Help with buying gaming PC

[Robscure]

I'm trying to get the best deal for a pre-built gaming PC.

I've never built one myself, I wouldn't know the complete list of everything I need to buy, not to mention how to put it together. And I don't know anyone who knows how to put a PC together.

I want to get back into competitive gaming now that I've moved to London, and hopefully compete in tournaments and win some money.

I just want to be able to play without video lag, and have high-quality sound and headphones.

I care about high-performance... If I'm playing CoD4, I want to get high fps and be on an equal playing field as the pro's, and not have to ever worry about them having an edge just because my system is obsolete to theirs.

I don't want to spend more than £1000 for the entire setup (headphones, speakers, monitor, pc)...

Please if anyone can help me, I've searched every where and am having no luck... Thanks

[staffsMike]

Would you want something portable than you can take to Lan Parties/Meets etc.. ?

For you budget I really would put it together yourself, you can get an awesome PC for your money that way.

YoYotech (who are in London incidently) are doing fairly decent prebuilds at the moment. Check them out.

For me though I would build the following.

Intel E5200 + Xigmatek tower cooler ~£55
DFI P45 uATX ~£105
Silverstone TJ-08 ~£55
Corsair 520W HX ~£65
640GB Western Digital AAKS ~£48
Samsung Optical drive ~£15
4GB PC6400 DDR2 RAM ~£50
Vista home premium (64bit if you can and OEM) ~£65
Nvida GTX260 ~£170
2 x Scythe slipstreams ~£10

~£660.

That will be a silent (once fans are replaced with the slipstreams), small and cool running PC

Leaves £340 for the monitor and other gubbins.

£130 will get you a very nice 22" screen. £200 will get you a pretty nice but cheapy 24"
Personally I'd stick to the 22" though given the budget.

Which leaves just over £200 for Speakers etc.. Which is a hell of a lot really.

[Robscure]

Would you want something portable than you can take to Lan Parties/Meets etc.. ?

For you budget I really would put it together yourself, you can get an awesome PC for your money that way.

YoYotech (who are in London incidently) are doing fairly decent prebuilds at the moment. Check them out.

For me though I would build the following.

Intel E5200 + Xigmatek tower cooler ~£55
DFI P45 uATX ~£105
Silverstone TJ-08 ~£55
Corsair 520W HX ~£65
640GB Western Digital AAKS ~£48
Samsung Optical drive ~£15
4GB PC6400 DDR2 RAM ~£50
Vista home premium (64bit if you can and OEM) ~£65
Nvida GTX260 ~£170
2 x Scythe slipstreams ~£10

~£660.

That will be a silent (once fans are replaced with the slipstreams), small and cool running PC

Leaves £340 for the monitor and other gubbins.

£130 will get you a very nice 22" screen. £200 will get you a pretty nice but cheapy 24"
Personally I'd stick to the 22" though given the budget.

Which leaves just over £200 for Speakers etc.. Which is a hell of a lot really.

Thanks a lot, I heard that the Radeon 4870 is the way to go for graphics... does it not make much of a difference?

I just buy all of these parts separately and then put them together myself? I wouldn't know where to start. The wires and everything? lol sorry

I'll see if I can get your recommendations at YoYo...

Thanks a lot... sorry for my ignorance, all of these names and brands and numbers make no sense to me though lol (Silverstone TJ-08, for example, I don't even know what that is), which would make it difficult for me to build it myself...

[staffsMike]

I will post back in a few minutes with links if you like.

YoYotech will actually put anything together that you buy from them so it might be worth getting a dialogue going with them

Honestly though, there are a million guides on the net on how to do it. The only difficult part is getting the heat sink onto the CPU, just takes a bit of bravery lol and if anything doesn't work first time out, but then you have Hexus on hand for getting you out of those sorts of binds

[DeludedGuy]

Like Mike said, try looking at yoyotech or giving Scan a quick call.

But yeah, building it yourself is the way to go, its really not that difficult, just google a few guides, there must he hundreds if not thousands of guides out there.

If you decide to build it yourself, heres a quick list, went slightly over budget, but it includes everything, even mouse and keyboard



You can go to ebuyer.co.uk and type in the quickfind codes and see them yourself.

[Robscure]

Thanks so much you two...

Deluded, I'll check out your guide...

I was just looking at this "yoyotech-intel-viper-system"

It looks close to what Mike was referring me to...

I won't mind buying from YoYo if they're going to put it all together for me and it only costs an extra £100... That's not so bad... But if it costs an extra £500 lol then that is crap... Like Alienware, I suspect overcharges for their products...

I haven't been into gaming in so long, since Quake 2 and my Nvidia Geforce fx 5700... Now there's all kinds of crazy stuff I'm completely unaware of.

As long as I can play the hot competitive titles of next year on this pc then I'm happy. I just don't want to stare at 10 fps with contempt.

[staffsMike]

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=860613
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=632574
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=700899
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=378734
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=446788
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=798906
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=862663
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=849682
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=876380
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=527300

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=628496



Something wen't a little wrong with the picture but you get the idea lol

The 260GTX is a personal preference for heat and noise. The HD4870 runs a bit hotter than I would like and the SPCR have reviewed the GTX saying how quiet the 260 is, which is important to me.

[DeludedGuy]

Yah, that yo-yo tech viper system should be fine for you, and it would leave you more than enough money left over to buy a 22" monitor, speakers, mouse and a keyboard.

[PeterStoba]

Give me a try, for £715 you will get StaffsMike's specification, free overclock (100% stable) BIOS and windows optimisation and lifetime free technical support.

www.apex-pc.co.uk (link should be allowed...)

[staffsMike]

Without the monitor I assue? Good deal though

Remember the only real benefit of that case is to make it more portable as it's small. If it's going to be stationary then perhaps change the Case to the Coolermaster CM-690 and the Motherboard to the Full ATX plus Version

[Robscure]

The Intel duo or the Intel Quad?

Is there a major difference?

I should also mention that I need a monthly pay plan, I don't have any money saved up so I can't straight out buy everything I want right away.

Should I just save money and by the time I have enough new items will be out? Or what?

I'm really anxious to start gaming again, I was so good at Quake 2 when the computer specs hardly mattered... but ever since then I've been cut out of the gaming scene completely, unable to play at all on my crappy dell, and now I don't even have a computer since I moved.

So should I just wait another year before I buy everything with cash or is there some place with a good payment option?

Sorry for being a pain in the rear guys, I really do appreciate your time and knowledge.

[staffsMike]

Well best to stick with YoYo or scan than unless Peter is willing to facilitate that.

Quad is 4 cores, Duo is 2 cores. Doesn't matter for games which you have.

[Robscure]

Give me a try, for £715 you will get StaffsMike's specification, free overclock (100% stable) BIOS and windows optimisation and lifetime free technical support.

What do you mean "give me a try"? Goto apex and order there? Or talk to you personally?

If you can get me a fully loaded, ready-to-play gaming machine, and can work out a monthly payment plan, then I'm willing and able. Otherwise, I'm out of luck I suppose.

I want the mouse, mousepad, keyboard, monitor, pc...

as of right now I haven't got anything, not even an xbox... The inner-gamer in me is going crazy, it's been too long since I've played any games at all lol

[PeterStoba]

Pay monthly isn't available from APEX just yet, few weeks and it will sadly

Good look finding a pc, just a word of warning, with scan and others you pay about £650 more when you borrow £1000... and you need a 10 deposit to start with. Which, when saved into a lump sum would get you an absoloute monster really...

[Robscure]

What do you guys think of this, for the price...
....

wait nevermind it won't let me link you to it... gr

[Robscure]

Pay monthly isn't available from APEX just yet, few weeks and it will sadly

Good look finding a pc, just a word of warning, with scan and others you pay about £650 more when you borrow £1000... and you need a 10 deposit to start with. Which, when saved into a lump sum would get you an absoloute monster really...

What kind of "absolute monster" are you talking about, and how much of a "lump sum"?

Thanks for the tips... Check out the link I sent to the yoyo comp I customized... It's £1400... but if I can pay it off in 6 months time it shouldn't cost me much more than that, I hope...


...nevermind it won't let me link you guys to the customized pc...