New system spec, any good?

Hi,

Im buying a custom made PC. I have chosen the following spec for £569, is this good enough to play games like F.E.A.R and Halfe Life 2 at 800*600 with medim/high settings?

Thanks for your time and sorry if I've posted in the wrong area.

PS: I dunno the make of GFX card the website doesnt state it Ill have to ring them

CPU
AMD® ATHLON® 64BIT 3000 (Winchester) 512kb L2 Cache (939 pin)

Memory
512 MB DDR400 PC3200 WITH LIFETIME WARRANTY!

Motherboard
ASUS® A8N-SLI SE: DUAL DDR, S-ATA, 2 x x16 VGA, 3 PCI

USB Options
SIX USB 2.0 PORTS (4 REAR + 2 FRONT)

Hard Drive
SATA 80 GB HARD DISK @ 7200rpm 8mb cache

Second Hard Drive
NONE

RAID
NONE

DVD ROM/Combi Drive
NONE

CD/DVD Writer
4x +R DUAL LYR DVD WRITER (16x +/-R) (& RW) + 40x CD-RW (£24)

Graphics Card 1
128MB GEFORCE 6600GT PCI Express + DVI + TV-OUT

Graphics Card 2
NONE

Sound Card
HIGH END ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL SOUND (RECOMMENDED)

Modem
NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND

Network Facilities
2 x 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORTS ONBOARD

Floppy Drive/Card Reader
1.44MB FLOPPY DISK DRIVE

Case
Stylish Silver X-Plode Case + 2 Front USB

Power Supply & Cooling
500W (Peak) Silent Dual Rail PSU with 120mm fan (£25)

Operating System required
MICROSOFT® WINDOWS® XP HOME (inc. original CD & licence) (£59)

Thats a pretty low spec for the money. Are you building yourself or buying a prebuilt system?

You could do considerably better for the money even with a pre-built system. It would run those games at that res but for the same money you could get one that runs those games at high quality 1280x1024.

Add my MSN wookie_rage@hotmail.com if you'd like some more advice, I'd be happy to talk you through all the options and get you the best system for your money.

Yeah like dureth said, that screams pre-built system to me. The 6600GT is great, I'm running one of those and initially it was just to tide me over but tis really good. I can play fear with everything on medium at 1024x768 easy. Half-Life 2 is even better, I have most things on high and I still get it super smooth at 1280x1024.

My only real problem with the spec is that your going for 512mb of ram. Go for at least 1024mb, its not that much more and will make a real difference. I'm also worried about the make of PSU, 500W for £25? Thats waaay to cheap its probably a *shiver* Q-Tec. Go for a decent name or you may have serious problems later. Hiper give you way more power than you'll ever need at a great price.

I would go for more ram as 512 is minimum spec so of the games you want to play would run smoother with 1Gb. Your cpu is also old stock as most are now venice cores that run cooler and overclock better. 6600GT is a good budget choice.

Can i ask where the spec is from? I assume from the way it's laid out that you just copied from some website? If so, which one?
I'd agree with the above, don't go with an Athlon winchester - they are in fact fine, but not as good as the venice cores, and also not hardly available any more - again, which website?
Go for 2 x 512MB memory. I'd also suggest that whilst the hard drive will be probably fast enough for the job, 80GB is really tiny these days and for the price difference i really couldnt recommend getting any less than 160GB.
It also appears that you don't have a monitor, keyboard or speakers etc, just the base unit. Lets see what you can get for a similar system elsewhere (inc Windows):

Mesh Matrix 2 SLi 559 quid (but graphics could be better)

Try this spec from Scan (which if you post something like 25 posts (or 50?) in Hexus you get free delivery):
Case: Asus TA 210 inc PSU
Motherboard: Asus A8N5x
CPU: Athlon 64 3200+ (Venice)
Hard Drive: Maxtor SATA 160GB
Graphics: GeForce 6800GS
Memory: Corsair Val Select 2 x 512MB
DVD Writer: NEC 4550a
OS: Windows XP Home SP2

Total = 542 quid (inc free delivery)

Have i missed anything else?
With any spare money, i'd probably consider upgrading the case to a better one but that will do the job. I'd also personally consider some aftermarket fans, at least for the CPU.

A quick google suggests he tried pcspecialist.

Wow - there's a website that makes Dell look like the Bees Knees!

Shop around

A quick spec

AMD Opteron-UP 144 1.8GHz 64bit 1Mb Cache S939 *OEM* £112.51 from scan today only

OR

AMD Athlon 64 3700 32/64Bit CPU S939 "San Diego" OEM £139.24 SCAN today only

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Motherboard

http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=307396 EPoX EP-9NPA+ Ultra 69 pounds

http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=308693 EPoX EP-9NPA+, nForce4 62 pounds( I run this board outstanding)

(although komplett and the dutch contingent's RMAs should be taken into account)

if you want the asus http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=311465 77 pounds


you may also want to have a look at the asrock another superb value/performance board takes agp/pci e cards

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=291356
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Ram

Get yourself 2x512 pc3200 geil value can be had from microdirect or from that other mob(wont even mention their name) 55-60 pounds

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Pick up a decent psu, antec/enermax/ you can pick up a fsp psu 400 w for 30 pounds or get a better psu, remember dont scrimp on the psu

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Antec SLK3000B for 30/35 pounds

a dvd-rw hard drive and you only then need to decide on what you want to spend on the graphics


You could have the above for around the 360-400 depending on what you go for and try to pick up a 7800gt for 200 and under microdirect were doing them for 185, fling them all together and you will have a system that will walk all over that pre-built overpriced junker