New hi spec pc needed
Discussion
Not going to build myself, don't have the time. I've bought ~top spec. PC's before, and found so long as you aim for 90% max performance, rather than the absolute fastest/best, it works out ok if you keep for a few years. Bought my last one 3.5 years ago and still going strong (relatively). Just time to move on.
3.5k! As Simon said there 1.5k very maximum is best.. if you're looking for the best you can buy it's really easy to find which components you need
Basically go to www.eclipecomputers.com and search through the bits with Price High > Low
One of us will be able to give you a list of components for that sort of price mark if you like..!
Dave.
www.alienware.co.uk do funky looking kit with high end specs...
They even have a £3,400 machine if you really want to spend that much!
As per before, keep it to £1500 and spend the extras on something else
They even have a £3,400 machine if you really want to spend that much!
As per before, keep it to £1500 and spend the extras on something else
ok, time to come clean. I'm not skint, and am strungling to shake off my CS past. However, I don't make a habbit of exceeding the 80:20 rule. But cool stuff, even cool stuff thats only cool because it's over specified, is cool. Now lets refocus. How would you spend upto 3.5K on a new pc.
I'd still probably only spend 1.5 to 2k on the pc (I struggle to see how you can spend any more), then the rest would have to go on a nice projector and a decent sound system. The only thing I ever bought that made a huge difference to cs was a £100 pair of sennheiser headphones. If you spend a little more on parts, you should be able to make the thing damn well near silent.
You honestly don't need to spend top whack, consider the premium they put on the top parts! Spend less on the pc but make it more immersive, you'll enjoy your games more.
You honestly don't need to spend top whack, consider the premium they put on the top parts! Spend less on the pc but make it more immersive, you'll enjoy your games more.
I managed to spend £16K on a spec. your' PC web site, 5 months ago. In the past I found if you spent 1~1.3k your PC, it would last a year, if you were lucky. Since then I max out on HD and RAM. Like really max out. It's cheap after all. And go for close to top end graphics card. When I built my last PC, guys were saying I was mad to spend £300 on a graphics card, but they all spent more than that in the last 3 years upgrading. Granted, things seem to have got out of hand, but as I said 3.5k to spend..
Well if you really want to spend that money
SLI or Crossfire video cards will allow you to play all games at high detail/ hi res and with Anti-aliasing, so a pair of 7900GTS' or X1900XT's will start to make a dent in your big pile'o'cash.
Then get either a socket AM2 AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 processor or wait for the Intel Core 2 Extreme, avoid Intel Pentiums for gaming.
Soundblaster X-Fi + Nice headphones or decent surround sound system.
2Gb of fast low latency RAM
10K Raptor HDD(s)
Can't think of much else you would need which is out of the ordinary
SLI or Crossfire video cards will allow you to play all games at high detail/ hi res and with Anti-aliasing, so a pair of 7900GTS' or X1900XT's will start to make a dent in your big pile'o'cash.
Then get either a socket AM2 AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 processor or wait for the Intel Core 2 Extreme, avoid Intel Pentiums for gaming.
Soundblaster X-Fi + Nice headphones or decent surround sound system.
2Gb of fast low latency RAM
10K Raptor HDD(s)
Can't think of much else you would need which is out of the ordinary
Ironically, as you start winding up the price then the PC's usability often drops. 10,000rpm Raptors can be noisy little buggers, and really chuck out the heat. Even if you have water cooling, the heat still has to go somewhere!
Equally (if you go the Intel route) the CPU heads off into the Xeon spec processors, with huge cache. They are designed to do server work (which they do very well) not play games (which they don't). Going above 2GB memory can induce a bigger load on the memory bus, which has to operate more slowly. Think of it as spending more and more on a car, ending up with an F50 which is useless for taking the kids to school, going to the shops, cruising around or going for a hoon to the coast (excuse the simile).
How can I put this... There isn't any game software which needs that sort of horsepower. Far Cry, Oblivion, the whole gamut of PC game software runs smoothly in my budget X2 with 7800GT graphics. I'd go for something that gives 99.9% of the performance, but which leaves a huge wedge of cash for when the quad core CPUs, next generation graphics *and* the software that needs it comes out. PC technology is on a little bit of a "plateau" at the moment, tweaking existing tech rather than adding real new features. Messing about moving from s939 to AM2 sockets, putting 2 graphics cores on a single card, that sort of thing.
Equally (if you go the Intel route) the CPU heads off into the Xeon spec processors, with huge cache. They are designed to do server work (which they do very well) not play games (which they don't). Going above 2GB memory can induce a bigger load on the memory bus, which has to operate more slowly. Think of it as spending more and more on a car, ending up with an F50 which is useless for taking the kids to school, going to the shops, cruising around or going for a hoon to the coast (excuse the simile).
How can I put this... There isn't any game software which needs that sort of horsepower. Far Cry, Oblivion, the whole gamut of PC game software runs smoothly in my budget X2 with 7800GT graphics. I'd go for something that gives 99.9% of the performance, but which leaves a huge wedge of cash for when the quad core CPUs, next generation graphics *and* the software that needs it comes out. PC technology is on a little bit of a "plateau" at the moment, tweaking existing tech rather than adding real new features. Messing about moving from s939 to AM2 sockets, putting 2 graphics cores on a single card, that sort of thing.
Zad said:
Ironically, as you start winding up the price then the PC's usability often drops. 10,000rpm Raptors can be noisy little buggers, and really chuck out the heat. Even if you have water cooling, the heat still has to go somewhere!
Equally (if you go the Intel route) the CPU heads off into the Xeon spec processors, with huge cache. They are designed to do server work (which they do very well) not play games (which they don't). Going above 2GB memory can induce a bigger load on the memory bus, which has to operate more slowly. Think of it as spending more and more on a car, ending up with an F50 which is useless for taking the kids to school, going to the shops, cruising around or going for a hoon to the coast (excuse the simile).
How can I put this... There isn't any game software which needs that sort of horsepower. Far Cry, Oblivion, the whole gamut of PC game software runs smoothly in my budget X2 with 7800GT graphics. I'd go for something that gives 99.9% of the performance, but which leaves a huge wedge of cash for when the quad core CPUs, next generation graphics *and* the software that needs it comes out. PC technology is on a little bit of a "plateau" at the moment, tweaking existing tech rather than adding real new features. Messing about moving from s939 to AM2 sockets, putting 2 graphics cores on a single card, that sort of thing.
Equally (if you go the Intel route) the CPU heads off into the Xeon spec processors, with huge cache. They are designed to do server work (which they do very well) not play games (which they don't). Going above 2GB memory can induce a bigger load on the memory bus, which has to operate more slowly. Think of it as spending more and more on a car, ending up with an F50 which is useless for taking the kids to school, going to the shops, cruising around or going for a hoon to the coast (excuse the simile).
How can I put this... There isn't any game software which needs that sort of horsepower. Far Cry, Oblivion, the whole gamut of PC game software runs smoothly in my budget X2 with 7800GT graphics. I'd go for something that gives 99.9% of the performance, but which leaves a huge wedge of cash for when the quad core CPUs, next generation graphics *and* the software that needs it comes out. PC technology is on a little bit of a "plateau" at the moment, tweaking existing tech rather than adding real new features. Messing about moving from s939 to AM2 sockets, putting 2 graphics cores on a single card, that sort of thing.
While I agree with nearly all that... FarCry is an old game, games like FEAR, Prey, even Quake 4 and Doom 3 will strugle on a 7800GT in high res and full detail. If you want to add anti-aliasing you will need a newer card or even better dual GPU
If you are using an LCD monitor you will want to use native res which probably means 1280x1024. Also for future proofing I wouldn't go for a 256Mb Card look for 512Mb.
robdickinson said:
500 notes on an xbox 360 + games and 3k on a 50inch plasma !
Excellent idea
note plasma screens are suseptable to screen retention and some screen burn-in which is not ideal for LOTS of gaming 
Edited by mr_yogi on Monday 31st July 10:32
ultra violent said:
OK, thanks. Looks like i'll put it on hold for a couple of months and see where we are then.
I *think* maybe they're bring out quad SLI soon? You could hang on for that. Of course, in a couple of months it'll only be a couple of months til something else comes along... so you can wait for that & then something else will be coming out in a couple of months
About 9 months ago I spent about 2.5k on a supersonic PC I built mainly for gaming & it's pretty much still playing anything new at max everything. 3.5k I reckon you should be able to get pretty much the best stuff in terms of gfx, cpu & memory & maybe just compromise a little bit on sound and persistent storage?
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