Jamz3k

I'm looking to build myself a decent PC for a bit of gaming. I don't need anything too mad just enough to have a bit of fun with.

How difficult is it to build up a PC, what all do i need and what sort of cost should I be aiming for?

Also can I use my home cinema setup for PC gaming?

EddScott

https://www.scoobynet.com/private-fo...ml#post9525813

This might help you on the graphics front and also has an HDMI output for hooking your PC up to your AV. Its how I pump videos/iplayer to my TV through my receiver. For games I have an optical output from the sound card to the receiver.

PCs are pretty easy to build because all the bits really only go one way. You can't put the RAM in the wrong way round for instance.

The hardest thing IMO is changing the boot order in the BIOS when you first start it up so it boots from the CDROM so you can load the operating system.

If you buy a motherboard with onboard sound you can do without the sound card which saves you a few £££. The cost depends if you've got existing PC bits you can scavange - monitor/keyboard etc.

LEUVEN

How much it will cost is a little like "how long is a piece of string" to some extent as you can get a decent gaming PC from a few hundred quid to a few thousand quid, depending on what sort of experience you want and also as Eddscott mentioned about salvaging some parts you may have lying around.

It also depends on how "high end" you want to go?
SSD's
Top of the range GPU
Large 30" LCD etc
You'll want a fairly decent PSU, CPU and Mobo too.

Your wallet must be cowering in the corner right now LOL.

EddScott

Give us a budget and a list of parts you already have and we'll come up with a gaming rig for you.

ChefDude

if i was building another one, i would

budget £200 for a quad core chip
budget up to £140 for a capable gigabyte motherboard - should you want to ever hackintosh, gigabyte are the easiest.
choose a graphics card - no idea what these are, but I always start at www.tomshardware.com
I tend to keep OS and data separate, so
2 x 1TB drives are cheap
1 SSD and 1 x 1TB drive less cheap, but faster
I'd get a 1000w TAGAN PSU to cover all the power needs

EddScott

Well to be fair most games don't use multi-core processing and games that are supposed to be able to use can play up and force you to turn it off (Valve games for one)

My machine has an i3 which is dual core but is running over 4Ghz on an easy to do and stable overclock (gigabyte motherboard makes it easy)

Graphics cards - well I've bought a 460GTX Nvidia which is why I'm selling the ATI 5770. The 460 was £180 and the 5770 is £140 both do similar things. I got a good deal on the 460 which is why the 5770 is for sale.

I put my OS on an SSD and games on a HDD. I've had ongoing issue with freezing in games but only when the game is loaded on the HDD. I'm tempted to junk the SSD and keep important stuff on an external drive. The SSD is noticeably faster to load but its giving me grief in games.

I've got a bluray drive/SSD/HDD/Graphics card/Sound Card running on a 650W OCZ PSU.

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

Boot drive SSD £138 quid
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/60GB-...-Write-275MB-s

CPU would be intel, not much in it between the 920 and 930 now (about 26 quid)
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Intel...io-130W-Retail

Graphics £175
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-P...I-Display-Port

MoBo
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...-SATA-RAID-ATX

PSU (its modular, I prefer these, you may not, just means you put the cables in you need)
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/880W-...dular-DC-to-DC

Mem/sound/main hdd's/dvd/blu ray etc, all down you what you need and want

Tony

ChefDude

to be fair, i'd leave SSDs for a year. they're going to get faster, bigger and cheaper.

save money and just get a 1 or 2 1TB drives.

and i'd still be getting a gigabyte mobo.

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

Id go with the asus, far better and more reliable board than gigabyte tbh, not as many features though which lets it down, but from experience, the asus is much more user friendly (and that reliability issue comes in to it here too )
I like gigabyte but they have naff all uk support and the 3-4 I have had have all had some issue or other I have had 1 issue on an asus board which was quickly sorted and a replacement board received (and ive had more asus than gigabyte boards )
Ovaerclocking is a doddle on an Asus, all the software is included including a bios upgrade program.

SSD's are much better than they were, the newer versions are out now so for a boot drive its a good buy, unless you want to stick with the older hdd, then go for a veloci raptor as your boot drive.

The one last thing I will say is that with the next gen chips coming out from intel that support tri band memory shortly, it "may" be worth waiting if you want that, if not a good 920/930 setup will do you for a few years

Tony

EddScott

Or just buy this

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...44&subcat=1712

This is almost identical to my gaming PC and although I've had driver issues it will run any game I throw at it. It will run Metro 2033 at 1900x1200 in DX11 with everything set to high with only a bit of slow down in heavy fire fights.

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

Not a bad out of the box pc though your normally stuck with the bottom of the bucket parts in these which can mean your pc may look fast but has bottle necks to overcome

Tony

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

Ed, have you bought your 460gtx yet?

Tony

StickyMicky

My ASUS p5ql-pro is crap.

It will not give more than 1.5vcore and keeps randomly losing its bios settings for no reason, 3 different bios batterys so far, no change.

I have saved the overclock profile via the option available in the bios, so its not that big a deal, it just means the missus can not use the pc when she turns it on and it "goes to that scary setup screen stuff"

I walked in from work once and she was knee deep in the bios "its went all funny when i turned it on"

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

Your doing well to get 1.5v from the core as the specs are for 1.1 to 1.4v but its fairly old now as mobo's go still run one of these myself, never had a problem with it, just my 6600 chip stops me going much further due to it being the older (less clockable) version
Upgrade time soon

Have you upgraded the bios using the bios tool? that may sort your problems out, done it twice on this board with no issues

Tony

StickyMicky

I read online about people with "custom" bios that allows a higher v-core, but they scare me

I was not aware it was only supposed to put out 1.4v, it goes up to 1.5v in the bios settings on mine (needs load line calibration enabled though otherwise you get next to nothing)

I was not planning on changing it for a while as i doubt a 3.55ghz quad is going to be "out of date" regards to PC gaming for a decent amount of time, especially with the amount of console ports hitting the market nowadays, maybe a GFX upgrade though, i feel like ATI is giving the best bang for buck these days.

The system generally runs fantastic for me (when the bios keeps its settings) but i only run a screen with a 1024x768 res (i used to run dual screen)

I had to steal one of my monitors for work, and i have been meaning to junk this screen and pick up a larger one for about 8 months now, no doubt the system will struggle a little with the larger screen res.

jura11

iTrader: (7)

My recommendation about gaming PC

Motherboard: Asus 1366 Rampage II Gene(for people who wants one or more nVidia GPU or Ati ) about 180£
Asus P6T SE(for people who want only Crossfire) 140£

CPU: Intel i7 920 or 930 about 160£

CPU Heatsink/Cooler: Noctua NH-U12P 35-45£

Ram:6 GB Corsair XMS 3 1600 from 106-120£

HDD: Samsung F1-F3,don't buy any WD Green.(SSD i recommend you wait)

GPU: ATi 5850 or nVidia GTX 465

Sound Card: any Asus Xonar(best sound card for games and movies)

PSU: any OCZ ModXStream (i have good feedback from many customers),but personally i have ThermalTake 1200W ToughPower(for 2 x Ati 5970)

EddScott

What would constitute a bottleneck?

OCUK have sold a fair few of these and also sold the ovclocked components as a bundle - its what I have but I've re-jigged the clock to 4.20ghz.

No one has complained about the bundle but I've had ongoing issues with games freezing. I'm thinking its an issue between the SSD and HDD (posted about it in another thread).


Its coming today. I'm going to swap out the 5770 for the 460. Load Steam and left 4 dead 2 onto my HDD and see if I still get freezing/sound loops. If it does then I'll take out the SSD and install OS/Steam/L4D2 on the HDD and test again. If it still does it I'm stumped! (It does it on stock speeds so its not the overclock)

I did have the 5770 for sale on OCUK but they banned me for 48 hours for dropping the price within 24 hours - I was haggling with someone but apparently it was seen as price dropping - f*cking stupid.

EddScott

I have 2 1.5TB WD Greens - whats up with them?

jura11

iTrader: (7)

I have bad experience with WD Green,due slugish perfomance compare to WD Black,Blue.In HDD everything its cache and RPM.Just download HDTune and try WD Green and swap for WD Black,you will see difference.WD Green its good for HTPC,which don't need fast HDD,but for gaming and rendering,i stilll use only WD Black or Blue.And last Green are 25-35% slower than the standard 7200RPM Black series.And i don't really like WD Green power saving feature,aka switching RPM from 5400-7200RPM and versa,some games doesnt perform well on this HDD and keep freezing.These HDD are good for backup,but not for OS or gaming
If really you want WD here is my chart:
green = low power / low performance
blue= medium power / medium performance
black = high power / high performance

jura11

iTrader: (7)

Really i don't think its GPU issue with games freezing,but some games don't like ATi GPU,before you installing new GPU use Driver Sweeper.Maybe i'm wrong but for me one from more reason why your PC freezing its WD Green,if you play games from SSD game don't freeze and when installed on WD Green game freezing,thats simple.Try swap WD Green HDD for any HDD aka Samsung F1-F3,WD Black(these HDD you should buy for 30£).

EddScott

Could this be why I'm suffering from game freezing/sound loops?

I've put the OS on a crucial m225 128GB SSD. My games/steam/storage on one of the 1.5s.

With the games on the HD they freeze/sound loop every few minutes.

STALKER on the SSD was flawless. Borderlands on the SSD does freeze but maybe once in an hour of gaming. Only game related to Steam and not causing issue when loaded on the HDD was AvP.

If I can't get the machine to behave with the SSD, I'll ditch it along with the Green 1.5s for 1TB blacks.

EddScott

***

jura11

iTrader: (7)

If you don't have problems with SSD,that problem will be with WD Green,due these HDD have power saving features which slowing perfomance and which you don't need in Gaming PC.Other problem will be if you have i7 which have HT-Hyper Threading,some games doesn't like HT enable(Race Driver-GRID),try turn off and if occur freezing will be WD Green.

Tidgy

built mine a month ago

Intel core i7 2.66GHz 8MB cache
Asus P6t sok 1366, ddr3-2000
6GB ddr3 1600
powercolor 4890HD graphics card (cheap from a mate)
1TB Seagate barracuda, 7200rpm, 3gb/s 8.5ms response
OCZ Stealth XStream 600W PSU
Coolmaster ammo 690 tower
windows 7, full retail, home premium

The graphics card was a bit of a stopgap untill i can find a card thats reasonable price, i wasn;t prepared to pay 350 to be 5% more capable than the one i have (got it for £50 so quids in ), all in all came to about £750 ish, yet to find a game it even starts to struggle to play at maxed settings.

i could have built it on a lower spec MB, chip and ram, but wanted the I7 for the latest socket for future upgradeability. MB has 1600 ram but will take 2000 ram, its got 6gb in it with spare slots for another 6 (3x2gb) so i can put 12gb straight into it, which i can't see being needed for a while yet.

Tidgy

personaly i'd not bother with a gtx465, i dont think there that good for the cost, although a tad bit more money at £230 i think this one is prob more suited, better clock speed, better memory speed etc

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-X...-DVI-I-HDMI-DP

MB wise i would prob go for this one, in fact i did lol, only difference i can tell is SLI which is only for use with nvidia when link more than 1 graphics card, and peronaly i don;t think the cost of twin cards is worht the 30% performance increase at the min

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...-SATA-RAID-ATX

jura11

iTrader: (7)

In your configuration its everything spot on ,but GPU you hold in down,but for 50£ its best GPU.Personally i recommend you wait to next year where coming out ATi HD6XXX.
If you play games on max and no struggle,its nonsense buy new GPU.

jura11

iTrader: (7)

I use on my customers PC only XFX 5850 or XFX 5870.You recommend its same MB which is use only,because on this MB you may use SLI or Crossfire,no just SLI or Crossfire.

Tidgy

yep my plans exactly

StickyMicky

I use two WD Greens.

Jamz3k

Holy crap! This thread has fried my brain!

Honestly the only reason I want a PC for gaming is for Starcraft2, so i doubt i'd need anything top-spec. Don't have a budget as I was just gonna buy a part per month till i'm ready to stick it together.

As for what i've got, NOTHING! I used a crap laptop!

I was looking at this and it seemed very tempting and I doubt I could build something for less although knowing nothing i could be wrong!
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=FS-259-OK