. Try building your own over at pcspecialist to give yourself an idea

Highly recommended - configure your own box around that price level at http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/intel-core... Too late for a custom build for Christmas though...

[Thorburn]

911motorsport said:

Includes 19" monitor, keyboard and mouse

I'll guess 1440x900 resolution then? Doesn't need too much GPU power behind it. What games are you thinking of?
I'd likely go with a Core i3 based system, maybe with a Radeon 5770 or GeForce GTS 450.

[GregE240]

Thorburn said:

911motorsport said:

Includes 19" monitor, keyboard and mouse

I'll guess 1440x900 resolution then? Doesn't need too much GPU power behind it. What games are you thinking of?
I'd likely go with a Core i3 based system, maybe with a Radeon 5770 or GeForce GTS 450.

He already mentioned Age of Empires, which, although not too graphics hungry, doesn't mean you should aim there. Civilisation 5 is recently out, and the graphics on that are stunning.

Just to give you a comparison, my lad has a 5770 which is stock at the moment, but will play games at the highest resolution that his 22" monitor will natively display (which is 1680x1050). He may be adding a second monitor to it soon, and the card will be just fine.

Bear in mind that an AMD card (HDxxxx) will use a lot less juice than an NVidia card.

If you *can* stretch to a higher spec card, then do so, as it will inevitably future proof your investment a little. If you can go up to an HD58xx card, you won't regret it.

Hope this helps.
Greg

[mikef]

Also - if it's for your lad, buy your copies of Windows and Office through software4students.co.uk

Another reason to buy through a vendor that won't insist on bundling those into the price

[LOGiK]

beware of anyone not naming the processor: it might be a Pentium D which are terrible.

[911motorsport]

Thanks guys. I've spoken with the shop and explained better what my requirements are and that I want a better deal. He's gone off to re-spec and come back to me.

Edited by 911motorsport on Tuesday 14th December 12:07

[annodomini2]

From Ebuyer

Intel Core i3 540 3.06GHz Socket 1156 4MB L3 Cache Retail Box Processor £84.09
Gigabyte GA-H55M-S2 Socket 1156 VGA Out 7.1 channel audio mATX Motherboard £56.29
2 * Corsair 2GB DDR3 1333MHz Memory Module Unbuffered £40.89
Casecom Shiny Piano Black Mid Tower Case with Red LED 120mm Front Fan and Side Window £18.99
Inno3D GTX 460 768MB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI Out PCI-E Graphics Card £114.56
Hitachi Deskstar 1TB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 32MB Cache - OEM £39.99
Samsung SH-S223 22x DVD±RW DL & RAM SATA Optical Drive - OEM Black £11.99
Antec Basiq Power 500W PSU - 20+4pin 2x SATA 1x PCI-E 5x Molex £42.99

Cart total inc vat: £409.79

[911motorsport]

Thanks AnnoDomini. That's gonna take some beating!

[Thorburn]

911motorsport said:

Thanks AnnoDomini. That's gonna take some beating!

Certainly along the lines of what I'd do.

[pc.iow]

How about this?
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&am...