• This topic has 27 replies, 18 voices, and was last updated 11 years ago by br.
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  • Buying a new PC
  • Offroading
    Free Member

    Hi,

    Looking to buy a new PC, it’s going to be used for gaming 😀

    I’ve been out of the circle of gaming for a while, have had a quick look at what’s available and need some pointers.

    What’s a good amount of gfx to have now ?
    8 0r 16gb ram ?
    i7 or i5 ?

    I have a budget of around £1400

    epicsteve
    Free Member

    You’d get a nice Alienware for that sort of cash. At the moment I’d be inclined to go i7 and 8-12Gb of RAM (given the RAM could be upgraded later).

    somouk
    Free Member

    I’d be looking for something with 1 Gb or Over of GFX RAM, maybe an SSD and SATA disk in the same tower, 8 Gb of RAM and an i7.

    theprancinghorse
    Free Member

    With the GFX look to get at least of 1GB of GDDR5 ram, and the way to get the best sort of combination is to spend at least the same, if not more on the GFX as you did on your CPU. I’d say go for i7 if you find a good deal, but i5 will be more than good enough. I’d say ideally at least 8GB of ram, but ram is so cheap now and can be upgraded in the future. Maybe look at a SSD and SATA 3 combination, seems to be pretty good for me!

    shindiggy
    Free Member

    You’ll need more than 1gb of GPU ram, battlefield 3 at 1080p a 2xAA uses 1.9gig of ram on my GTX 670 ggb version. Got for 2gig minimum on the GPU.

    If just for gaming than the hyperthreading on the I7 chip sets are not really needed, so go with an I5.

    8 gig of ram is plenty, 64bit OS, got for a 120-256mb SSD for the OS and game installs, a larger mechanical drive for stroage.

    Make sure you get a decent psu, Budget at least £80 for this and stick to a good brand (Corsair ect)

    You building or buying?

    shindiggy
    Free Member

    I built my core I5 (2500k overclocked to 4.9ghz), Asus MB, Corsair PSU, 8gig or Corsair XMS3 ram, GTX 670, Corsair H100 cpu cooler, Crucial 256gb SSD, for £700. Already had OS and mechanical drives from last built.

    vrapan
    Free Member

    You don’t need to spend 1400, you can build a cracking system for less than 1k with plenty of room for expansion.

    chewkw
    Free Member
    bruneep
    Full Member

    Have a look at http://www.chillblast.com/

    my son got a gaming PC from there circa £800, really cant fault it or them.

    somouk
    Free Member

    That TITAN PC on OCUK looks good.

    Offroading
    Free Member

    I’ll be buying, don’t have time to build myself.

    footflaps
    Full Member

    Some expensive options at that Titan PC eg £860 for their top graphics card! God knows what you’d need it for, 3D rendering?

    chewkw
    Free Member

    footflaps – Member

    Some expensive options at that Titan PC eg £860 for their top graphics card! God knows what you’d need it for, 3D rendering?

    LOL! 3D architect? No?

    My next PC will be Titan with i7 chipset etc when the price drops. 🙂

    zokes
    Free Member

    my son got a gaming PC from there circa £800, really cant fault it or them.

    My current PC is a five year old Core2-quad from Chillblast for about the sort of money the OP is talking about. Never really pushed it with games (and clearly it’s far too archaic these days for that). However, I found Chillblast very good to deal with, the staff clearly knew what they were talking about, and they were happy to downgrade certain things (GFX being one as I only wanted it for photo processing) to trim the price a bit. I’d happily buy another computer from them when I need one.

    Duffer
    Free Member

    You can build a decent gaming machine for half that money. With a few notable exceptions, there are very few games on the market at the minute that will exceed the capabilities of a current midrange graphics card. This is symptomatic of games consoles stagnating the industry – although it’s likely to change be the end of this year.

    I wouldn’t bother with the I7 processor, unless you’re using it for rendering, etc. Also, (and i may be wrong on this) Windows 7 professional is the only OS that can utilise any more than 8gb RAM.

    My system is an I5 2500K processor, 560ti graphics, 8gb ram and 64gb SSD. It’s been that way since this time last year, and it’s marvelous and cost me about £800 to build. It’s currently running at a stock 3.6ghz, as i’ve never needed to OC it (in fact, i’ve undervolted it). If i need more performance in the future, there’s scope to clock it to 4.6 or more.

    In summary, personally i wouldn’t spend that much on a machine.

    zokes
    Free Member

    Also, (and i may be wrong on this) Windows 7 professional is the only OS that can utilise any more than 8gb RAM.

    You are – any 64bit system from xp64 onwards can. You just need the x64 version.

    FuzzyWuzzy
    Full Member

    +1 for Overclockers and Chillblast, my current gaming PC (now 18 months old) was from overlockers. It was originally DoA but they sorted fast (replacement unit with me in 2 days).
    This one looks good: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-246-OE&groupid=43&catid=2475&subcat=2489
    Budget for a decent monitor as well though…

    Duffer
    Free Member

    You are – any 64bit system from xp64 onwards can. You just need the x64 version.

    I stand corrected.

    andytherocketeer
    Full Member

    Thought that i5 2500K was 3.3Ghz. Mine came OC’d to 4.6GHz, but wasn’t exactly stable. TBF, I think the PSU was letting it down more, rather than the OC profile pre-installed by OCUK. Didn’t bother applying the OC profile again after replacing the PSU. Prefer reliability over squeezing every last clock cycle, and only bought the bundle cos it was cheaper than the parts separately.

    Cost much less than that £800 above, but I only got half a bundle with no GFX, SSD, etc.

    That OCUK full PC looks neat, but £1300+ for a reasonable spec seems rather steep to me.

    turtleheading
    Free Member

    For £1400 jesus christ himself wouldn’t have a better PC!

    Check out Dell outlet for even more bang for your buck

    Duffer
    Free Member

    Thought that i5 2500K was 3.3Ghz

    I’ve just fired up CPU-Z and run Prime95; currently sitting at 3.41ghz. My point is that i’ve not found the need to OC it, but there is potential there in the future.

    sproot
    Free Member

    I stand corrected.

    or not, quite.

    I’ve no idea why you’d need that much though, even skyrim only recommends 4GB.

    thebunk
    Full Member

    turtleheading – Member
    For £1400 jesus christ himself wouldn’t have a better PC!

    He’d have a mid range macbook?

    FuzzyWuzzy
    Full Member

    Thing is you need an element of future-proofing (unless you have deep pockets to refresh it every year or two). It’s better to buy a graphics card now that’s more than enough for current games and still acceptable in 18 months time then buy a mid-range card now which is acceptable for current games but gives an unplayable frame-rate for future games. Memory is obviously easier to upgrade later but a pretty small cost to buy 16GB rather than 8GB up-front now. I’d also get a small SSD for the OS now rather than have disruption with rebuilding everything later.

    Offroading
    Free Member

    Here’s what i came up with:

    Case
    COOLERMASTER SILENCIO 550 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
    Processor (CPU)
    Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-3770K (3.5GHz) 8MB Cache
    Motherboard
    ASUS® P8Z77-V LX: USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX
    Memory (RAM)
    8GB KINGSTON HYPERX BEAST DUAL-DDR3 2400MHz X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
    Graphics Card
    2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 680 – 2 DVI, HDMI, DP – 3D Vision Ready
    Memory – 1st Hard Disk
    120GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
    2nd Hard Disk
    1TB 3.5″ SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 32MB CACHE
    1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
    10x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW
    Power Supply
    CORSAIR 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX750 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£86)
    Processor Cooling
    Corsair H40 Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler (£39)
    Sound Card
    ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
    Network Facilities
    10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT – AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
    USB Options
    6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
    Operating System
    Genuine Windows 8 Standard Edition 64 Bit – inc DVD & Licence (£79)

    A mere £1408 delivered.

    skids
    Free Member

    I’ would want a lot more graphics performance than that for £1400

    Offroading
    Free Member

    The 680 is the 2nd best card Nvidia make, only beaten by the 690 which is mega ££££

    br
    Free Member

    For £1400 jesus christ himself wouldn’t have a better PC!

    By comparison, my most expensive bog-standard PC for work cost £4000, in 1996.

    A Toshiba laptop, and it wasn’t their most expensive – the Pentium version cost more…

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