Looking for guidance on a new gaming rig.

[Lukoplakia]

Hello, first post yay! Anyway's, I understand this isnt the realistically correct forum I should be posting this in but the one that is looks very vacant and ignored. So i'll just ask you guys here!

Here's my Dilemma. I have a semi-decent rig. It plays some newER games somewhat decently. My expertise with computers and computer hardware is beyond most of my friends but, thats only older age technology. I'm not up to par with the new technology in most computers and hardware today. So my question to be is I want to buy just a whole case full of new hardware. I have a monitor, I have software, I just want to open a box and have an already built gauranteed system to play a game like Age of Conan Hyborian Adventures. That's my main objective. I dont want to break the bank but i'm willing to spend 600-800+ if i'm entirely desperate.

With the new technology in computers today, i'm scared and nervous to try and build one from scratch and than to press the power button and watch it fail. It would take much pressure off of me if I could just press the power button and play sorry for being a sell out and not making a project out of it.

I've ran acrossed a few sites that have pre-built rigs or rigs I can customize than buy than ship to my house. Like that ibuypower.com and a couple other ones I cant really remember at the moment. Maybe one of you friendly people can help me with this. Maybe one of you folks can show me a great site to buy from, or even maybe one of you great people can build me a custom rig from the site than link it here for me? I understand that for the most part those rigs will run smooth, I just want someone to acknowledge "hey your going to want to spend that extra $15 for this upgrade and you can get this for $15 cheaper and it wont affect your rig".

Well anyway's hope I can get some comments back and for allowing me to post this I thank you all.



Thank you!

[TAKTAK]

to be honest, building your own computer nowadays is not complicated, even a monkey could do it. practically everything is colour coded and/or has tabs which stop you connecting it the wrong way round.

but if you sure you want to go the prebuilt route, have a look at scans 3xs sytems (or whatever theyare called)

[ikix]

as taktak said building computers now is very simple, i built my friends just before xmas with no prior knowledge and considering it wasn't my stuff i was crapping my pants but a few hours latter and after a beep from the computer reminding me to plug in the power to the graphics card we were up and running and had all that cash we saved to go buy some drinks and a good time.

the computer you could build for the same cash as that spent on a prebuilt one is actually meaningful and worth it. whereabouts do you live?? i would be willing to build it for you for maybe £10 or something, actually get a kick out of building these things

[TAKTAK]

actually get a kick out of building these things

same here , just passed another one on to it's owner, and got his sister wanting a build soon as well


but basically if you can handle a screw driver (even thats getting less and less common now ) then you can build a computer. simple as. there are plenty of step by step guides, and there are plenty of people around this very forum that would be willing to help if needs be.

[Pob255]

This Sub-forum = Graphics cards and Monitors

Think you might want the Pre-built PC systems or the main hardware section

You could look at Scans 3XS systems, 3xs Systems
there is a fairly well known place but for the life of me I cannot think what they are called

You said you have experience with older computers, pc's? if so then building pc's has not changed that much, connectors are differnt shaped, more options in the BIOS (although you can leave most of them on default settings most times) the numbers are bigger, the coolers and cases are bigger too.
Past that not much has radically changed since I started with my firct pc back in 1997ish

[Lukoplakia]

Well thank you all for the great replies. Yea I think I could easily do it, though i've had a couple incidients where I tried to build a computer from scratch and it ended up not working in the end and I was working on them for hours upon end, looking on sites and even forum help but maybe that was just an unlucky incidient. I guess in the end result i'm just somewhat lazy in the fact of buying every paticular part and reading exactly how to do everything safe and precise. I've been busy lately doing other things and it's more of the thought of it being a fast and full proof deal.

Oh by the way I live in Portland, Oregon. The United States.

I think you guys have given enough insight but more comments are always a plus. I'm sorry I posted it here though like I said before I didnt think I would have such a great response from the other forum.

Thanks!

[Link97]

Regarding the 3xs systems, I just threw together a system as similar to the one I just built and it turned out at £1500 when I built mine for ~£650. (Well, £550 if you take off the VAT )

[TAKTAK]

for future reference, alot of people use the new posts tab to get to threads, so it doesn't matter if you post in the quiet (correct) section it would still get answered

and TBH im suprised this one hasn't been moved yet

[Lukoplakia]

Hmm. Well maybe this will clarify things a little better considering I left it out before. What I also wanted to state was that i'm incredibly out of the loop between the good and bad hardware, the worthwhile and outrageously expensive hardware. I'm looking on newegg right now and I dont essentially know what mobo is the best bang for the buck, what style of processor and memory combinations are of high quality. I know it may be a stale question but I was wondering if someone could throw a list of basic higher end, good quality and well reviewed hardware that I could buy separately to build my own system. That's one thing i'm for sure worried about is picking the part's and making sure i'm not buying a hyped up piece of garbage that looks good in the box but performs half as good as it's price.


If all else, thank you all for the patience and replies. I know it can be annoying talking computers with someone asking questions like these.

[TAKTAK]

Q6600 + Scythe ninja -£135+£29.36 HERE and HERE
2GB PC6400 RAM -£34.65 HERE
Abit IP-35 dark raider -£67.79 HERE
Western Digital 500GB AAKS -£56.04 HERE
Optical Drive -£16.79 HERE
Corsair HX520w PSU -£65.55 HERE
nVidia 8800gtsGFX card -£158.63 HERE

total:£563.81

plus you'll need an operating system aswell

xp= £85 HERE

vista 64bit = £61.79 for home premium HERE or ultimate for £104.69 HERE

so complete prices: XP PRO:£648.81
vista home premium:£625.60
Vista ultimate:£668.50

i'm sure people will scrutinize the spec to tweak it a bit

[Lee`]

You could get a pre built dell with 8800GT dual 3Ghz cores for under your budget!

The Dell Online Store: Build Your System

[Pob255]

Pay attention people

Oh by the way I live in Portland, Oregon. The United States.

This is mainly a UK/EU forum not US, all though there are a few americans here.

Not sure how the US prices vary from the uk/eu (except being cheaper no fair)

TAKTAK's list is a good starting point, I'll break it down
Q6600 + Scythe ninja
The quad cores (esp the Q6600) are very good value for money atm, yes they are a little over performance seeing as how few programs can fully use 4 cores, however the small cost increase is worth it unless your budget is very tight.
They Overclock to 3ghz with ease
Good after market cooler, the Scythe ninja is very good for the price, however any decent cooler will be good, esp in the US where there are some other good coolers that are harder and more expensive over here.

2GB PC6400 RAM
If you stick with XP 2gb of any half decent memory will keep every thing happy
PC6400 is a good performance price break, esp with the q6600 which could carry you to 3.6ghz before even overclocking the memory.
I'd sudgest looking at 4gb if you go with vista 64bit
DDR2 I'd not go for DDR3 as currently it's price is far higher and the differnce is very small.

Abit IP-35 dark raider
It's a very nice mid range motherboard and had very good support in the EU.
However the situation is differnt in the US, while I'm not sure what ABit support is like, ASUS and others are better in the US than they are over here.
General comment here is a board with the P35 chipset, it's far cheaper than the nforce chipsets (intell cpu) and perform as well/better, main thing the nforce has going for it is SLi low cost SLi is not worth the money when you can do better with a single high end graphics card.
A high end sli still is only slightly better and has a very high price tag.

Corsair HX520w PSU
The Corsair HX520w psu get's mentioned so much as for the price is very very hard to beat. It's a good quality PSU made by seasonic, modular so you can reduce the number of cables in your case, low cost for the quality and has all the power you'd need to power almost any thing short of a high end sli rig (even then you'd be surprised what you can power)

nVidia 8800gtsGFX card 512mb
note: not the older 320mb or 640mb
Great performance for money although it all depends on the resolution you plan to play at.
for 1280x1024/1440x900 (17"-19") ati 3850 512mb or a 3870 will be fine, the 9600gt 512mb is also worth a look.
All depends on the price you can get, the 8800gt 512mb is still a good option as well. (better tyhan the above 3 but not as good as the 8800gts 512mb)
Also may be possible to get a 8800gtx cheap as places sell of there old stock.

[Lukoplakia]

One last question, when it come's to memory, i'm sure 2gb will be fine but I want to overload my new computer beast with these w w w.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145176 (sorry about the "w w w", it wouldnt let me post a url just yet). So just to be sure, with the computer you guys have commented me to build before, will these do fine, if not exceed on the performance tables? I just really like the whole idea of 4gb corsair for some reason

Well to end the thread on a good note, thank you ALL for your comments and remarks do to the troubling scenario i'm soon to be in. Exactly EVERYTHING i've practically needed has been answered and THAN some. You guys ROCK!

I've gained the confidence, the advice and the future reference for future problems (if any arise). It look's like i'll be getting a system practically identical to that listed in the thread because it seems priceable and worthwhile. If any problems do arise in the building process, I shall deffinetly come back to the ole' Hexus.net Englishmen and women. By the way, I trust this site 10x more than any US forums (just have the friendly vibe here I guss). That is why I chose to post here!


See you guys some other time if not sooner than later!

[TAKTAK]

that RAM is fine, it is eaxctly the same stuff, just the 2gb versions of it but 4gb raises the whole 64bit /32 bit question
and i'm glad we could help

[Lukoplakia]

Hello one last time! Sorry to bring this old thread back but I had one last couple questions because i'm practically one month away from buying all the parts for my new computer.

Motherboards. I'm stuck in between getting that Abit IP-35 Dark Raider and the equal to that from Asus (which I cant put my tongue on, help needed). I've read up on the Abit and I've heard the good and the bad and just trying to justify what boards best instead of being stuck in limbo between the both.

RAM and OP. I AM going to throw down extra for the 4gb Corsair PC6400 sticks. I heard something about only Vista being able to operate at optimal levels with 4gb's of ram. Whats the deal on that exactly? Is vista 64bit better than XP 64bit? I've heard some bogus things about Vista so i'm curious.

Video Card. I'm getting the 8800GTS 512mb video card but i'm not educated on the better brand of the bunch. Any help there?


Thanks everyone, I promise after this, the thread will be dead.

[TAKTAK]

64bit xp is still buggy as hell. so avoid like the plague

basically a 64bit os can 'see' more than 3.5gb of RAM whereas a 32bit os cannot.

TBH i'm using vista all of the time now instead of xp (mind you i didn't willingly change [my xp install split into twins, and then into quads and it just went mental :S]) but once you get used to vistas changes it is a good os overall (not got ALL of the support yet, but it is progressing, all be it very slowly)

lots'o people would jump in and readily reccomend the abit dark raider im sure, but i have no experiecne with the board so i can't really comment.

As for vid card, IIRC bfg cards are good value and come with a ten year warrenty, i'm sure others will go more in depth because it bed time for me now