New PC Is This Ok?

[Xx FANBOI xX]

Hi guys well I need a new PC because this one is; crap and pretty messed up. I'm a heavy online/offline gamer now I got a few people of another forum to build me up a PC but they went a bit OTT and build me a machine that would cost me £900.

Now I'm not a PC nut I just want something that can run games like;

CounterStrike:Source
COD4
PES6
PES2008
FIFA 07/08....

You get my drift nothing spectacular, but I would like them games to be ran with ease on high settings. So I got the specs the other lot recommended for me and well tried to mod them myself and got a much cheaper machine from £900 to £400 but will this machine cater my needs I mentioned above....please fill me in I just guessed and replaced a few parts I know jack about what is good etc....

Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™2 Duo E4500 (2 X 2.20GHz) 800MHz FSB/2MB L2 Cache

Memory (RAM) 2GB CORSAIR XMS2 800MHz - LIFETIME WARRANTY! (2x1GB)

Motherboard ASUS® P5K SE: DDR2, SATAII, PCI-e x16, 2 PCI, 3 x PCI-e x1

Operating System WINDOWS® XP Home (inc. Genuine CD & License) (£59)

USB Options 8 x USB 2.0 PORTS (6 REAR + 2 FRONT) AS STANDARD

Memory - 1st Hard Disk 250GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7200rpm)

2nd Hard Disk NONE

1st CD/DVD Drive 20x Dual Layer LightScribe DVD Writer ±R/±RW/RAM

2nd CD/DVD Drive NONE

Graphics Card 512MB GEFORCE 8600GT PCI Express + DVI + TV-OUT

ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT

Memory Card Reader INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (READS XD, MS, CF, SD, etc)

Case Stylish Silver/Black Trident case + 2 front USB

Power Supply & Case Cooling 500W (Peak) Quiet Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£25)

Processor Cooling STANDARD CPU COOLER

Total Price: £472.

[SyStemDeMoN]

thats seems fine to me m8, the only real thing u wanna watch when u building a PC for gaming, is the GFX card and memory mainly also getting a nice fast hard disc is also a plus, other than that it should be fine, although it might be nice to get 2 GFX cards and link them togther with SLi

[Xx FANBOI xX]

Yeah I've been told about the SLI option but I think I'll pass that as it'll just cost more and £472 is a reasonable price. One thing so you think this PC is ok?

Will it run fast or above average fast for the games I play?

[Gingerbillc]

Originally Posted by Xx FANBOI xX

Yeah I've been told about the SLI option but I think I'll pass that as it'll just cost more and £472 is a reasonable price. One thing so you think this PC is ok?

Will it run fast or above average fast for the games I play?

In a word, no.
Change the processor for a proper core2duo such as an E6400/6600 and get better gfx card. You get what you pay for on these. For the prices memory is going at these days you'd be a fool not to get 4gb. Vista premium oem from scan is roughly same price as XP.

Decnet gaming and cheap are mutually exclusive I'm afraid.

On a more positive note, CCS runs on anything, COD4 does not

[Xx FANBOI xX]

Right cheers for that reality check, I do want to get something I won't regret but cheapish. Anyway what if I put this processor in and this gfx card will it be ok then.....

Intel® Core™2 Duo E4700 (2 X 2.60GHz) 800MHz FSB/2MB L2 Cache
512MB GEFORCE 8600GTS PCI Express + D-SUB +DVI + HDMI?

Also my current PC runs COD4 demo pretty good on 1024x1028 (or whatever that res is...) And this cpu sucks....just a side question can someone tell me if the processor I have listed below is any good, its the one in my current PC....

Intel(R)Pentium(R) D CPU 2.80GHz (2 CPU's)? Any good?

[SyStemDeMoN]

yes thats fine, u do get what u pay for tho, even a GF8800 on its own aint gonna be the best, u really wanna spend then most money on CPU and GFX, but also memory is cheap. but winXP dosent seem to recognise 4gig to well and vista is a bit buggy till service pack 1 comes out offically. i shouldn't say this but i will and have never paid for a microshit OS, but u might wanna stick with XP till they sort out vista as some things still screw up on vista. just go with what u got there and if u still want more in future then its easily upgradable, and upgrading regularly aint that expensive.

[Razor]

Change the graphics card to a 8800GT its an excellent card for the money (approx £129) or a HD3870 which is not as good but is due to have a price drop this week. The graphics card, memory and cpu are the most important things to consider when building a pc to game on. The 8600gt isnt a great card for gaming.

I would also look to change the psu. £25 for a good 500W psu is way too low. Corsair do a good 450w psu for about £40.

[Razor]

Originally Posted by SyStemDeMoN

yes thats fine, u do get what u pay for tho, even a GF8800 on its own aint gonna be the best, u really wanna spend then most money on CPU and GFX, but also memory is cheap. but winXP dosent seem to recognise 4gig to well and vista is a bit buggy till service pack 1 comes out offically. i shouldn't say this but i will and have never paid for a microshit OS, but u might wanna stick with XP till they sort out vista as some things still screw up on vista. just go with what u got there and if u still want more in future then its easily upgradable, and upgrading regularly aint that expensive.

Agreed on the graphics card, cpu and memory.

I have vista on 2 pcs for a year now and no issues at all and I use both for gaming. I personally wouldn't want to go back to xp now.

[Repton]

Vista usually screws up running older games but I personally have not had any problems with with vista, 64bit or 32 bit, especially after SP1.
I wouldn't go back to Xp if I had a choice.

[Xx FANBOI xX]

Right I've updated the graphics card to the one recommended by Razor, and the thing with the PSU is on the site PC Specialist when configuring the next PSU they have after 500W is 600W which is £60 will a 600W PSU work fine?

I'm thinking of sticking to Windows XP because I'm not really bothered about what OS I have and XP works fine for me.

[triplea4uk]

OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK)
OcUK Value IP35-S Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK)
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition inc. SP2 - OEM - 1Pk (N09-01991)
Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 "LGA775 Allendale" 2.20GHz (800FSB) - Retail
Coolermaster Elite 330 Midi Tower (No PSU)
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 3870 XT 512MB GDDR4 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail
Samsung SpinPoint S 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD250HJ)
Samsung SH-S203D 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM

£510 from overclockers.

Bit more then what your one was but this I think is better system and you could change few bits to drop the price

[Xx FANBOI xX]

Thats actually cheaper than what I'll be paying now, so if this is a better deal than the current one I'm getting I'll give this one a look...cheers.

PS: Where do I go on that site to build my own PC? The pay no interest thing looks good I don't know anything about it but the more money I can save the better.

Got a problem, everytime I go to customize the specs the internet window just closes? I tried it on IE aswell as Firefox.

[JDM121]

Just buy every part urself and build your own pc, any fool can build a pc. the mininum i would get is a 9600gt for gaming

[Xx FANBOI xX]

Originally Posted by JDM121

Just buy every part urself and build your own pc, any fool can build a pc. the mininum i would get is a 9600gt for gaming

I am building my own from a website though...I can't manually build one myself because I'll probably mess it up. It's best I do it through a online site.

[Gingerbillc]

You are not building your own, you are configuring your own which is more expensive than an off the shelf model.

Can you build with Lego? Yes? Then you an build a pc.

Only points to remember

1. Ground yourself and your box by touching a radiator whilst toucjhing the case.
2. thermal paste, smooth on to cpu a n extremely thin amount evenly
3. Install windows, gfx drivers, mobo drivers, sound drivers, windows update, defrag then install software in that order.

If you are struggling ask for help. Judging from your replies and choice of equipment, I do believe you are making a mistake. The processor you are going for is crap. People who know what they are doing will have recommended that chip as a bargain and because its overclockable, something I doubt you will succeed at. You'll need an expensive heatsink/cooler for a start. When people are telling you how they can get x chip to run as fast as a y chip, they forget that y chip will o/c too and leave that one in the dust.

£400 for a pc, you can get a lot of bang for buck. Just don't expect miracles. If you want a quality gaming pc, you need to be spending roughly the following

Mobo > £100 -THIS IS YOR COMPUTER don't skimp
cpu > £120
PSU ~£60
GFX ~ £200 (*** 8800gtx's can be had for £220 and they are still x2 better than anything else out there) - gaming, stick with nvidia(ducks as the flame war starts), ati = crash - new driver- crash- new game- crash -new driver
I've had from ati in the past TNT, radeon 9700, 9800, xt. All been a nightmare, Nvidia's cards just work.
Memory ~ £50 - just not the issue it used to be, just doesn't seem to be any bad memory anymore- fingers crossed
HD - up to you how much - stick with seagate/western digital though