I'm building a gaming PC and could use some input plz ^^

[Y2Ant]

Hai.

Basically I haven't built/upgraded/tinkered with any PC hardware in ages, and i've had a laptop for like 18 months now, but it's basically shit and won't run any games at all. So I am going to put together a really awesome gaming pc at http://www.thepcogroup.co.uk/ and I realised I have no idea what's actually good in today's marketplace.

I'm sat here looking at an Intel Core i5 750 CPU, and an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 CPU and I really have no idea which one is better, or even if the numbers still mean the MHz they run at.

So yeah if any of you guys could recommend what kinda stuff I should be looking at to be able to run current games pretty well, then I would be forever in your debt. :love:

My only requirements so far is that I want an Intel processor. I'm thinking ATI for a video card, but if they're shit now then I dunno. :mad:

[#BROKEN Hasney]

Unless you want to bump up to i7, the i5's are better than the Quads. Mhz can only really be used to compare similar processors these days as there's a lot more to them.

Right, so I've done this one:

http://www.thepcogroup.co.uk/computers.php?computer=7&custombuilt=93

*Bumped the motherboard up to the USB 3.0 one (for an extra £20, may as well future-proof it a tad)

*Bumped the RAM up to 4gb 1600Mhz. I'd reccomend 4gb and the extra £10 spent on faster RAM is worth it. Remember though, you'll need a 64-bit OS to fully take advantage of it.

*GFX - Go for the 1gb HD5570 or higher, depending on your budget. Again, the extra £10 or so difference between the 512mb and 1gb models will make a difference. If you can afford a 5850 then I would.

That makes it £524 (with the 1gb ATI HD5570) without fiddling with hard drives, DVD Drives and software, but you'll know what you want in that respect

[#BROKEN Hasney]

Honestly, looking at that and seeing they give a 3 year warranty, I may join you on this...

[Y2Ant]

£757.07 for all the stuff I want, and this is without a monitor, mouse, keyboard, everything else external from the PC itself. :'(

[Vietnamese Crippler]

So what are the specs that make it 757.07?

Keyboard and mouse shouldn't kill you (unless you're gunning for one of the high-end Logitech products), but the monitor might depending on the size, of course. What other external items are there (only thing I can really think of right now is speakers)?

[Y2Ant]

I'm only buying the PC, I have a keyboard, monitor, etc etc already.

the 757.07 is:

Intel i5 750 CPU
USB 3.0 Motherboard
4GB RAM 1600MHz
1TB Hard Drive 1
1TB Hard Drive 2
Samsung/LG DVD-RW
1024MB Radeon 5570HD Video Card
Default Case (undecided yet)
550W PSU
Default Sound
300N Wireless network card (not sure if i need this?)

Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

and that's 757.07. :(

[#BROKEN Hasney]

I got it down to £616 by taking out the 2nd hard drive and dropping Windows. You can get the 2nd HD later when you've almost filled the first and you can always download Windows.

If you really want a legit Windows though, go here: http://www.microsoft.com/uk/education/studentoffer/

You damn students get it cheap :'(

[Y2Ant]

:D

[Y2Ant]

So just for some clarification, if i'm gonna be putting together something which could run today's games pretty damn well, what kinda specs would I be looking at?

[#BROKEN Hasney]

Pretty close to what you're looking at getting with that spec, with a better GFX card. An ATI 5830 would probably run anything comfortably that's out right now at max or at least very high detail.

[Vietnamese Crippler]

There are only two or three higher CPU options beyond what you have selected, but the Core i5 is supposedly the best for gaming.

And I agree with Hasney, if you had a 5830 (or a 5850, IMO) you would be set.

[Y2Ant]

£200 for the graphics card just doesn't seem worth it to me, is the 5570 gonna be a lot worse than the 5830/5850?

Also, would I be wise to get more than a 470W PSU with this, and would it have wireless internet as standard or would I need a network card?

[Y2Ant]

Also, if I bought this: http://www.software4students.co.uk/Microsoft_Windows_7_Professional_64_bit_Upgrade_Edition-details.aspx it would work if I was clean installing it on a blank system with nothing on it right? Just the word 'Upgrade' in the title kinda worries me, you don't have to already have an OS on a hard drive to use this do you? :$

[Vietnamese Crippler]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10388567-56.html

And the 5570 is supposed to be a budget card, so it's difficult to compare it to the 5830/5850, but it's still a decent card.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-5570,2552-14.html

[Y2Ant]

Well there goes the cheap Windows 7 then :/

[Vietnamese Crippler]

Someone will need to clarify if this would actually work, but perhaps you can download a copy of Windows 7, but buy a legitimate license to use from eBay (here in the States, keys can be had for $40 or so) .

[Y2Ant]

ok, so i'm still wanting to put together a gaming PC, and I finally have the funds to do so now, plus I never want anything for christmas anymore so I guess this can be my early christmas present :D

anywho, i've put together the following on pcspecialist.co.uk:

Intel Core i5-760 Quad Core 2.80ghz 8MB cache
ASUS USB 3.0 / SATA 6.0GB Motherboard
4GB Kingston DDR3 1600MHz RAM
1GB Nvidia GeForce GT430 PCI-express
1TB WD HDD SATA 6GB/s 64MB cache
Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium

everything else is just standard, and it comes with a 3 year warranty :o

£725 total, is that a decent price for that kind of hardware?

a couple of things though: the default PSU is 350W which i'm thinking is pretty ridiculous? but it costs like £50 more for an 800W one. is that overkill?

also, is the graphics card good enough? i think everything else is pretty top notch.

suggestions etc are very welcome (and needed) :wave:

[Vietnamese Crippler]

GT430 is pretty paltry if you wanted a computer that's somewhat future-proof.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-radeon-hd-6870-radeon-hd-6850,2782.html

There are some good recommendations in that article.

Also, 350W is pretty small and if you wanted to upgrade the video card to something more powerful, you would need at least 500W depending on the card, I think. 800W is overkill unless you plan to use Crossfire/SLI.

[G]

thx for that link. was so gonna make a post about best video card for around $50 on amazon, and that site nailed it.

[KleptoKlown]

This is a PM you sent me like 100000000 years ago :lol: Love how the hardware changes so much...


[color=#9900FF][font=Trebuchet MS]I need some advice on some hardware shit, and since you are the man (and since I can't find you elsewhere ), I thought I would pester you

I think I need a new motherboard, that video card you said to get ended up being too good to be true, my system seems to have slowed down now

http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard...GA-8SR533P.htm

That's my mobo, just wondering if I really should upgrade it, I was advised to, since (apparently) it shouldn't even run the 6600GT. Anyway, I am just wondering what is a good name and chipset to go with, i've looked around and most of the stuff on a few boards i've seen is what I want, socket 478 so I can put my P4 on, PCI slots for my sound card, an AGP 8x for the Geforce.

A couple of things though, my hard drive(s) are UltraATA100 (or 133 I forget) as opposed to SATA, and the boards i've looked at can accomodate 4 IDE devices like mine can now, but also the 2 SATA ones, when I buy a second HD should I get it as a SATA or an ATA100/133? Can you have one of each? And what difference does it make etc.

The other thing is the dual channel RAM, not really sure how that works, but i'm thinking that if I get a new motherboard with 4 ram slots, I can keep my current 256's, and add in 2 more, rather than replace them with 2 x 512's.

I'm not sure if it's just the mobo slowing down my comp, might be the power supply, or both. Can one or both of these do that? I'm only running a 300W PSU right now, gonna get a better one.

Oh and last question, can I swap the mobo over without reformatting ?

I love you ({)

[Y2Ant]

ah the 6600gt. i think i used to run warcraft on that :o

[Bad Company]

I'd try http://pcspecialist.co.uk they seem a bit cheaper.

[Y2Ant]

Alright, i'm getting that spec from pcspecialist but with a few tweaks/questions:

Gonna get the motherboard with SLI support so I can add a second vid card, is that smart?

Graphics card wise, gonna go with the 1GB Nvidia GeForce GTX460, it seems to be a high-mid range card from what i've read.

Hard drive wise is it worth a little extra to get a 6GB/s SATA 1TB? or will the speed not make much diff? the motherboard is 6GB/s so i dunno, seems like i should make use of it.

Power-wise, is 600w enough, or too much still?

prob gonna cost 800-850 now, but it'll probably be worth it in the long run i'm thinking.

[Vietnamese Crippler]

If you're going SLI, you need like 1000W, I think.

[Vietnamese Crippler]

And I would go with the 6GB/s SATA just because it's available :o

[Mooияakeя™]

Then buy a Battlefield game.