friends new pc, any good?

[Pete]

hi my mate is getting a new pc from pc world and he asked me if it is going to be able to play games such as bf1942 and mabye farcry
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/product.php?sku=639357
link ^
will it be any good or just a pile of unupgradable poo
Pete

[LouG]

Well according to the specification it has onboard graphics that won't really cut it for the games. Why is he getting a pc from pc world?

[Feck]

Well, no AGP port for graphics upgrade as far as I can tell. Maybe BF1942, but you can forget Farcry. P4 based Celerons dont cut it much for serious gaming, coupled with onboard graphics were talking low detail and low resolution.

[Falcon2004]

What is it that possess people to buy from PC world? Seriously...I wan't to know...

[Pete]

Well according to the specification it has onboard graphics that won't really cut it for the games. Why is he getting a pc from pc world?

he doesnt understand pcs at all
his dad has a mac g4 as the family computer and so he cant do work on pcs at school and carry them on when he gets home as mac havnt got word
so his dad is getting him a pc, he mainly needed it for documents and work, but when he saw bf1942 on my pc and farcry videos on the month (sunday times) he decided he wanted to play them at home, he thought he could get them on ps2 or xbox but sadly they arnt coming out. so his last hope was this pc. i dont think he minds if it is bad graphics so long as he gets an okish frame rate on bf i think hell be happy.
although he did say he had about 100 pounds to spare because he thought the pc would be around 500 quid, so i told him he might be able to get a new graphics card for it, can he?
any ideas much appreiciated
Pete

ps falcon i think people get them from pc world cause they dont understand what a mb is or what a graphics card is, thats what pc world is all about they build the pc for you and sell it to you for more than it would cost if you had built it

[LouG]

Hopefully he can get a graphics card for it as long as it has an agp port, have a look when he gets the pc.

[spazman]

just a pile of unupgradable poo

[Lexeus]

If it has to be from pc world then this would be alot better:

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/sto...1&tm=undefined

Has gefore4mx card, nowhere near the best but a budget card.
Also have a DVD-writer

[turkster]

YEah if he thought it was going to be £500 then why doesnt he just spend it and get a slightly better computer in the first place?

As far as i can see there is little hope of being able to play Farcry on a prebuilt system of this price anyway.

[r1zeek]

I've got exactly that model of eMachines (had a GF4 MX with it though, got it as a spare rig for my brother)
Pretty unupgradable, doesnt support AGP 8X only 4X, pretty poor, but it cant cut it on far cry even with a new Rad 9800Pro
I'd go for that Compaq Lexeus recommended

[LayZeh]

Build one for him, what kind of a friend are you?

[madwelshboy]

Hi Pete,

To be honest its hard to answer that question without knowing some more details about the system but an initial response would be NO.
There are a number of reasons for this, primarily due to the PC having onboard graphics, the performance is nowhere near enough for games such as Farcry etc.
Also there is 256mb of memory (what type?) and ideally you will need 512 as a minimum (1gb is ideal).
A major consideration also is the CPU, Celerons are alot cheaper than their P4 brothers and with good reason, they only have 128kb Level 2 cache and this means a big difference in games performance.
My feeling personally is that for just a few quid more (£450 eg) you could have a custom built PC that would run the latest games. Hope this helps.

[da_ging]

build 1 for him

LG Electronics SW700S Studioworks CRT 17ins 0.27dpi 1280x1024 69khz 042832 433 £62.38 £62.38
Deluxworld M80112 4-1 Window Case Keyboard Mouse Speakers 051402 1414 £27.99 £27.99
Gigabyte 7N400E-L SKT A Nforce2 Ultra ATX 400FSB Sound LAN USB 2.0 Retail Box 055014 217 £40.98 £40.98
AMD ATHLON XP2500+ 333MHZ FSB 512 L2 Cache Barton CPU - OEM 047843 142 £43.22 £43.22
Maxtor 6Y080P0 Plus 9 80Gb 7200rpm 8mb Cache ATA133 Hard Drive - OEM 043151 105 £41.16 £41.16
Alps 1.44 Silver Floppy Drive 3.5 Inch Internal - OEM 055687 356 £4.07 £4.07
Thermaltake A1889 Venus Silent Boast Heatsink & Fan (supports upto AMD3400+ CPU's) 055554 577 £10.89 £10.89
Corsair (VS256MB400) 256 DDR400 PC3200 VALUE SELECT Memory Module 048123 5 £31.20 £31.20
Ebuyer 56K V.90 Hardware Fax/Modem - Retail Box 020266 8322 £5.95 £5.95
Sapphire Radeon 9600 APG x8 128MB DDR DVI-I TV-Out Lite Retail 049372 58 £54.44 £54.44
Liteon 52x32x52x16x IDE Drive (COMBO) - OEM 058586 23 £26.41 £26.41

total £421 and a ton better than that pcworld ****

[Stoo]

his dad has a mac g4 as the family computer and so he cant do work on pcs at school and carry them on when he gets home as mac havnt got word

He might not have M$ Word on the mac, but you can certainly get software that will open it.. http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/oo...downloads.html for example..

As for the emachines lump.. avoid, if you have to get something from pc world then get a compaq/HP at least, otherwise get a company like scan or novatech to build it for him..

[dgr]

Build one for him, what kind of a friend are you?

thats a pretty unkind comment.

i'd prefer not to have to support a guy who (1) can't be arsed to read up and download open office and (2) doesn't know better than to buy from PC world

[Pete]

tbh i really cannot see myself building him a pc he isnt really that greater a friend
hes got the pc today i think he text me and told me he was at pc world when he sent the text. so ill just have to go round his house sometime with bf and game such like to see if its any good.
if not then oh well, he can just buy ut2004 for mac and play that.
what does everyone think is better macs or pcs?
Pete