Your Rig...

[Airsoft-Ed]

Still not even taken the first step lol, by the time I can afford it the market will have probably shifted and I'll have to ask for help again. But thanks for the tip.

 

[iAcorn]

Don't know if you made any progress on this.. if you're building a gaming PC, you're going to want to make it last as long as possible so you want to focus on getting a good graphics card. RAM/CPU/HDD have an effect, but really it's the GPU you need to think about. Get a weak one and you'll be replacing it so quick it'd just be a waste.

I agree somewhat with this. An ace GPU is needed but the CPU helps a lot! Having a good CPU just makes everything a lot smoother. Some games rely more on it than they do the GPU. Plus if it's not up to par you will be running at 20fps! Once you get used to a solid 60+ frames per second then anything below it is really noticeable.

But moral of the story. Dont cheap out. The minimum people should be buying these days is a quad core. For gaming at least, as most games allow hyper threading (with some exceptions).

I recommend 4GB RAM (minimum)

The HDD can be 5400 or 7200. But I would always get the highest.

 

[Deva]

Sorry, but I disagree. A GPU is what is doing the bulk of the work in any game, period. Everything else is beneficial but I wouldn't spend less on a GPU to get a better CPU.

I'd happily play games on a dual core with no issues if I was given the latest release from nvidia/amd.

 

[Tariq]

GPU > CPU

An old quadcore / dual core still runs most games fine. Its not until PhysX or other high end games you might need slightly more CPU. Not that much though.

 

[iAcorn]

I never said it was more important! I just said its more important than you give it credit for

I was once running an intel core 2 duo with a pretty decent GPU and theres no way in hell I could play the modern games because the FPS was just too choppy. Bad Company 2 was unplayable Once I upgraded to a quad core with the same GPU I could play it fine on med settings (I was running low before).

 

[iAcorn]

Just added a Triton AX Pro to my rig as my new headset. My Logitech G930 (Wireless) is now for sale at £85. Dead cheap if you ask me!

 

[Tariq]

I can vouch for that being a great headset. Picked mine up for £90 though, although it was a sale.

 

[iAcorn]

If you got the AX Pros for £80 then that was one hell of a sale! The G930 however I can see being possible. Its a good headset in terms of playback. but the mic is locked to tape quality and it has USB limitations. Which is why I am going for the AX Pros. They arent USB only USB powered, so I can split my audio the way I want with them (game/mic/teamspeak)

 

[Lickystrike64]

Ok, thread resurrection!

I'm liking the look of the DayZ/ARMA2 thingy-me-bob and I'm thinking of jumping on the band wagon and getting a gaming PC (Unless it'll work on a Mac then happy days).

Saw this on Overclockers: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-282-OE

Now, being a technotard, I have no idea what's ideal. All the numbers and letter combos make my ears bleed and eyes go blind, so I defer to those with more knowledge: you guys!

 

[SheriffHD]

Well, My friend being a hard core lover of his XBOX said that PC gaming was just too expensive. After asking how much he had spent on total for his Xbox (£210) I said I could build him a tower that would run new games at decent settings which would still beat the graphics of the Xbox.

And so I built him this.

(Take note of just the tower, every thing else is what i use for my rig)

Specs are;

Biostar A57A FM1 socket Mobo (AMD) - (£34)

AMD Athlon II X4 631 2.6GHz - (£47)

Zotac GTX450 - (£62)

2x4GB G-skill DDR3 RAM @ 1333Mhz (£30)

1x 500gb HDD (brought second hand) (£10)

1x 250gb HDD (stolen from Old machine) (free)

1x 300Gb HDD (Stolen from broken Laptop) (free)

CIT 650Watt PSU - (£20)

Cooler master Elite case. (£30)

total build cost £250 Including the shipping cost.

Tested In these games, this was the results i got (after playing full servers for 1 hour)

Battlefield 3 @ Medium/high settings and full 1080p, High FPS = 60 / Low FPS = 15 / Average FPS = 40

Black Ops 2 @ Medium/High settings and full 1080p, High FPS = 100 / Low FPS = 30 / Average FPS = 45

Arma 2 + Dayz Mod @ High settings and full 1080p, High FPS = 40 / Low 10 = FPS / Average FPS= 22

 

[Deva]

Licky, its not bad but there is really so much choice in the PC market it is hard to say. It's pretty much just a case of comparing specifications between pre-built PC's. Essentially, what has the best graphics card and still reasonable quality components would be your main points.

I'd always pick the parts individually and build it myself as I believe that results in a better system. It's really not that hard to do but you could always get a hand putting it together

 

[Lickystrike64]

Licky, its not bad but there is really so much choice in the PC market it is hard to say. It's pretty much just a case of comparing specifications between pre-built PC's. Essentially, what has the best graphics card and still reasonable quality components would be your main points.

I'd always pick the parts individually and build it myself as I believe that results in a better system. It's really not that hard to do but you could always get a hand putting it together

I think I'd need help on everything to be honest. It's been years since my ninja skills in this field were of any use and with the amount of selection there is, I'd want to make sure I'm getting the best components for my budget, and that's where I'd fall flat on my face I think.

I am seriously tempted to try and build one though... I just need to do more research first. And maybe sell my PTW...

 

[Deva]

Suggest a budget, what you'd like to use the PC for, what needs to be included and I'll make you up a list of what I'd get if you like. Building it yourself is always fun and what not but if you decided not to ask people you know If that fails then I'd be happy to do a build for anyone so long as they covered the cost of sending the build to them when it was done.

 

[Lickystrike64]

Suggest a budget, what you'd like to use the PC for, what needs to be included and I'll make you up a list of what I'd get if you like. Building it yourself is always fun and what not but if you decided not to ask people you know If that fails then I'd be happy to do a build for anyone so long as they covered the cost of sending the build to them when it was done.

You're gent. At the moment, it's all "hypothetical". At least that's what I'm telling the misses...

Budget wise, I'd say £700-800, give or take. It'd be a gaming platform mainly, looking to run things like BF3, DayZ (with the required ARMA software, of course), etc. I'd want to have the graphics at as higher setting as the budget will allow and memory to store it all with room to spare.

 

[Deva]

Would that need to include things like a monitor, keyboard, mouse etc. though?

 

[Lickystrike64]

I already have the ancillary items from a previous PC, mate.

 

[Deva]

Other retailers available, I just find OCUK easy to navigate. Leaves you £70 for a case if you need one. If not add RAM/go to a more expensive Z77 ASUS mobo:

 

[Lickystrike64]

looks good. no idea what any of it means!

 

[Searley]

You could quite easily drop that GFX card down to a GTX570 to instantly save yourself £100+ The memory could be upgraded to 1600MHz still at a saving if you went for the G.Skill RipJaw, even go for 16GB?. And for about the same price upgrade the processor to a i5 3570k.

 

[Lickystrike64]

You could quite easily drop that GFX card down to a GTX570 to instantly save yourself £100+ The memory could be upgraded to 1600MHz still at a saving if you went for the G.Skill RipJaw, even go for 16GB?. And for about the same price upgrade the processor to a i5 3570k.

I Don't understand most of that, but if i still get good fast and fluid gameplay on games like DayZ on high graphics settings, then brilliant.