J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

My Middle lad wants a gaming machine for his bedroom, already has a manky old Dell but nothing from that is salvageable, the main desktop downstairs seems to do the job, thats a

E6750 CPU
Generic Medion/Microstar Mobo
4 GB (only 3 shows up for some reason)
Nividia 8500 GT (replaces the 8800 GT that died)
a Hard disk of some description

He wont have a great deal to spend so after suggestions of the best performance/price, doesnt have to be massively high end but decent performance with the possibility to upgrade.

So, any suggestions as to what to buy, not averse to S/H

Also, have lost the idea of what is good in graphics card land, am strugging to comprehend that you can spen £600 on one, are there games that actually use that ?

jura11

iTrader: (7)

Hi there have look at this Barbone systems,to this PC you will need ad new HDD(or your old HDD),in some cases GPU and if you have mouse,keyboard,Monitor you are ready to go

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/barebones.html

GPU(graphic card) depends on your budget,but ATi 5850 or ATi 5870 will do job easily,nVidia 460 or from newer 560 or 570 series will do job as ATi


Jura

Tidgy

new tech is always stupid money, check out the cards that are about 6 months post release, price tends to drop off very sharply so you get 95% of hte performance for 1/3 the cost

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Cheers, any suggestion of what models ?

Is DDR3 worth it, i.e. going for a newer mobo ?

CPU/Mobo, am thinking something similar to what we have in the existing would probably do the job, I get the impression that the tech is way ahead of the games if our four year old Tesco pc plays the games reasonably well (albeit not at huge resolutions but get no complaints)

Hard disk, probably have a spare 250 GB SATA, that should do, have 2 GB of DDR2 (2 * 2 GB), is that enough to get him going, how much is required ?

O/S, will need Win 7, whats the best way of getting a copy (legally !) and how much should we be paying.

Case, what kind of wattage is required these days, thinking 500 plus ?

Tidgy

tbh it depends what route you wanna go. if you buy a cheap pc it is what it is, spend a bit more and you tend to allow for upgradability.

i spent about 900 on my last one, but that included a graphics card from a mate so was cheap.

for a gaming machine 600 is a pretty low budget.

jura11

iTrader: (7)

Hi there

DDR3 is now standard,in few months you will struggle to DDR2 memory or will be stupidly expensive.Yes is worth in my view.

These two will do job nicely

£314(this have 6 cores)

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...BB-10504G.html

£269
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...BB-I32100.html


HDD depends on your budget,if you can stretch little bit more,buy SSD just for OS and WD Black or Blue,Samsung HDD for games(beware before Green)

W7 google is your friend i would suggest,but you can also buy cheap on eBay or other auction sites

Case any,but optimum for gaming PC will be 550-650W,this depends on your GPU


Jura

Tidgy

yeah power supply is underpowered for a gaming machine.

jura11

iTrader: (7)

Agreed,but i don't think he will invest to Dual GPU and for this will be OK with 550-650 Watt,but i would recommend 850W



Jura

Tidgy

550-650 will be fine for single (mines 550 and copes fine with a signle). at the min there isn't a justification for the cost of going twin in my eyes. you loose 60-70% of the second cards performance and quite frankly a decent single card will cope with any game out there so twin just becomes pub talk.