What gaming PC? ~600ish
Discussion
OK chaps we've got up to £600-650 to play with (combination of a present from my dad and Herself chipping in), need a Windows PC, preferably XP 'cos some of my access tech doesn't work to well with Vista. We'll be using it for a lot of basic communications stuff too, but nothing that's a big deal in terms of spec.
It'll need to talk to my ickle netbook, other'n that my main priority is that it'll run Sims 3, I think everything else I currently want to be able to play comes in so far under that spec as to be irrelevant at this stage.
Any bright ideas?
Ta muchly
It'll need to talk to my ickle netbook, other'n that my main priority is that it'll run Sims 3, I think everything else I currently want to be able to play comes in so far under that spec as to be irrelevant at this stage.
Any bright ideas?
Ta muchly
Are you after just a PC tower or monitor, speakers etc etc.
Looking at the system requirements for Sims 3, I bought a PC for my girlfriend a month or so ago that would run it comfortably - (even assuming the traditional overly low recommended specs you see on a lot of games.)
That cost... (drum roll please maestro) £60 for a 3 ghz P4 with a 7900 gfx card, 2 gig of RAM and a 120 gig HDD. Tower only and it was very cheap, but still very very doable.
Its a hell of a lot better than I thought it would be TBH
£600 quid for the PC only will get you a very useable piece of kit. A few thoughts below:
http://www.aria.co.uk/Systems/Gaming+Range/Trident...
£637, the GFX card isnt awe-inspiring but should be far more than sufficient for Sims3 unlss you're planning on playing it at high resolutions.
http://www.aria.co.uk/Systems/Home+Range/Proteus/G...
£459, including keyboard, mouse, 19" monitor, 2.1 speakers. No graphics card, on the other hand that's probably a good thing. The ATI 4770 is apparently a huge bargain at the moment, should provide plenty of graphical horsepower and comes in at an extra £80.
Tescos have some suprisingly good deals on a lot in the larger stores (dont burn me for being a heretic! Picked up a 2.66ghz quad, 3 gig ram, Terabyte HDD, Blu-ray reader and throwaway GFX card for a friend with change from £400 a couple of months back. Havent seen a deal that good sinse but there have been a few that were suprisingly cheap)
Looking at the system requirements for Sims 3, I bought a PC for my girlfriend a month or so ago that would run it comfortably - (even assuming the traditional overly low recommended specs you see on a lot of games.)
That cost... (drum roll please maestro) £60 for a 3 ghz P4 with a 7900 gfx card, 2 gig of RAM and a 120 gig HDD. Tower only and it was very cheap, but still very very doable.
Its a hell of a lot better than I thought it would be TBH
£600 quid for the PC only will get you a very useable piece of kit. A few thoughts below:
http://www.aria.co.uk/Systems/Gaming+Range/Trident...
£637, the GFX card isnt awe-inspiring but should be far more than sufficient for Sims3 unlss you're planning on playing it at high resolutions.
http://www.aria.co.uk/Systems/Home+Range/Proteus/G...
£459, including keyboard, mouse, 19" monitor, 2.1 speakers. No graphics card, on the other hand that's probably a good thing. The ATI 4770 is apparently a huge bargain at the moment, should provide plenty of graphical horsepower and comes in at an extra £80.
Tescos have some suprisingly good deals on a lot in the larger stores (dont burn me for being a heretic! Picked up a 2.66ghz quad, 3 gig ram, Terabyte HDD, Blu-ray reader and throwaway GFX card for a friend with change from £400 a couple of months back. Havent seen a deal that good sinse but there have been a few that were suprisingly cheap)
I agree with all the TheLemming said above, as there are some really good high street deals and it does work out alot more cost effective to buy a separate good graphics card after purchase.
A friend at work has just used the link below to buy himself a quad-core gaming pc, tower only, so no screen, but according to the details in the link, they can provide one at extra cost if necessary. These are hand built from their own specs, or you can add extras depending on what you need it for. But they are very reasonable in price for the amount of options you get.
http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/Spider-Gaming__W0QQ_...
Might be worth having a browse through and see just how much you can get for £500. My friend is extremely happy with his one, and although this is an ebay shop, payment was easy and delivery was very fast.
Just an idea. The specs may be a bit more than you were originally looking, but at least you could end up with a top spec gaming pc for a decent price..
ETA: Might be helpful if i included the link with a recommendation! Also forgot to mention that they come with a 3 year warranty as well.
A friend at work has just used the link below to buy himself a quad-core gaming pc, tower only, so no screen, but according to the details in the link, they can provide one at extra cost if necessary. These are hand built from their own specs, or you can add extras depending on what you need it for. But they are very reasonable in price for the amount of options you get.
http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/Spider-Gaming__W0QQ_...
Might be worth having a browse through and see just how much you can get for £500. My friend is extremely happy with his one, and although this is an ebay shop, payment was easy and delivery was very fast.
Just an idea. The specs may be a bit more than you were originally looking, but at least you could end up with a top spec gaming pc for a decent price..
ETA: Might be helpful if i included the link with a recommendation! Also forgot to mention that they come with a 3 year warranty as well.
Edited by CypherP on Monday 22 June 11:12
For the money you can get a nice machine, best bet buy all the bits from somewhere like scan, then pay £50 for a computer shop to put it all together, or do it yourself..
Me, my brother and cousin have been been building our own rigs for a few years now. My cousin has recently upgraded and has found that there is a seller on ebay, who can build them and ship them to you, for cheaper than you could buy them from a computer place like scan.
Me, my brother and cousin have been been building our own rigs for a few years now. My cousin has recently upgraded and has found that there is a seller on ebay, who can build them and ship them to you, for cheaper than you could buy them from a computer place like scan.
If you're making a gaming PC, I'm afraid Vista is likely to be mandatory due to the DX10 support and the 4GB+ memory support. You could use XP64 but that often ends up with some driver issues.
Anyway, I put together a quick setup of components on overclockers.co.uk
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 LGA775 £119.99
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3P Intel P45 £93.99
Graphics card: XFX ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB £78.99
Hard Drive: Samsung SpinPoint F2EG 1TB £59.98
Power Supply: OCZ ModXStream Pro 600w (This week only) £54.99
Memory: Kingston HyperX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 8500C5 1066MHz £37.98
Case: OcUK Gangster Case - Black £27.99
Optical drive: Sony Optiarc AD-7201S 20x DVD±RW £19.99
Sub Total : £429.49
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.50
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £66.00
Total : £505.99
That'd easily run sims 3, all in all a pretty decent system. You can obviously put better parts in or take some parts out and replace with cheaper options (OCUK has a good B-grade and clearance section).
I don't think you'll find any prebuilt of that spec for the same money though.
Anyway, I put together a quick setup of components on overclockers.co.uk
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 LGA775 £119.99
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3P Intel P45 £93.99
Graphics card: XFX ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB £78.99
Hard Drive: Samsung SpinPoint F2EG 1TB £59.98
Power Supply: OCZ ModXStream Pro 600w (This week only) £54.99
Memory: Kingston HyperX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 8500C5 1066MHz £37.98
Case: OcUK Gangster Case - Black £27.99
Optical drive: Sony Optiarc AD-7201S 20x DVD±RW £19.99
Sub Total : £429.49
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.50
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £66.00
Total : £505.99
That'd easily run sims 3, all in all a pretty decent system. You can obviously put better parts in or take some parts out and replace with cheaper options (OCUK has a good B-grade and clearance section).
I don't think you'll find any prebuilt of that spec for the same money though.
Try www.computerplanet.co.uk
It's very user-friendly. I got mine from there for around £750 built with genuine XP SP3 and it's pretty damn fast! I can run rFactor on full chat with 12cars visible and there's no stalling at all.
It's very user-friendly. I got mine from there for around £750 built with genuine XP SP3 and it's pretty damn fast! I can run rFactor on full chat with 12cars visible and there's no stalling at all.
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