Gaming PC

[riwiho]

I am considering a new home computer. One of the new iMacs initially appealed but looking at the price I don’t know if I am better off getting a well spec'd PC.

One thing that does put me off a new PC would be vista, anyone got any positive experiences?

Where is the best place to go for a well spec'd gaming focused PC?

[rsv gone!]

There are lots of small manufacturers in the ads of PC Gamer. Larger companies would include Mesh, with a good range of Gaming PCs. Or for big brand, Dell's XPCs are supposed to be good.

[Steve Evil]

Build it yourself, will be cheaper and you can just use XP instead, then upgrade to Windows 7 when it arrives, bypassing Vista altogether.

[Marf]

I built a new gaming PC towards the end of last year and wanted 4GB RAM and DX10 so opted cautiously for Vista Ultimate 64. I was pleasantly surprised with it. Admittedly I have disabled all the newfangled interface opting for the classic layout and start menu, but it is fast, stable, boots and shuts down quickly and I havent had any blue screens.

You may find issues with finding 64bit drivers if you plan to use older hardware, one card I had a problem with was an old PCI IDE controller, I couldn't find a driver for it anywhere.

Whats your budget?

Have you considered building one yourself?

[okgo]

Vadim, Scan, they both make pretty focussed machines for those without the know-how of making their own.

[paul26982]

never had one problem with vista, touch wood.

[riwiho]

Marf said:

Have you considered building one yourself?

I have not built a PC since uni and therefore had not considered that option.

Are there are sites where you can select the components you want and then someone else would assemble them for you?

[Marf]

Most of the brands mentioned in the thread do pretty much that, give you a base spec and then you can customise stuff like the CPU/RAM/GFX etc.

The advantage of using a system like that is the PC as a unit is warranted by the vendor so if something goes wrong the onus is on them to fault find when a problem occurs.

Not alot has changed in terms of building computers over the past few years, the CPU is autodetected and plugs only go in one place just like the old days.

If like me, you're happy to tinker and have some experience (I used to build machines for small independent shops) then building your own is a better option IMO as you can choose exactly what you want and do the research to find out which exact spec to go for.

Edited by Marf on Thursday 5th March 14:24

[peterh2]

I built myself a system last week after buying all the parts at eBuyer. Took me about an hour to build and was very easy to do! I have over clocked the processor to 3GHz (really easy to do in the BIOS and the E5200's all seem to be fine at this speed). Seems to run any game I throw at it very nicely. Spec below (note prices are ex VAT):

Intel Pentium Dual Core E5200 2.5GHz Socket 775 800FSB 2MB £50.24
Crucial 2GB kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 £20.86
Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB SATA II 7200RPM 16MB Cache £41.25
ASUS HD 4850 512MB DDR3 Dual DVI HDCP HDTV out PCI-E Graphics Card £98.25
Casecom Black Midi Tower Case - With 450W PSU £22.60
MSI P43 Neo-F iP43 Socket 775 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard £55.41
Optiarc AD-5200A-0B 20X DVD±RW/DL £13.52
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium -SP1 £72.16

Total £374.29 + VAT
£430.43 including VAT