Advice on creating a £800 gaming rig

[Grey Fox]

Hi, I was wondering if I could get some advice on creating a gaming rig for £800 with the capability of playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. That's the watermark I've set it at because I reckon that'll at least give me a few years of decent gaming before I have to upgrade.

I'll most likely be doing my shopping at a computer fair so if I can walk in there armed with a printed list of specs that would be great, and I won't get lost in countless junk perhaps being touted.

To save you guys from trawling the net for Oblivion specs, here they are:

Recommended:

* 3 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
* 1 GB System RAM
* ATI X800 series, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series, or higher video card

Minimum System Requirements:

* Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows XP 64-bit
* 512MB System RAM
* 2 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
* 128MB Direct3D compatible video card and DirectX 9.0 compatible driver;
* 8x DVD-ROM drive
* 4.6 GB free hard disk space
* DirectX 9.0c (included)
* DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
* Keyboard, Mouse

Supported Video Card Chipsets:

* ATI X1900 series
* ATI X1800 series
* ATI X1600 series
* ATI X1300 series
* ATI X850 series
* ATI x800 series
* ATI x700 series
* ATI x600 series
* ATI Radeon 9800 series
* ATI Radeon 9700 series
* ATI Radeon 9600 series
* ATI Radeon 9500 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 7900 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 7800 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 7600 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 6600 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 6200 series
* NVIDIA GeForce FX series

I'm looking at playing with with something like a nVidia Geforce 7600 or something, at least high end.

It's tricky to pull off the balance of memory and processing power I've found.

Your help will be greatly appreciated.

[dave87]

Do you need a monitor keyboard & mouse included in the £800 budget?

[Grey Fox]

I ain't really bothered about that. I could pick em up for about £20 (minus a HD monitor, I know that's gonna sting) or get one from a friend if need be. I'd prolly get a controller for gaming anyway. I'm mainly concerned with the rig, all peripheral stuff i'm not worried about because I can get them no problem.

BTW, I don't have exactly £800, just thinking of around that price range. Cheers.

[dave87]

right, well minus a dvd-rw drive I came up with this - but it is at the very top of your budget, and personally I'd wait until the x1950 came out



and if you hang around and make 25 constructive posts, you get free shipping from the boys @ scan

If you wanted to, you could get a single gb of ram now, and put a dvd-rw in, then get the other GB later...

[ja3h]

oooh money!

tbh i think that the p180 isn't a good case for a first build its way too cramped!

Are you going to overclock the pc and are you interested in "future proofing" it?

if you aren't going to overclock it may be better to get higher clocked single core.

Also what size monitor are you going to use? if you're just going to be getting a 20 inch then you won't need such a high spec card..

and you shouldn't skimp on the keyboard/mouse/speakers/monitor!!

[dave87]

oooh money!

tbh i think that the p180 isn't a good case for a first build its way too cramped!

Are you going to overclock the pc and are you interested in "future proofing" it?

if you aren't going to overclock it may be better to get higher clocked single core.

Also what size monitor are you going to use? if you're just going to be getting a 20 inch then you won't need such a high spec card..

and you shouldn't skimp on the keyboard/mouse/speakers/monitor!!

admittedly the p180 was chosen out of personal preference

Overclocking or not, the 3800+ meets his current requirements, and with futureproofing in mind its Socket AM2, and has a decent graphics card (he mentions a HD monitor at one point). The 3800 can then also be overclocked at a later date when he feels confident to do so

The bit about not skimping on the keyboard/mouse/speakers/monitor couldn't be more valid - went from a microsoft optical mouse to the mx1000 and wouldn't go back

[Grey Fox]

Nice. Thanks alot for your help Dave. Those specs put me on the right path. But are you sure that Sapphire brand will support Oblivion? I will freely admit my ignorance of such issues, but just looking to be sure. I do know that the ATI X1900 is one of the hottest around right now. And is the processor okay? Is 3ghz the only safe option? (Again, not clued in here so forgive me if it's a stupid question.)

But say I do follow your advice and wait for the x950? That'll just help add more to my budget, see. But I am kinda itchy to start gaming.

Regarding the mouse/monitor/keyboard/speakers... I know I could get a keyboard for about £12, tracker ball £10 or abouts, speakers £20 or so... Now a a LCD monitor or something well decent... Hmm... Well, I guess I shouldn't be so blase about it. Any advice there?

And I wouldn't feel safe with over-clocking the PC until I knew it was ready for an upgrade. Unless my PC was waterproof, lol.

Thanks alot for your help, guys.

[chuckskull]

Nice. Thanks alot for your help Dave. Those specs put me on the right path. But are you sure that Sapphire brand will support Oblivion? I will freely admit my ignorance of such issues, but just looking to be sure. I do know that the ATI X1900 is one of the hottest around right now. And is the processor okay? Is 3ghz the only safe option? (Again, not clued in here so forgive me if it's a stupid question.)

That setup will play oblivion all day long on high settings. The processor is easily capable. AMD's do more work per ghz. That chip is much faster than a 3.0ghz P4.

Sapphire is just one of ATi's partners. the actual card will be more or less the same from whichever partner, a x1900 is still a x1900.

As for computer fairs, you can probably get the stuff much more cheaply online, Scan are excellent as many (if not all) the regulars on this forum will tell you.

[MSIC]

But are you sure that Sapphire brand will support Oblivion? I will freely admit my ignorance of such issues, but just looking to be sure. I do know that the ATI X1900 is one of the hottest around right now. And is the processor okay? Is 3ghz the only safe option?

GreyFox, if you have been out of this area for a short while you need to know that the idea of faster Mhz / Ghz processors has pretty much gone out of the window. Well, not entirely, if you take two CPUs that are of the same 'family' the higher MHz will still be faster/better, but what is crucial to know is that a 3 Ghz Pentium 4 would be a very poor choice for a new CPU. The AMD Athlon64 chips have ruled the roost for approx 2 years now with their litterally slower but definitely better chips. Intel have just come back onto the scene with their brand new 'Core 2 Duo' chips that do what the Athlon64 did, but better still! These are the very best you can buy right now, although since they are so new i honestly wouldnt know if you could get any from a computer fair (never been to one!).

As chuckskull says, ignore the 'Sapphire' brand, it's an ATi card with a sticker on it, which is basically a good thing (although the nVidia 7900 series is the other obvious choice).

Regarding the mouse/monitor/keyboard/speakers... I know I could get a keyboard for about £12, tracker ball £10 or abouts, speakers £20 or so... Now a a LCD monitor or something well decent... Hmm... Well, I guess I shouldn't be so blase about it. Any advice there?

I entirely agree with the lads above, a basic set may well get you started (and so on that basis you perhaps could purchase cheapo's to start with) but eventually if you like computer gaming you'll want to be spending £30 to £60 on a decent keyboard/mouse combo. As for speakers, i'm surprised more people dont do what I do which is to get some cheaper seperates amp & speakers setup (try looking around Richer Sounds). These will easily blast away any 'proper' computer speakers, for not much money.
As for monitors, well, all I can say is have you considered widescreen?

And I wouldn't feel safe with over-clocking the PC until I knew it was ready for an upgrade. Unless my PC was waterproof, lol.

And lastly i wonder if you have confused overclocking with water-cooling? Certainly one can involve the other, but overclocking simply means taking a regular setup, changing a couple of numbers (say from 200 to 220) in the BIOS and that's it. You are making the system run slightly faster than it was sold for, but it's a very easy process (and safe, providing you do a little background reading).

[kasavien]

I drew this spec up yesterday but couldn't find this post again until today, was having problems getting onto the forums yesterday. Anyway here it is.



The motherboard only has one PCI-E slot as i believe an nVidia SLI motherboard is pointless if you're using it with an ATI graphics card. I wasn't sure if you would need an operating system so i assumed you would and have included this, if you don't need an operating system, upgrade the CPU to a 4200+, and get a keyboard and mouse, to start with something like this -> http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...roductID=80127 would be fine, in games like oblivion it's not necessary to have a high end mouse/keyboard. I'm still using a microsoft keyboard but i got a new mouse (logitech mx518) for more acuracy in counter strike

Edit1: balls i forgot a hard drive - gimme a few minutes to sort it

Edit2: Ok got a hard drive now, its over budget, but i think its a very well rounded system, and worth the extra cash, like i said above though you may not need XP so if you don't that will bring it back within budget.