Gaming PCs

Count Duckula

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Anyone here know anything about them? I bought a Dell PC five years ago that's been running my games fine for that time. However, the CD-Drive went earlier today and it's been on the fritz for a while, so I'm looking at getting a new one.

However, despite being pleased with how long and well this one has lasted I've been told that Dell are a bad way to go and I made a mistake. So, my question is what companies should I go for and what sort of price can I be expecting to pay for a computer that can play Crysis, Bioshock, Mass Effect et al in all their glory? I don't particularly want to shell out on a computer that only just plays them, because it seems both quite pointless and will be outdated in a few years. One of the reasons this one has lasted five years with minimal upgrades is because it was almost (but not quite) top-of-the-line when I bought it.

Thanks in advance for the help.
 
You have two choices really:

-Purchase a pre-built/customisable rig from a respected manufacturer ( I will outline them if you wish)

-Built your own rig by purchasing each major component seperately.

Now the latter is going to be the cheaper option, but not really advisable unless you have some sort of experience or simply know what you're doing. Its not difficult at all mind you.

As for the Dell reputation worry...bollocks I own a dell gaming pc and it laughs at everything I throw at it.

Ask away anything else ya need to know.
 
RedKaos's option B is the best option IMO....except you can purchase all the parts from a single site or just customise a pc.

Advantages is it can work out cheaper plus you can improve its upgradability
 
First you need to make the decision discussed above; if you know a fair bit about computers build your own custom one.

It used to be a definite choice but the financial differences these days from pre-built and custom aren't all that great. However, with a custom you can pick the motherboard, processor, and graphics card which will go a long way in terms of long-term usage. It will also not come with a load of bloated software that you don't really need. You can also use the mouse or keyboard and maybe even case if appropriate and not pay extra for them with a pre-built system. Another plus is that you can add on extras in time if you don't have the money right now.

It is the better option but it depends on your computing know-how. And your patience when building the system as there are (small) chances of compatibility issues arising.
 
I used to know shitloads about computers and could well have built one from scratch but since I've had this rig I've totally fallen out of the loop and forgotten everything. I'd have nowhere near a decent level of understanding anymore, so building it myself is probably not a good option without spending fecking ages bringing myself back up to speed (and believe me when I say I've forgotten nearly everything).

I've had my budget reduced, too, sadly, which means I'm now looking to spend no more than £1100 odd. Dell seem to be doing a fairly nice gamer, though, with duel 8800GTs, 4Gigs of RAM and a Quad Core 2.4Ghz for that price. Doesn't come with a monitor, mind, but I've got one of those.

Anyone know any other reputable manufacturers, though? Might do me good just to look up some of the other companies before blindly buying from Dell.
 
CD - If you dont want to build the rig yourself, then find a manufacturer that will build one for you; simply chose that parts you want, and itll automatically tell you the cost and if its compatible. You can even chose its rig casing :)

I have used such services from www.pcspecialist.co.uk in the past and I would recommend them, havent found a cheaper option either so give the site a look, play around with a custom build and see if it meets your valuation.

And by the way if you want to play crysis on high settings (well worth it imo!), then you're going to need at least 1x 8800GTX, 2x 8800GT might do the trick but id recommend you might as well go with the former to future-proof yourself seeing as you're buying a new PC anyway.
 
Count, go to Mesh. Best money:quality ratio I've come across. Just over a grand should buy you a nerdtastic computer.



NB: I don't really know very much about computers, but I did shop around lots when I got mine and a mate of mine who does know a lot of PCs bought one that could launch it's own satellite for around about 2 grand.
 
Do any of you have water cooling? Is it any good, and is it necessary at all?
 
Count Duckula said:
Intel or AMD?
nVidia or ATI?

Back when I knew vaguely what I was doing everyone I knew had Intel.
Click to expand...

When I did mine about six months or so ago Intel and nVidia were the way to go, not sure now though, can't see a reason why that would be different now though.

I went for a single 8800GT (BFG OC Model), 2gb Ram, Intel Duel Core 2.4Ghz and I run Crisis on high settings in DX9 at 1280x1024 at a steady 30-35 fps, more than enough for very decent gaming. I am telling you this to give you a bench mark on what to expect. I am also SLi ready if I want to slip another 8800GT in at any point.

I would always recommend building your own though or get someone you know to do it for you, I've always gone down that route and have never had a machine fail on me yet.

I have always used CCL Online, great company, I bought my first computer from them when they were just a small company in an industrial estate in Bradford, they are now fecking huge. They have never once sent me a dodgy part.

http://www.cclonline.com/
 
Well for my money it appears I can get two Radeon HD 4850 in Crossfire Configuration, which, according to that Tomshardware site and some more research I've done on t'internet, is the most powerful combination on the market currently.

And it seems only slightly more expensive than getting a GeForce of lesser power.
 
1871_Biscuit said:
Do any of you have water cooling? Is it any good, and is it necessary at all?
Click to expand...

Its often useful to keep the temperature down when you're using a high-demand PC (e.g. a pc with two 8800gtx gfx card or with 800w power). Its not really that necessary though if you keep your PC well ventilated; tbh people just put them in for cosmetic reasons.
 
I got mine from Komplett....it appears they don't have a uk base anymore.

Anyways i got a antec gamer case(for that extra cooling for upgrading)
dual core intel 3.0ghz
2 gig ram
EVGA 8800gt card which i might buy another to SLi it with.


wanted to get more ram but i realised with XP it wont support much more than 3 gigs

I'm hoping Weaste can refute this and tell me a way i can get 4 gigs running without half of it dedicated to the kernel:cool:
 
RedKaos said:
Its often useful to keep the temperature down when you're using a high-demand PC (e.g. a pc with two 8800gtx gfx card or with 800w power). Its not really that necessary though if you keep your PC well ventilated; tbh people just put them in for cosmetic reasons.
Click to expand...

Agreed. although the 8800GT's run fecking hot when you push them (the on board fans are shite), so as you say plenty of ventilation and case fans if people go down that road.
 
Alright, I think I may have built a pc in my price range that's to a decent standard. It comes in at £1,044 without a monitor, but I have a screen so it's not a priority.

If anyone with knowledge could spare a few minutes and just give these specs a quick read-through, tell me what I'm doing wrong, it would be appreciated:

CPU: Intel® Core™2 Quad Q6600 (4 X 2.40GHz) 1066MHz FSB/ 8MB L2 Cache
Graphics: 512MB RADEON HD 4850 x 2 running in Crossfire Configuration mode.
RAM: 4GB CORSAIR XMS2 800MHz
Motherboard: ASUS® MAXIMUS FORMULA: DUAL DDR2, S-ATA II, 2 x PCI-Ex, 2 x PCI
Hard-drive: 640GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 16MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
Sound: Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Xtreme Audio 7.1
PSU: 800W Quiet Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan

Also comes with a Logitech G5 edition gaming mouse, which is nice since my mouse is so old and grime-encrusted that it's sticky to the touch.

Anyway, if someone could just read through that and give their expert opinion I'd be much obliged. It seems to me to be excellent value for money, particularly with those graphics cards in Crossfire. Building a similar computer on Dell led me to spending more money on an inferior system (most parts were equal, but the cooling and the graphics cards were far inferior on the Dell system).

The website I used is www.pcspecialist.co.uk (as RedKaos) linked. If anyone has any pros or cons about them, then that would be exceptionally useful, too :D
 
You could probably launch the space shuttle with that bad boy.

Personally I'd go with nVidia graphics but if those cards are better then fair dos, haven't kept up to date since I built mine.
 
Count Duckula said:
Alright, I think I may have built a pc in my price range that's to a decent standard. It comes in at £1,044 without a monitor, but I have a screen so it's not a priority.

If anyone with knowledge could spare a few minutes and just give these specs a quick read-through, tell me what I'm doing wrong, it would be appreciated:

CPU: Intel® Core™2 Quad Q6600 (4 X 2.40GHz) 1066MHz FSB/ 8MB L2 Cache
Graphics: 512MB RADEON HD 4850 x 2 running in Crossfire Configuration mode.
RAM: 4GB CORSAIR XMS2 800MHz
Motherboard: ASUS® MAXIMUS FORMULA: DUAL DDR2, S-ATA II, 2 x PCI-Ex, 2 x PCI
Hard-drive: 640GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 16MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
Sound: Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Xtreme Audio 7.1
PSU: 800W Quiet Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan

Also comes with a Logitech G5 edition gaming mouse, which is nice since my mouse is so old and grime-encrusted that it's sticky to the touch.

Anyway, if someone could just read through that and give their expert opinion I'd be much obliged. It seems to me to be excellent value for money, particularly with those graphics cards in Crossfire. Building a similar computer on Dell led me to spending more money on an inferior system (most parts were equal, but the cooling and the graphics cards were far inferior on the Dell system).

The website I used is www.pcspecialist.co.uk (as RedKaos) linked. If anyone has any pros or cons about them, then that would be exceptionally useful, too :D
Click to expand...

this one pisses on that one, and is under a grand

I dont know whether the one you have put up has a monitor and this one has a 22" and it has blu ray

http://www.cube247.co.uk/?customise=37

* Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium
* Intel Core 4 Quad Q9300 Processor – NEW GENERATION
* 4096MB Corsair DDR II Memory
* 750GB SATA II Seagate Ultra Fast Hard Disk Space
* NEC 7200 Multi Format DVD/CD ReWriter
* TWO nVidia 9600GT 512MB Graphics Cards - SLI Magic!
* 7.1 High Definition Surround Sound
* Intel Deluxe Motherboard
* Multi Format Memory Card Reader
* LG BLU RAY Drive
* 10/100/1000 Ethernet LAN
* 12 x USB2 Ports
* Firewire
* Hanns G 22” Widescreen TFT 5MS HDMI Flat Panel screen
* Microsoft Wireless Multimedia Keyboard
* Microsoft Wireless Optical Mouse
* Creative Inspire T6100 5.1 Speaker System
* 12 Month Classic Warranty
 
Its a very good effort CD, very similar to my rig actually..but just a few things:

a) If possible I really would suggest you go with 2x nVidias...just better simply better for gaming.

b) Which operating system did you chose? If you chose Vista then make sure you get the 64-bit version, otherwise you'd only get 3gb...eventhough you opted for 4.
 
RedKaos said:
Its often useful to keep the temperature down when you're using a high-demand PC (e.g. a pc with two 8800gtx gfx card or with 800w power). Its not really that necessary though if you keep your PC well ventilated; tbh people just put them in for cosmetic reasons.
Click to expand...

Yeh, that is what I thought. They do look good though.
 
im also upgrading my pc.

ASUS P5Q Pro LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard
ASUS EAH4850/HTDI/512M Radeon HD 4850 512MB x 2 (Crossfire)
CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 Yorkfield 3.0GHz LGA 775
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3750640AS 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
 
VidaRed said:
im also upgrading my pc.

ASUS P5Q Pro LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard
ASUS EAH4850/HTDI/512M Radeon HD 4850 512MB x 2 (Crossfire)
CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 Yorkfield 3.0GHz LGA 775
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3750640AS 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
Click to expand...

Very nice processor...but sort out your video cards mate. If you're going radeon then get at least 768mb on each.
 
if you getting the radeon hd 4850 512mb then get the asus one because its the only brand which provides you software to control the fan speed otherwise it gets quite hot. the fan runs at 30% default you might have to double that to keep the temp down.

and ati > nvidia
intel > amd
 
Stemmy said:
I'm hoping Weaste can refute this and tell me a way i can get 4 gigs running without half of it dedicated to the kernel:cool:
Click to expand...

My PC only has 2GB, so I wouldn't know. Makes no sense however. 32bit = 4 billion, lose a bit for parity and that gives 2GB, I could not for the life of me think how an operating system could be restricted to 3GB of addressable memory, it's a silly number.
 
RedKaos said:
b) Which operating system did you chose? If you chose Vista then make sure you get the 64-bit version, otherwise you'd only get 3gb...eventhough you opted for 4.
Click to expand...

Why would a 32bit OS only be able to address 3GB of RAM but not 4GB? It makes no sense. It would make sense if you said only 2GB, which is not the case.
 
WeasteDevil said:
Why would a 32bit OS only be able to address 3GB of RAM but not 4GB? It makes no sense. It would make sense if you said only 2GB, which is not the case.
Click to expand...

i also read somewhere that even if you have 4gb it would still read 3gb although there's a way to fix it through bios.
 
WeasteDevil said:
My PC only has 2GB, so I wouldn't know. Makes no sense however. 32bit = 4 billion, lose a bit for parity and that gives 2GB, I could not for the life of me think how an operating system could be restricted to 3GB of addressable memory, it's a silly number.
Click to expand...

Well initially its 2gb....if you have 4gb then xp would automatically dedicate half of that to the kernel which is rubbish.

But a bloke i work with in IT is adament with a few changes you can up that to 3gb and 1gb dedicated kernel which is why i didn't opt to go 4gb ram.

having said that as soon as i can barely trust Vista enough and want to upgrade i'd bring that up a lot.

At the moment this pc runs sweet:) no problem with anything i've tried running on it anyways
 
WeasteDevil said:
Why would a 32bit OS only be able to address 3GB of RAM but not 4GB? It makes no sense. It would make sense if you said only 2GB, which is not the case.
Click to expand...

Dunno myself, did a system check and apparently ive only got 4 gigs....vista being funny and all.

Not a problem though, quick upgrade to 64-bit and im running on 4gb again.
 
RedKaos said:
Its a very good effort CD, very similar to my rig actually..but just a few things:

a) If possible I really would suggest you go with 2x nVidias...just better simply better for gaming.

b) Which operating system did you chose? If you chose Vista then make sure you get the 64-bit version, otherwise you'd only get 3gb...eventhough you opted for 4.
Click to expand...

Thanks :D

On (a), with the 4850, I made that decision based on a couple of factors:

1) The ATI based system on www.pcspecialist.co.uk came in at around £1107 (I upped the processor from the Q6600 to Q9300 -- the newest generation, and improved the processor cooling accordingly) whereas a near-identical nVidia based system (with a single 9800 GX2 rather than two 4850 HDs) came in at £1,292 instead -- £105 more!

2) That price hike can only be because of the graphics card, as everything else was identical. This is backed up by www.tomshardware.com, which seems to suggest that two 4850 HDs hooked up in Crossfire mode are both cheaper than a single GeForce 9800 GX2 AND will outperform it! That's the reason I thought I'd go with that -- it's the newest generation of graphics card, and, seemingly, is the strongest contender on the market in dual-usage mode, even better than it's bigger brother and the GTX2- range of GeForce.

Basically, it seemed to me that the 4850 HD is the newest generation of graphics card (the 9800 GX2 was rushed out to compete with it price-wise, and is the previous generation) and so is probably a better investment. It is more powerful AND cheaper than the 9800 GX2 and is actually more powerful and cheaper than the newest generation nVidias, too. It seems to be a sensible purchase.

However, you may be totally right about using nVidia not ATI. I admit I don't know much beyond what I've researched: if there really is a reason I should use nVidia then obviously you're in a much better position than I to determine that. I might be being blind to the obvious here and be sticking with ATI purely because I've always had Radeon cards and rather liked them.

One the subject of (b), I did choose the 64-bit version. It seemed to be no more expensive, either, although whilst it listed all the other Windows systems as coming with the key and license, this one was listed only with the key. Which seemed a little odd, but I don't think it means much? Ie, they won't sell me an illegal copy, surely?
 
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