Please help me choose a gaming pc!

[jonmiles]

Hi there,
This is my first post here, and I hope I've created this thread in the correct place!

I'm looking for a PC for me to take to university.
The budget should be roughly £2000
It will be used for many purposes, but the most demanding will be gaming and game content creation.
I'm looking for an all round system, with a good TFT and good speakers.
I lean towards wanting an AMD processor and a geforce 6800 (it wins for doom 3!)

I dont have the time to build the system myself, so it'll have to be prebuilt. I also don't trust myself with putting top-quality kit together to a very high standard . I have some choices i've already found, but I'd really like you guys to suggest some other options. These are some i've been looking at:

Carrera PC's
http://www.carrerassc.co.uk/carrera_...sp?systemvar=h
configure this with some high specs and youve got a good pc i think
I really like Sharp LCDs too

Scan Computers
http://systems.scan.co.uk/Systems/Co...SP?SystemID=55
Pros: Great manufacturer! Uses my dream case, great keyboard+mouse, cherry-picked components.
Cons: Expensive as hell! Ouch! I'd have to lower the spec in a few ways (they include an mp3 player for some reason :/)

Mesh Computers
http://www.meshcomputers.com/updated/xtreme_3.htm
Pros: a great Sony 19" LCD, 500 gigs of HDD, audigy ZS Platinum
Cons: case doesnt look too hot, has software and joysticks i dont need

Overclockers UK
"Ultima" Pentium IV 'Northwood' 3.4 GHz
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatal...l_systems.html
Pros: experienced custom pc company, great components
Cons: have heard mixed reports on delivery times and customer service. The price doesn't seem too spectacular.

these are just ideas, I'd love to see some more suggestions...
thanks for any help you could give guys

cheers,
Jon

[Aaron]

Well, £2000 is a lot of money so you could check out Alienware, thought their systems are hardly the best value for money.

Alternatively, try Dell. Their XPS range should suit your needs and it's pretty configurable.

[nichomach]

Dell != AMD, and Athlon64 would appear to be the way to go.

Myself, I'd look at Evesham's Axis range ( http://www.evesham.com ) - I've got a couple of systems from them for home users and they've been pretty good. Around your £2K budget, I'd say:

Axis 64 Dominator (Sep04) 1 £1,105.53 £1,299.00
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 1 £0.00 £0.00
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition 1 £0.00 £0.00
200GB SATA (8Mb Buffer) 1 £0.00 £0.00
No Raid 1 £0.00 £0.00
1GB ultra fast DDR RAM (PC3200)(2x512MB) 1 £65.00 £76.38
Xpider Design Case 1 £0.00 £0.00
19" Viewsonic VX910 pure digital DVI TFT monitor 1 £0.00 £0.00
16x DVD-ROM 1 £0.00 £0.00
Sony 8x Dual layer DVD re-writer 1 £0.00 £0.00
256Mb NVIDIA Geforce 6800 Ultra Graphics 1 £200.00 £235.00
Audigy 2 ZSsound Platinum drive 1 £120.00 £141.00
Altec Lansing 5100 1 £80.00 £94.00
56K Internal (PCI) 1 £0.00 £0.00
FDD with 7-in-1 Card Reader 1 £20.00 £23.50
Onboard 10/100/1000 Network 1 £0.00 £0.00
Microsoft Cordless Keybd & Mouse 1 £0.00 £0.00
No Mouse 1 £0.00 £0.00
Upgrade to 3 year on-site warranty 1 £34.03 £39.99
No Works V 7.0 1 £0.00 £0.00
MS Office XP Student License 2003 (Retail) 1 £99.00 £116.33
Pinnacle Creativity Bundled Software 1 £0.00 £0.00
No Wanadoo 1 £0.00 £0.00


Totals: £1,723.56 £2,025.18 inc VAT

[-mb-]

"Savrow" make cool, but very pricey PCs...http://www.savrow.com/site/home.html
They are cool though...classier than Alienware.
The Platinum range looks best for you...http://www.savrow.com/site/platinum.html
The customisation isn't working atm.

I think the Deuterium with Athlon64 FX will out of your price range...

Evesham are also supposed to be pretty good...http://www.evesham.com/Default.asp?e=&td=1

A customised Axis 64 Dominator might be the ticket...
It has a nice 19" TFT, Socket939 Athlon64 processor, and can be configured with a decent 256Mb 6800GT, and 1Gb RAM, and the audio gubbins you want...
http://www.evesham.com/PCs/Configura...D-B8390B35BF99

[-mb-]

Dell != AMD, and Athlon64 would appear to be the way to go.

Myself, I'd look at Evesham's Axis range ( http://www.evesham.com ) - I've got a couple of systems from them for home users and they've been pretty good. Around your £2K budget, I'd say:

Axis 64 Dominator (Sep04) 1 £1,105.53 £1,299.00
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 1 £0.00 £0.00
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition 1 £0.00 £0.00
200GB SATA (8Mb Buffer) 1 £0.00 £0.00
No Raid 1 £0.00 £0.00
1GB ultra fast DDR RAM (PC3200)(2x512MB) 1 £65.00 £76.38
Xpider Design Case 1 £0.00 £0.00
19" Viewsonic VX910 pure digital DVI TFT monitor 1 £0.00 £0.00
16x DVD-ROM 1 £0.00 £0.00
Sony 8x Dual layer DVD re-writer 1 £0.00 £0.00
256Mb NVIDIA Geforce 6800 Ultra Graphics 1 £200.00 £235.00
Audigy 2 ZSsound Platinum drive 1 £120.00 £141.00
Altec Lansing 5100 1 £80.00 £94.00
56K Internal (PCI) 1 £0.00 £0.00
FDD with 7-in-1 Card Reader 1 £20.00 £23.50
Onboard 10/100/1000 Network 1 £0.00 £0.00
Microsoft Cordless Keybd & Mouse 1 £0.00 £0.00
No Mouse 1 £0.00 £0.00
Upgrade to 3 year on-site warranty 1 £34.03 £39.99
No Works V 7.0 1 £0.00 £0.00
MS Office XP Student License 2003 (Retail) 1 £99.00 £116.33
Pinnacle Creativity Bundled Software 1 £0.00 £0.00
No Wanadoo 1 £0.00 £0.00


Totals: £1,723.56 £2,025.18 inc VAT

Great minds think alike!

[nichomach]

Two minds with but a single thought - I went for the Ultra, but close, eh?

[jonmiles]

nice thinking so far, thanks!

aaron: I agree with you there, Alienware are very cool, but for 2000 quid i'd be scraping the lower end and thats not really want i want to do for that kind of money

nichomach (and mb!): very suitable candidate that is, sir! quite comparable with the mesh i had picked out, and I've probably heard better things about evesham than mesh so I'll add that to my shortlist

[DaKid]

Without wishing to be awkward, it really is worth building your own. For £2,000 you could get the best of the best and it's really not that difficult. I spent £1,500 (without monitor) and there's very, very little that I skimped on and I can run all the latest games with maximum settings without any problems at all. The prices I paid can be seen at http://www.martindoyle.com/pc3.html, so you can see the sort of thing you can get.

Additionally, if you get it all from one place (say you get all from Microdirect for example) then you can get them to build it for you for a small fee (think MD charge £50+VAT) meaning you get all the advantages of an own-build system and you also get it built for you!!

[Byatt]

I'd steer clear of evesham, personally, got a friend who has gone through seven kinds of hell getting support for his laptop from them.

If you're spending £2000 and there's a problem with a pre-built system a very sensible idea would be to consult with the vendor involved - most of them well have some flexibility in order to make a sale.

Personally I think you could build an absolute monster of a system for £2k on your own, but if you want to go the pre-build route, I'd personally speak to MESH.

[nichomach]

Sorry, but I have to disagree; Mesh have in my experience a much more...uneven... support experience. I also just think Evesham build more solid machines, and a 3 year on-site warranty is as good as you'll get. Yes, it's worth building your own on cost grounds, but if someone isn't comfortable doing that, then there's no point forcing the issue.

[jonmiles]

Without wishing to be awkward, it really is worth building your own. For £2,000 you could get the best of the best and it's really not that difficult. I spent £1,500 (without monitor) and there's very, very little that I skimped on and I can run all the latest games with maximum settings without any problems at all. The prices I paid can be seen at http://www.martindoyle.com/pc3.html, so you can see the sort of thing you can get.

Additionally, if you get it all from one place (say you get all from Microdirect for example) then you can get them to build it for you for a small fee (think MD charge £50+VAT) meaning you get all the advantages of an own-build system and you also get it built for you!!

really, that isn't being awkward at all... thats a very tempting offer to have it built by someone like MicroDirect... I can't get your site to load though unfortunately

I would appreciate some pointers on which components i should use to make up a system though, i'm a little crap at matching CPU to Motherboard to Memory, getting sufficient power supply and cooling, and cabling etc.

[DaKid]

Yeah, I host my site myself so if you were looking at 3 in the morning then I'm afraid my PC would've been off ... try between 7am and 11pm GMT

As to getting the right bits, this is the forum to find out. Apart from being able to post your spec to a thread and have people say "Yes that'll work" or "No that won't work" or even "Yes that'll work, but I'd recommend ..." you'll also find some useful threads on building it. There was very recently (last week I think) a thread with a calculator in for working out how much power you needed, and as for working out the CPU and Motherboard, if you pick the CPU first then it'll say which "socket type" your motherboard needs.

Alternatively, get these guys to suggest a system from scratch. Then you can go to a site, chuck it all in and then fiddle with it as you wish

[DaKid]

Oops, apart from today cos I've brought me PC into work to have a gaming session tonight

Have posted it all below instead

Computer from Micro Direct

COST DESCRIPTION

£ 59.35 Antec Sonata Piano Black Quiet Case - 380W TruePower Silent PSU
£ 199.00 AMD Athlon 64 3500 (Socket 939)
£ 75.95 Asus A8V-Deluxe/wifi-g AMD Skt939 K8T800PR 8X AGP DDR400
£ 99.95 Geil® Value 1Gb PC3200 Dual Chan DDR Kit (2x512MB) (5ns Cas 2.5 8-4-4 )
£ 304.95 Gigabyte GV-R80X256V ATI Radeon X800 XT 256MB VIVO TV-Out/DVI (AGP) - Retail
£ 66.95 200 GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus9 SATA UDMA150 8MB Cache
£ 36.89 Sony DWU-18A 8x DVD±RW ReWriter (Black) - OEM
£ 15.99 Sony DDU1612 DVD-ROM (Black) - OEM
£ 6.00 Sony Black 1.44MB 3.5" FDD
£ 60.00 Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS 7.1 THX - Retail
£ 77.00 Creative Inspire 7.1 T7700 Speakers - Retail
£ 61.00 Logitech Cordless Desktop MX - Retail
£ 58.00 Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition - OEM
£ 15.00 Delivery of main order
£ 5.00 Part-Ship for Graphics Card

£ 1141.03 Subtotal
£ 199.68 VAT
£ 1340.71 TOTAL

Accessories from Kustom PCs

COST DESCRIPTION

£ 31.49 Zalman 7000BCu Copper
£ 21.23 Icemat Black 2nd Edition
£ 5.11 Arctic Silver 5 Compound
£ 16.00 AcoustiFan 120mm
£ 30.49 AcoustiPack™ Sonata Kit
£ 8.51 Infiniti Compax CD-R 80min
£ 14.89 Infiniti DVD+R 4.7Gb 8.0x Cakebox
£ 6.64 Shipping (3. Interlink Couriers)

£ 134.36 Subtotal
£ 23.51 VAT
£ 157.87 TOTAL

Grand Total

£ 1498.58 Including VAT and Delivery

[jonmiles]

I like that system you built, if i had the time i think i'd buy almost exactly that, but i'm running out of time so its definitely going to have to be prebuilt.

Here's a likely contender from Scan Computers:

Casetek 1019SA Silver Aluminum Case
425W HiperPower HPU-3s425 3rd Gen Quiet Dual Fan Passive PFC
Abit IC7 Max3 i875P 800fsb DDDR400 Gbit Lan 4xSATA 6Ch (£315 base price)

3.4GHz Intel Pentium® 4 CPU "Northwood" (800FSB) HT 512k Cache (Add £164.34)
Corsair TwinX 1024 MB 3200 Low Latency ( 2 x 512MB PC3200 184 pin MATCHED PAIR DDR LLPT) (Add £209.00)
200Gb Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 Serial ATA (ATA-150) (7200rpm, 8MB Cache) 1yr (Add £71.89)
Sony Black CRX 320E Combo 52x32x52x16 CD-R/RW DVD (Add £23.31)

256MB Gainward GeForce 6800 ULTRA PP (6022) U/2600 (Add £333.95)
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy ZS 71 THX Retail (Add £59.25)
7 x Internal Case Fans 80mm (2 x Front, 2 x Side, 2 x Rear, 1 x Top) (Add £20.93)
MS Windows XP Home Edition OEM (Add £51.10)

19" Iiyama TFT PLE481S-S Silver Analogue, DVI, SXGA+Speakers (Add £339.00)
Logitech Cordless Desktop MX Optical (Mouse & Keyboard) (Add £61.89)
Creative Labs Megaworks 5.1 550D (Add £159.00)

pc cost: £1,825.41
VAT: £319.45
Total: £2,144.86


What do you think?
personally, the pros are that this has my ideal keyboard+mouse, sound card+speakers, my 2nd favorite case, 19" monitor, gainward 256mb 6800 ultra

my worries are with the processor mainly, i know all too well how the athlon 64 trounces these intel cpu's. Still, it should perform pretty awesome right? There are too many things wrong with the amd based pcs from scan, unfortunately.

Click here to play around:
http://systems.scan.co.uk/Systems/Co...SP?SystemID=19


_____________________________________________________


Here's a MESH pc

X-treme 64 - FX 53 Platinum 939
AMD Athlon™ 64 FX 53 Processor
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
Mainboard , GB LAN, IEEE 1394, SATA, RAID
1024MB DDR 400 RAM (PC3200) Registered Memory
500GB Serial ATA (150Mb/s) Hard Drive (2x250GB)
256MB nVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra - TV-Out & DVI
19" SONY TFT Flat Panel Monitor (Analogue/Digital)
SONY 16x Dual Layer DVD-RW (R/W all standard formats)*
SONY 52x CD RW & 16x DVD-ROM Drive (Combo)
Creative Labs Audigy 2 ZS Platinum EX Professional
Creative Inspire T7700 - 7.1 Surround Speakers
X-treme3 Games Bundle (Joystick, Gamepad, 3 titles)
ASUS WiFi 54MBps IEEE 802.11g PCI Card
Internet Ready V.92 56Kbps data/fax/voice modem
Network Ready integrated 10/100/1000 Ethernet
Logitech Cordless Keyboard and Mouse

Total cost £2099 inc vat

well, looks like it would perform better i guess...
any comments? i am so lost