Buying (Or building) a decent gaming PC

[opel80uk]

Hi Everyone

I'm sure you've all been asked this a hundered times already, so I apologise in advance, but........

I was looking buying a PC that I mainly want to use for games. I have a fairly old PC (bout 5 years old) that works fine for Browsing the net, word processing etc, but is very slow when playing games. The sort of games I would like to play would be ones like Football manager 2009, the C&C's and latest Total war, a lot of RTS's, TBS (Mainly single player) and my current PC is just too slow for that. (I also have a 360 for action games and am happy to use it for those types) I don't want to spend an awful lot on it as am not a mad gamer, and wouldn't be glued to it, but was hoping for a system that would run those types of games without any probs. (With games like football manager, it'd be great if I could install the largest databases without too much of a drop in performance if possible). I have a monitor, Speakers system keyboard etc already so would just need the desktop with an OS (XP if possible)

All in all I'm looking to spend between 400 - 500 pound if possible.

Alternatively, I have someone who would build me a PC if I get all the bits and bobs so if that would be a lot cheaper I could do it that way. But from just browsing it seems that PC's are pretty cheap at the moment so if it wouldn't save me that much then I won't bother. On the other hand, if I can vastly improve the specs for the same price of a pre built machine then I would be game for that.

Thanks again for any help

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would assemble the PC as you can target the budget better!

This is what I would get:

Phenom II X4 940 ~ £144

http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

Asus 760G motherboard ~ £52

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...Board-VGA-HDCP

1TB Samsung Spinpoint F1 hard disk ~ £66

http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

SATA DVD rewriter ~ £16

http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

Asus HD4850 ~ £84

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512MB...-DL-DVI-I-HDTV

The total including postage is around £374. If you have 20+ posts on Hexus you can get free postage too!!

The other bits:

Antec Mini P180 ~ £55

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/140996

OCZ 500w PSU ~ £45

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/135159

OCZ 4gb RAM ~ £34

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/166461

The total cost from Ebuyer is £134 with the free postage available. The total cost should come to around £508 and IMHO is a solid build for the price.

I would use Windows 7 RC1 until March 2009 and buy a retail copy of Windows 7 then.

If the build is too expensive I would go for the following bits instead:

AMD Phenom II X3 720 ~ £107

http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

Samsung 320gb hard disk ~ £32

http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

The money saved could go towards an OEM copy of XP if required but TBH I would get Windows 7 as in a few years time Vista and Windows 7 will be better supported for games IMHO.

[Stanman]

build, will be 50 - 100 cheaper and you get to pick. I would recommend scan, on a basket you wont find cheaper

[lego batman]

Definitely build, it is no trouble at all if you take it slowly and will be cheaper. A scan, ebuyer and novatech combo is the way forwards.

[opel80uk]

Thanks a lot for the replies, was really really helpful to a layman like me, especially CAT for listing the parts. Think I'll build my own as it seems that's the way to go.

I do have a couple of questions though......

1) Is there going to be an awful of difference in performance between the Phenom II X4 940 and the cheaper AMD Phenom II X3 720 for the sort of games I want to play?

2) Someone mentioned I might want to purchase a cooler for the graphics card. Is this right? I looked up the Asus HD4850, and a couple of reviews says it gets quite hot. I'm not planning on over clocking or anything like that.

Will probably go for the cheaper hard drive though as am planning on keeping my other PC to use for all my music and photos etc, unless anyone thinks that's a really bad idea?

Lastly, is building your own PC something I could do myself using tutorials do you guys reckon? I'd like to have a crack at it but don't want to ruin those parts that I've just bought or anything like that.

Thanks again for all your help, very much appreciated.

[Mark C.]

Building is indeed so easy now, possibly easier than you imagine.
There are thousands of online guides to check out and basically everything is colour coded and can only fit one way...My advice, for what its worth, Go read some articles take things slow and of course if you have any problems/questions come back to the technomages here at Hexus!

Oh and most importantly.....Have fun!!

All the best

Mark

[lego batman]

Your motherboard will probably come with a basic manual telling you how to put CPU, RAM etc. in. There's nothing to be afraid of, and I think you should maybe check out scansure insurance if you buy from them.

[goku127]

I suggest to build one. Although you can buy PCs really cheap now, you may not get it exactly they way you want so you may need to purchase further components driving up the cost.

[opel80uk]

Another question guys. Will I need to buy a a fan for the CPU as well? I'm planing on getting the kit that CAT suggested above, but there is no mention of it. Thanks in advance.

[Mark C.]

Retail Cpu's come with heatsinks and fan, IIRC

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

To the OP the Phenom II X4 940 will be a better choice if you intend to keep the computer for longer between upgrades. It runs 200mhz faster and has one extra core.

The OP may also want to consider this graphics card too:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512MB...VI-I-HDTV-HDCP

It will also be a better choice if you want to keep the card longer between upgrades and can be upto 20% faster in many games.

[Crusoex]

A large plus of building yourself is that you can customise it and learn where things go. For example if you later decide you want a tv card (as I did) you know what the PCI slot is and where to find it. If you hadnt built it yourself you'd be less comfortable opening your computer and adding removing as you see fit!

[opel80uk]

Hi Everyone

I recently asked for some advice as to whether I should build my own gaming PC (Mainly for games like Football manager, RTS' and TBS' etc) and it was a unanimous yes! I then asked what part's I should be looking to get and CAT-THE-FIFTH and others were very helpful and CAT listed the parts below that he advised with a budget of around £500 to get (Sorry I can't post the URL's).

Anyway to cut a long story short, I got sidetracked and have just gotten round to begin ordering the gear, but have notice that a couple of the parts are out of stock or discontinued so am a little unsure as to what to get to replace them. I also noticed that the prices seem to have gone down a little so was wondering whether that meant I could upgrade the parts slightly, or indeed needed to? My £500 budget is flexible slightly, so not a problem if it's a bit over.

Once again, your help is greatly appreciated.

Many thanks

I would assemble the PC as you can target the budget better!

This is what I would get:

Phenom II X4 940 ~ £144

Asus 760G motherboard ~ £52

1TB Samsung Spinpoint F1 hard disk ~ £66

SATA DVD rewriter ~ £16

Asus HD4850 ~ £84

The total including postage is around £374. If you have 20+ posts on Hexus you can get free postage too!!

The other bits:

Antec Mini P180 ~ £55

OCZ 500w PSU ~ £45

OCZ 4gb RAM ~ £34

The total cost from Ebuyer is £134 with the free postage available. The total cost should come to around £508 and IMHO is a solid build for the price.

I would use Windows 7 RC1 until March 2009 and buy a retail copy of Windows 7 then.

The money saved could go towards an OEM copy of XP if required but TBH I would get Windows 7 as in a few years time Vista and Windows 7 will be better supported for games IMHO.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Hi Everyone

I recently asked for some advice as to whether I should build my own gaming PC (Mainly for games like Football manager, RTS' and TBS' etc) and it was a unanimous yes! I then asked what part's I should be looking to get and CAT-THE-FIFTH and others were very helpful and CAT listed the parts below that he advised with a budget of around £500 to get (Sorry I can't post the URL's).

Anyway to cut a long story short, I got sidetracked and have just gotten round to begin ordering the gear, but have notice that a couple of the parts are out of stock or discontinued so am a little unsure as to what to get to replace them. I also noticed that the prices seem to have gone down a little so was wondering whether that meant I could upgrade the parts slightly, or indeed needed to? My £500 budget is flexible slightly, so not a problem if it's a bit over.

Once again, your help is greatly appreciated.

Many thanks

Do you mind going for a bigger case??

Here here is a newer spec:

Phenom II X4 955BE ~ £140

http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

Gigabyte MA770-UD3 revision 2 ~ £54

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigab...D3-Motherboard

4gb PC2-8500 DDR2 RAM ~ £46

http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

Antec 300 case ~ £45

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Antec...r-Case-w-o-PSU

Corsair HX450W 450w modular PSU ~£59

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/450W-...-year-Warranty

Samsung F1 1tb ~£54

http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

SATA DVD rewriter ~ £13

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=520885

HD4870 512mb ~ £90

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/169206

Excluding any postage costs from Scan the total comes to around £501.

[WorshipMe]

^^ Pretty much sums it up.

[opel80uk]

Hey guys

Thanks very much for all your help, it's much appreciated.

Another question though, Do you think the above specs would be fine to run the sort of games I'm looking to play (New C&C. Empire: Total War, Football manager, Company of Heroes etc) or should I be looking to invest a bit more in any particular area of the PC?

Thanks again