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pc buying advice needed.......

I'm after a new pc, nothing amazing as I've only got around £500 to spend. I'm not into building them as I don't know what I'm doing. Games are not hugely importand but being able to run football manager and Halflife (at an ok rate) would be great. Can anyone recommend decent a system and where to get it from? Dell for example? Am I being unrealistic with my budget?

Thanks

(Base Price: £ 339.58 ex VAT)
Case: Micro ATX Mini-Tower with tool free access
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
Motherboard Features: ASUS 939 Pin PCI Express Mainboard
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3200+
Memory: Upgrade to 512MB PC3200 DDR (400MHz) at £45
Hard Drives: 80GB Serial ATA (150MB/s) Ultra Fast Hard Drive
Video Card: Upgrade to 128MB nVIDIA 6600 - TV Out + DVI - PCI Express at £55
Monitor 1: 17'' CRT Digital Colour Monitor, TCO99 (Analogue)
Optical Drives: 52x32x52 CD-RW Drive
Sound: Onboard 5.1 Surround Sound 6 Channel Audio
Speakers: Creative Soundblaster SBS260 Speakers
Modem: 56kbps V92 Modem, featuring data and fax.
Keyboard & Mouse: Logitech Internet Keyboard & Optical Mouse (Black)
Video Editing: Cyberlink PowerDVD, Power2Go, PowerProducer3, PowerDirector3, PowerBackup, MediaShowSE, PowerCinema4 (oem)
Software: Microsoft® Works® 8.5
Warranty: 3 Years - Parts & Labour - Back-to-Base Warranty (Mainland UK only - Terms Apply)
Delivery: Insured Del within Mainland UK (+ £39) at £39
Price Excluding VAT: £ 478.58

Price Including VAT + DEL: £ 562.33

Quantity Required : 1
Price Excluding VAT: £ 478.58

Price Including VAT & DEL: £ 562.33

The above is from meshcomputers.com, its based on their special offer 'Matrix Arriva' (£399 inc vat). Only things I added to the spec was an extra 256Mb of memory (total 512Mb) and a Gfx card upgrade to Nvidia 6600.

Should play original HalfLife well :)

PS, you may want to add a DVDROM drive or combo DVD/CD drive

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrEvil

Cheers thats just what I'm after, thanks for looking into this for me. Opps I meant Halflife2! could this system run it?

You might have to turn the detail levels down a bit from maximum, but it should run...

Quote:

Originally Posted by seven x

Cheers thats just what I'm after, thanks for looking into this for me. Opps I meant Halflife2! could this system run it?

If you want to play Halflife 2 to it's full potential then your looking at between £300 > £500 just for the Graphics card alone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jpor

If you want to play Halflife 2 to it's full potential then your looking at between £300 > £500 just for the Graphics card alone.

Do you think that system would run Halflife2 tp the point that it is playable?

Quote:

Originally Posted by seven x

Do you think that system would run Halflife2 tp the point that it is playable?

Well after looking at this:

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/gra...404/index.html

You will be able to run it. But from what I have read you really need something special to get the full graphics potential from the game. But if youre not bothered about that then you'll be fine.

The only thing I would look into carefully would be the LCD Monitor, some older LCD monitors arn't up to the task of playing games and come over a bit blurry when playing in motion.

If you want to run HL2 at full, get change the Gfx card to: 6800GT
Or, if I *think* a 6600GT will run HL2 at pretty good settings, but the 6800 series more geared up for it power wise.

Heres some good links to help you decide which Gfx card is for you:

BF2 -> http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2466&p=3

HL2 X700 vs 6600GT -> http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2278&p=12
HL2 X800 pro vs 6800GT -> http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2278&p=11

Out of the options listed by MESH, and you're requirement to run HL2 and the new games, I would recommend you look at up'ing the spec to:

1Gb RAM
6800GT or X800XL or 6600GT (in order of preference IMHO)

Most games these days need a 1Gb to run 'smoothly' due to the amount of graphics data, otherwise it uses the virtual memory (hard disk space) which can make it a bit choppy at times. BF2 at high settings needs 2GB (well > 1Gb, usually about 1.3Gb on 64 player maps).

Note, take a close look at some of the other mesh deals, it can work out cheaper to find one that matches your spec bar one item, then select an upgrade in the configuration tool for that item.

If you have more questions post them here..

To be honest, if HL2 is your main concern, 1Gb and 6600GT will work very well at supported resolutions of 17" TFT, check out the links above, they should help.

Once again thanks for all the help everyone. DrEvil your advice has been a big help. cheers

Got me to thinking that I need to upgrade my 1Gb at long last as well... right where's the link to Komplett?