Need Com-Pyoo-Terr Halps

[Finius]

As per the title, I need some computer related help.

It's no secret that AFUK is 50% Airsoft, 50% Geekaphilia-Miscelaneous, so I'm sure someone will spread some light on the issue for me.

Long story short, I wish to purchase a computer. The primary purpose of the aforementioned mystery-machine will be gaming. When I say gaming, I mean old games, for example, the newest thing it needs to run is probably The Sims 3. I basically want it to run all the older games that PS3 never got, or got but just weren't as good as their PC counterparts, so being able to powerf*ck the life out of Call Of Duty 36: Advanced Modern Combat Ghost Warfare Unicorn-Ops, is not needed.

What I DO want though, is for it to run the games I do want to play pretty much flawlessly, with high graphics enabled. None of this blocky, 1 frame-per-second, freeze-unfreeze-freeze shite I get on my laptop.

I am Finius, hear me roar. I demand BETTER.

Budget is a big issue. Because I don't play 'modern' games a lot (that's what I bought a console for) I don't want to spend more than a months rent on the thing. And that includes EVERYTHING from the actual tower, to windows through to peripherals and monitors. I just want to have it arrive, mysteriously and watch as it cleverly unpacks itself, sorts itself out and have everything I need to molest the papacy in their naughty spot on Medieval Total War 2. As such, I want to spend £525 tops.

So far, I've only really looked on eBay and the item peaking my interest is this fellow: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Goblin-3-90GHz-Quad-Core-8GB-1TB-DVDRW-22-Monitor-Fast-Windows-7-Gaming-PC-/281320444703?pt=UK_Computing_DesktopPCs&hash=item418001531f

What I need to know AF-UK, is what all the fancy numbers mean and whether anyone has any observations on the deal as a whole - I'm VERY out of tune with which graphics cards are decent etc, and my knowledge of the market at present, is that when it comes to processor, ram, graphics and hard-drive, the bigger the numbers, the better. I don't know my 2GB AMD Radeon HD 8570D HD 1080p from my 42GB Pope-f*cker HD 234567U HD 1310800p. I bow to your superior knowledge AF-UK, enlighten me.

Alternative suggestions welcome, however I'm not willing to stick my winky in anyone for cash (or vice versa) so to budget por favor.

AF-UK, hear my call.

 

[Mack]

For the price and what you need it for, Thats a decent little package there. Im not sure you could build one yourself much cheaper tbh

 

[jcheeseright]

yeah, that'll do it!

 

[cropzy]

Not being funny but that machine will break in 3 months.

Horrible Chinese parts and low quality components.

Never EVER buy prebuilts off of ebay.

I have studied PC's for 7 years, I work in a computer shop, I build them and custom spec them and I am Cisco Comptia A+ qualified.

Buy that and you will regret it. The windows will probably be pirated too.

Yeah it may say 8gb ram, 8gb of low quality bad brand 1333mhz dimms, non 80 plus rated psu with crap caps in, low quality monitor (AOC aren't too cracking), bad keyboard and mouse you never use wireless for gaming as latency lag and response times. Although the hdd and cpu are good though, but I would not trust it, one of my friends bought something like this off of ebay and it broke within 4 months.

Here's my spec;

Total cost: £444.12 + £60 build charge which includes a 3 year warranty and it being built to perfection by specialists. This also includes windows being installed too and it all tested for you.

So the total would be £504.12 overall, its cheaper and much better than the ebay system. Play any old game you want no problem at all.

Bearing in mind this is a quick spec up what I did.

Now you may say it's only a pentium cpu, however 99% of games are single threaded meaning they only run on one logical and physical core within the cpu. The graphics card does all of the hard work.

The ram is a good brand which is certified by intel and has xmp support. http://www.cclonline.com/product/108810/PV38G160C9K/Desktop-Memory/Patriot-Black-Mamba-DDR3-8GB-Dual-Channel-Kit/RAM0926/

The case is a small little case that offers good cooling, isnt made out of tin and has usb3 and it looks decent as well. http://www.cclonline.com/product/132540/AVP-EL03B/Cases/AvP-Viper-Mini-Tower-Black-2-x-12cm-Fans-USB-3-0/CAS1076/

HDD is seagate barracuda, enough said as they are the most reliable and well known hdd's ever. http://www.cclonline.com/product/72741/ST1000DM003/Hard-Drives/Seagate-Barracuda-7200-14-1TB-Hard-Drive-7200rpm-SATA-64MB-Internal-/HDD1319/

PSU is and 80 plus EVGA psu, meaning you get continous 500w instead of peak 500w and they are much less prone to failing and blowing up. http://www.cclonline.com/product/133098/100-W1-0500-KR/Power-Supplies/EVGA-500W-Power-Supply-Unit/PSU0633/

Windows 7 is windows 7. http://www.cclonline.com/product/55272/GFC-02050/Operating-Systems/Microsoft-Windows-7-Home-Premium-64-bit-SP1-/SFT0066/

Monitor is a great monitor by a respectable brand and its a bargain at that price. http://www.cclonline.com/product/71177/ET-WS0HE-B01/Monitors/Acer-S220HQLBrbd-21-5-inch-Widescreen-Full-HD-LED-Monitor/MON0618/

Keyboard is a wired decent gigabyte along with the mouse, good brand and good quality. http://www.cclonline.com/product/76349/KM6150-UK/Keyboard-Mice-Bundles/Gigabyte-KM6150-Multimedia-Keyboard-and-Mouse-Set/KBD0442/

DVD drive is a dual layer burner, meaning you can burn anything apart from blu-rays. http://www.cclonline.com/product/123559/IHAS124-14/Optical-Drives/OEM-LiteOn-iHAS124-24X-DVD-RW-Dual-R-/RAM-SATA-Drive-Internal-Black-/CDR0201/

CPU is socket 1150 22nm haswell cpu clocked at 3.2ghz which is plenty enough for your needs. http://www.cclonline.com/product/123613/BX80646G3420/CPU-Processors/Intel-Pentium-G3420-3-20GHz-LGA1150-Retail/CPU0237/

GPU is a good entry level card which will play all of your games no problem at all and ultra to high settings. http://www.cclonline.com/product/81817/EAT6300HD41-1080F/Graphics-Cards/Palit-GeForce-GT-630-2GB-Graphics-Card/VGA0642/

Mobo is a great brand and great quality with usb3 on. http://www.cclonline.com/product/122464/90MB0GT0-M0EAY0/Motherboards/Asus-H81M-C-Motherboard-Core-i7/i5/i3/Pentium/Celeron-1150-H81-uATX-Gigabit-LAN-Integrated-Graphics-/MBD0725/

It would generally take around about 10 days to build and ship but it would be worth it, trust me.

If you wanted that you would have to call CCL up and request a custom system, they would explain to you the costs and everything. Say that Adam recommended you

Here are the contact deets; http://www.cclonline.com/page/contact-us/

My grammar and spelling will be bad on this as it is slightly rushed, but if want to know anything just ask.

 

[Mike636]

I'll be honest I'm in the same boat as Finus and know next to nothing about computer specs so I may be firing a pm in the future , plus the shop isn't far from me so no postage!

 

[Lozart]

For the money, that's not a bad spec. Surprised you can't supply an OEM Windows licence if you're preinstalling it though.

I think it would possibly struggle a bit with a game like Medieval TW2 though. The CPU is roughly equivalent to my old Core 2 Quad Q6600 performance wise and that would run it but not well. While the game does have multi CPU support it doesn't do hyperthreading and it's pretty demanding if the unit sizes are high.

Now granted, I'm working at the higher end of gaming PCs (mine is more in the £1000 price range) and if most of the OPs games are relatively old then I'm sure they'll be fine. I'd just rather see a bit more horsepower in the CPU and GPU. That's not a bad little machine but it's never going to set the world alight (not that much else will at that budget).

 

[cropzy]

For the money, that's not a bad spec. Surprised you can't supply an OEM Windows licence if you're preinstalling it though.

I think it would possibly struggle a bit with a game like Medieval TW2 though. The CPU is roughly equivalent to my old Core 2 Quad Q6600 performance wise and that would run it but not well. While the game does have multi CPU support it doesn't do hyperthreading and it's pretty demanding if the unit sizes are high.

Now granted, I'm working at the higher end of gaming PCs (mine is more in the £1000 price range) and if most of the OPs games are relatively old then I'm sure they'll be fine. I'd just rather see a bit more horsepower in the CPU and GPU. That's not a bad little machine but it's never going to set the world alight (not that much else will at that budget).

I know what you mean, but his budget is very very limited. Maybe if he could stretch it to around £600 then it would be better.

My pc is £2000+

 

[Finius]

I'm definitely being won over by the 'avoid-eBay' group here, largely because the eBay computer suddenly doesn't seem so competitively priced.

Now, looking at what's been said about budget, and once again excusing my computer-noobery, lets take for example, The Sims 3 - this being one of my favorite games of all time. How would the spec you offered come in on-budget run it in comparison to a spec based on me spending £600?

I'm going to have to save up for two or three months either way so for the right performance could be convinced I need to spend a bit more wherever I buy from in the end...

 

[cropzy]

I'm definitely being won over by the 'avoid-eBay' group here, largely because the eBay computer suddenly doesn't seem so competitively priced.

Now, looking at what's been said about budget, and once again excusing my computer-noobery, lets take for example, The Sims 3 - this being one of my favorite games of all time. How would the spec you offered come in on-budget run it in comparison to a spec based on me spending £600?

I'm going to have to save up for two or three months either way so for the right performance could be convinced I need to spend a bit more wherever I buy from in the end...

If you spend more than you anticipated, i.e. around £600 you can get a i3 or a fx-6300 with a better gpu, meaning all games will be playable at high settings.