Gaming pc budget?

[unionjack]

Hi guys

Never posted in this section before but i was wondering if anyone could give me
some advice or point me in the right direction.

I currently have a Intel core duo e6550 @ 2.3 ghz with 2mb ram,Nvidea gforce
8400 gs.

This is used just for internet browsing,what im asking is would i be able to
get or build a decent gaming PC for a budget of between £500-£1000 or is what i have upgradable?.

I want to start playing on PC as opposed to console,id be looking too play
games like ARMA2 and Iracing.

If someone could tell me what to buy in laymans terms or point me towards
a particular website or store,that would be great.

Thanks in advance.

Regards.

[Bolognese]

I get my stuff from overclockers UK. Very good service and pretty decent prices.

Graphics card wise - geforce GTX 560's are really good value IMO. Around the £150 mark. I have one and it plays BF3 pretty maxed very smoothly.

Not sure about the CPU market ATM.

One thing that is an absolute must is a SSD. Its one of the best upgrades I have made to my PC. Halfs the bootup time and loading games etc is sooooo much faster.

[KingNothing]

I use ebuyer now, I used to use overclockers, spent a pretty penny with them buying all of my last build from them, they did offer good service, but then they dicked me out of alot of money when a component went wrong and was sent back under warranty, so I've boycotted them since then, and advised people not to buy from them whenever people ask me help with computer components.

[weyland yutani]

A good system right now would be an intel quad core like the i5 2500K or the newer i5 3570K, 8GB Ram
and a graphics card like the GTX 460/ HD6850 and up, though personally I'd go for a graphics card with a minimum of 2GB VRAM.

SSDs are nice but not essential imo, though they are starting to drop in price now.

scan and overclockers are good sources for parts in my experience.

[crazy about cars]

Depends on your monitor setup... Single big monitor or dual. That will drive your GPU choice which is (in my opinion) the most important criteria when building a gaming rig. Processor wise i7 is the best. For a gaming rig I'll recommend a SSD for OS and important stuff and a fast data storage drive. RAM wise there's tons out there. Mobo as well but I am a big fan of Asus Rampage for it's overclocking abilities. After all that its cooling...

Depends on how extreme you want the budget varies. I think of it as tuning our car. Stage 1/2/3 etc etc. Mid range build will cost at least £600-800 (excluding monitors...)

Edited by crazy about cars on Monday 14th May 19:39

[Fabric]

Overclockers aren't too bad, but you can pretty much bank on there being at least one fault with every order placed with them. The first PC I built came with a dead HD which they didn't replace, the second time I used them part of the order had a pre-clocked CPU - which was unstable to the point of failing to boot.

I wanted to play Battlefield when it came out in October, albeit on a budget, and ended up with one of these, with a 2GB 560ti. Bar the initial dodgy clock, it runs battlefield maxed nicely:



Given that was in October, you'll be able to get more for your money now I'd imagine!

[weyland yutani]

crazy about cars said:

Depends on your monitor setup... Single big monitor or dual. That will drive your GPU choice which is (in my opinion) the most important criteria when building a gaming rig. Processor wise i7 is the best. For a gaming rig I'll recommend a SSD for OS and important stuff and a fast data storage drive. RAM wise there's tons out there. Mobo as well but I am a big fan of Asus Rampage for it's overclocking abilities. After all that its cooling...

Depends on how extreme you want the budget varies. I think of it as tuning our car. Stage 1/2/3 etc etc. Mid range build will cost at least £600-800 (excluding monitors...)

Edited by crazy about cars on Monday 14th May 19:39

You'l see zero benefit paying extra for an i7 over an i5 for gaming and general desktop use like web browsing etc. 8GB Ram is the sweet spot right now since it's fairly cheap but anymore is ott. The graphic card Id' by at this moment in time is a GTX 670, almost the same performance as the 680 for about a £100 less.

[crazy about cars]

weyland yutani said:

You'l see zero benefit paying extra for an i7 over an i5 for gaming and general desktop use like web browsing etc. 8GB Ram is he sweetspot right now since it's fairly cheap but anymore is ott. The graphic card Id' by at this moment in time is a GTX 670, almost the same performace as the 680 for about a £100 less.

Yes, I would agree. I tend to do some developmental (programming) work on my gaming rig so I went for the i7. As for the video card I have the Gainward 560Ti and I must say I am loving it. I game on a 1980x1200 res 24" single monitor and it does the job brilliantly. Tempted to get SLi setup but I don't think I will need that unless I am thinking of going twin monitors (or play something like Crysis on max effects)

[steeveeboy]

As mentioned before ebuyer, try a site called novatech

[3sixty]

Aria or Dabs for me. Had bad experiences with OCuk.

Although if you were to go to the PH classifieds I hear someone is selling a new 2600k with GTX560 systems

[Rob P]

I got my PC just for iRacing. It's not mega graphics hungry so you don't need to spend a lot of money.

Mine is a i3 3.3Ghz, 4GB 450 GTS card, 1GB HD, 4GB Ram, 24" widescreen monitor.

Runs iRacing at 80-90 frames per second on full detail.

My set up was £700 a couple of months ago.

[totlxtc]

Got my build bits and pieces from Microdirect. Service and prices were really good at the time.

[Ewan S]

Another recommendation for Novatech from me! Can't fault them, our company bought our new pcs from them and lots of my colleagues have spent their own money there too. Very impressive showroom in Portsmouth too!

[snuffy]

Rob P said:

Mine is a i3 3.3Ghz, 4GB 450 GTS card, 1GB HD, 4GB Ram, 24" widescreen monitor.

As we're posting PC specs, here's mine ( which I use for both games and work ):

Motherboard : MSI P67A-GD53

CPU : i5-2500k 3.3GHz overclocked to 4.2Ghz

GPU : ATI 6870

HDD : 120 SSD & 1TB HDD

OS : Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

RAM : 16GB DDR3-1333

Displays : 3 x (1680 x 1050)

[snuffy]

I'd not touch Ebuyer with yours ! They sold me a faulty Motherboard and then refused to replace it or give me a refund. I pointed out that over the years I'd spend in excess of £17,000 with them ( business and personal ) but they still insisted they were right and tried to stiff me over £100. In the end I got Trading Standards involved and got my money back.

Now I wont spend one more penny with them. What a way to treat your customers !

[Ordinary_Chap]

Novatech are very, very good when it comes to the machines and service. I've used most of them (buying kit for companies) and Novatech have come out the best.

http://www.novatech.co.uk/pc/gaming/?th=g

[tim-b]

Ordinary_Chap said:

Novatech are very, very good when it comes to the machines and service. I've used most of them (buying kit for companies) and Novatech have come out the best.

http://www.novatech.co.uk/pc/gaming/?th=g

I had some problems with them, ordered a 'bare-bones' and didn't realise it was the wrong package (it was the cheaper lower performance one than I ordered) until after installing it and getting it up and running. Best they could do was send another on a next day delivery, at my cost(!), which they promised to refund but never did despite 4 or 5 emails over the next few weeks. Was particularly peeved as I was working from home at that time, so lost 24hrs waiting to get the right parts before being able to start building/installing my setup.

[Jinx]

snuffy said:

As we're posting PC specs, here's mine ( which I use for both games and work ):

Motherboard : MSI P67A-GD53

CPU : i5-2500k 3.3GHz overclocked to 4.2Ghz

GPU : ATI 6870

HDD : 120 SSD & 1TB HDD

OS : Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

RAM : 16GB DDR3-1333

Displays : 3 x (1680 x 1050)

Show off.....

C2Q 8200 2.3 Ghz, AMD 6570 1 gig - slight overclock (through catalyst), 4 gig, vista home 32 bit, 1 x (1920 x 1200), 640 GB 7200 HDD. Dell 250W PSU

Able to play BF3 on medium textures, low others no AA at 1440x900

[snuffy]

Jinx said:

snuffy said:

PC Spec

Show off.....

[Zad]

Anyone but Over******s. Sent my monitor to their nominated agent when it went wrong 2 years into a 3 year warranty. After a few months of "waiting for parts" emails it was never seen again. Over*******s told me that they weren't interested and I would have to take them to court if I wanted redress.