Looking for a new PC

[216th_Xenos]

Hello everyone, I am currently looking for a new PC in the £400 to £500 price range. Keep in mind that I have no experience in PCs and I am currently playing on a small laptop at minimal settings, runs ok but it is getting towards the end of its life and is slowly giving way. 

So I have been doing a small bit of research and came across this: 

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-017-OG&groupid=43&catid=2475&subcat=2487

 

Considering no upgrades to the current system (however I have seen that the GTX 750 may be limit), and going to go for windows 8, as it is what I am used to for work.

 

Would this run the game comfortably? Would you recommend something else?

 

Cheers in advance.

 

[malcheus]

I would always opt to build a PC myself from separately bought parts. Though this does depend on some basic knowledge of PC's and some more work; but the knowledge can easily acquired on the internet and the work I would consider as having fun.

I also think if you do the maths, you will find that buying individual components and assembling them by yourself, you will end up with a better rig for the same price, but I'm not 100% sure of this, I never did the maths.

It also allows you to spend your budget where you want to spend it, rather than where the manufacturer forces you to spend it (like fancy LED lights and a pretty case). 

 

As far as other advices I can give; Always get an SSD card for your operating system, and if possible for programs (Like BoS). This will make everything run so much smoother. 

Other than that, spend a big chunk of your budget on a graphics card, since that is usually the limiting factor as far as gaming is concerned.

[steppenwolf]

I would say the biggest mistake I made in computer stuff is buying a 'Gaming PC' (from Best Buy of all places), but then replacing all the components taught me about computers. Build your own. You're gonna spend money just on the learning though.    

[Dakpilot]

Would recommend having a look at gaming CPU hierarchy charts (google) not going to recommend Intel against AMD but let the figures speak for themselves, good single clock speeds are very important for flight sims as well as good multicore performance, hyperthreading is not relevant neither is more than four cores, would recommend minimum of GTX760..although 800 series coming along soon with better performance for buck, or will drive down 700 series prices.

 

A while ago I built my first custom rig with help from a friend, after that I was confident to do it all on my own..it is much cheaper than a "ready made one" research is the key, and it cost nothing

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[DD_bongodriver]

 

 

confident to do it all on my own..it is much cheaper than a "ready made one" research is the key, and it cost nothing

 

Very good advice, pre-built are not an option for me, with some diligence the parts can be sourced quite cheap and you could build a supreme rig for nearly a fraction of the cost.

[sallee]

Very good advice, pre-built are not an option for me, with some diligence the parts can be sourced quite cheap and you could build a supreme rig for nearly a fraction of the cost.

Absolutely. I have built a few myself and it really isn't as difficult as you might think. The current edition of Custom PC has a set of recommendations to build a very good gaming rig for something like £500-odd.

[216th_Xenos]

Cheers for all the suggestions

I doubt I will have any problem putting the parts together, it;s just knowing what parts to get and making sure they are the right ones, do they fit each other, is the power enough, is it in anyway going to screw me over?  

This is why I was thinking of simply getting a pre-built PC which I can then learn from and upgrade if necessary. Been looking over the web for different parts, but it is quite alien to me and it is quite difficult getting to know the different components. Basically need a shopping list

The part I am having difficulty with is making sure I get the right components powerful enough to run the various games I play, this one probably being the most demanding. What I might do is start choosing some bits and then ask for advice from you guys? I've read that Intel CPUs is the route to go down along with Nvidia graphics cards. 

Edited August 28, 2014 by xenos1234

[SeriousFox]

I can make you a list if you are OK with telling me a budget.

Edited August 28, 2014 by SeriousFox

[oneeyeddog]

xenos, about a year ago I built my 1st Pc. It was far more difficult to research and choose parts then it was to actually put it together. one mistake i made was to buy a 'package deal' thinking it would save some $. However I ended up replacing the included case, because it was too small for the GPU i later got, The power supply was barely adequate so I replaced that and i ended up deciding i wanted different memory. All I used from that 'package' was the MB and CPU. But, in the long run i enjoyed putting it together, learned something, and still saved some cash. 

 Oh, with all the left over parts and a few additional bits I assembled PC#2, for one of my sons.

[malcheus]

Cheers for all the suggestions

I doubt I will have any problem putting the parts together, it;s just knowing what parts to get and making sure they are the right ones, do they fit each other, is the power enough, is it in anyway going to screw me over?  

This is why I was thinking of simply getting a pre-built PC which I can then learn from and upgrade if necessary. Been looking over the web for different parts, but it is quite alien to me and it is quite difficult getting to know the different components. Basically need a shopping list

The part I am having difficulty with is making sure I get the right components powerful enough to run the various games I play, this one probably being the most demanding. What I might do is start choosing some bits and then ask for advice from you guys? I've read that Intel CPUs is the route to go down along with Nvidia graphics cards. 

 I think everyone here is perfectly willing to help you out, just ask anything you have any doubt about. 

 

The only problem I came across when building my PC is that motherboards don't fit in all cases; I wanted to use my old dell case, but it was made for smaller motherboards than the standard size. 

So I had to buy a new case; without any bling they only cost about 40 euros so no big deal. 

As for the power supply, choose that one last, but they are not hugely expensive, so it may be best to take a bit more than the required amount in case of later upgrades. 

[216th_Xenos]

I can make you a list if you are OK with telling me a budget.

 

Sure Budget would be between £400 to £500, so I guess that would be about 650$ to 800$.

 

xenos, about a year ago I built my 1st Pc. It was far more difficult to research and choose parts then it was to actually put it together. one mistake i made was to buy a 'package deal' thinking it would save some $. However I ended up replacing the included case, because it was too small for the GPU i later got, The power supply was barely adequate so I replaced that and i ended up deciding i wanted different memory. All I used from that 'package' was the MB and CPU. But, in the long run i enjoyed putting it together, learned something, and still saved some cash. 

 Oh, with all the left over parts and a few additional bits I assembled PC#2, for one of my sons.

 

Yeah I have found smaller packages around the place containing CPU, motherboard and RAM, offering a small discount compared to individual pieces, and they appeared to be quality parts (i5 quad 4690K CPU something like that), still looking into it though because not sure how much that would equate to in total with the rest of the components.

 

Also, quick question, I have watched a couple of videos on building PCs, does the GPU plug straight into the motherboard like the CPU, or is it a separate component? Because it seems to have its own 'peripherals'. 

And malcheus, the power supply would be indeed last, only problem is that few sites actually show the amount of power the various parts use up, however I have read that 450W (with 80+) tends to be a safe bet? Either way it would just take a bit of research to find then calculate the total power required. However, what would be the safe zone after calculating the total (not including overclocking), would it be an extra 100W, more, less?

 

Sorry for all these questions, really do appreciate the help so far, it's getting easier and easier to understand all the vocab and requirements around the components

[oneeyeddog]

Xenos, the CPU is like a 1 1/4 "  x 1 1/4 " wafer with about a hundred little prongs about an 8th " long coming out of the bottom and it does plug into the MoB. If i were you i'd get a full tower case and a quality power supply. a bigger case is easier to work in and will accommodate almost anything you want to put in it and it will generally get rid of heat better. These are things i wish i'd done initially.

Edited August 29, 2014 by oneeyeddog

[DD_bongodriver]

 

 

does the GPU plug straight into the motherboard

 

Yes

 

 

 

just take a bit of research to find then calculate the total power required

 

Buy the biggest power supply you can afford

[SeriousFox]

600W is enough unless you're going to do SLI or Crossfire.

[malcheus]

It's a bit of a jungle to find out the power requirements for the various parts, however it's safe to say the major usage will be the processor and the graphics card. 

The processor can probably be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CPU_power_dissipation_figures#Intel_Core_i7

the maximum seems to be around 130W.

The graphics card also have many lists available: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/279391-28-power-requirements-specs-popular-graphic-cards-guide

Searching specs is easier if you already know what you want, just google the name and power consumption. 

As for the type of plugs; a power supply (PSU) manifests itself as a box with many plugs and cords sticking out of it, each type of component needs a specific kind of plug to be powered. 

Luckily, plugs only fit in one type of slot, so all you have to do is find the corresponding cord an plug coming from the PSU.

 

The bit extra would indeed be 50-100 watts, just to be sure; for a 600 euro system I think you will indeed end up around 600 watts; which will cost about 50-70 euros.

 

a budget list would be, for example, 

i5 processor: 150 euro

intel i5 compatible motherboard: 50 euros

8GB DDR3 RAM: 70 euros

a case: 50 euros

a PSU: 60 euros

120Gb SSD: 65 euros

Then you have +/- 150 euros left for a graphics card.

 

Personally I thought the intel processors were too expensive, so I got an AMD processor (and corresponding motherboard), which was about half the price. 

This leaves you more to spend on the graphics card. Oppinions vary about AMD vs intel cores, the great thing is you can decide for yourself if you build your own system. 

[216th_Xenos]

OK so might have an idea for a set of components:

 

CPU: AMD FX4300 3.80GHz Quad-core  (Would go for an i5 however intel CPU and MBO would go over the budget)

MBO: Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P ATX 

RAM: 8GB DDR3 1600MHz Memory

GPU: GeForce GTX 750 Ti WindForce 2X OC 2GB (GDDR5)

PSU: 500W Corsair Builder Series CX500M 80PLUS

Case: BitFenix Comrade Midi-Tower

 

Will of course get a DVD reader and a 1TB hard drive (Cannot fit an SSD into the budget, will be a future purchase).

Keep in mind this will all be linked up to a 1280x780p monitor (not sure if too important).

 

Would this run the game ok? Maybe trade the graphics card for something less powerful to accommodate a better CPU?

 

All this comes down to around £450, using www.aria.co.uk

 

[malcheus]

I think that should run the game just fine.

I am using a more dated version of everything you describe (AMD Phenom II and a Geforce GTX 650 Ti) 

and I can run the game with normal graphics on a 1680x1050 resolution monitor.. 

[216th_Xenos]

Wonderful, thank you all for the replies, suggestions and help Will hopefully have it up and running in the next few weeks. 

 

Have a great day and weekend and see you all in the skies!

[Leaf]

Wonderful, thank you all for the replies, suggestions and help Will hopefully have it up and running in the next few weeks. 

 

Have a great day and weekend and see you all in the skies!

 

Looks like a good setup, with some tweaking of the Nvidia settings you can gain an extra 5 (or more) fps. 

[SYN_Mike77]

I have that chip and motherboard with a 660 nvidea card and I run on ultra all day.  That chip is plenty overclockable.  I have mine running at 4.3 ghz with no problems what so ever.  I've also overclocked the GPU using the MSI utility.  It might help that I have liquid cooling on the cpu but I never see temps above 65c on any part of the rig.  I did however go with 750 watt power source (maybe a bit of an overkill?)  If you can afford the 660 over the 750 Gpu it might be worth it.