Are these pc specs good for gaming?

[adey1986]

Hi, Just been looking at this pc on ebay and wondering if including the majority of the upgrades it would be good for gaming?
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/AMD2-3600-DUA...goryZ179QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[Wicker]

The specs are ok but it only has onboard graphics which is usually a no-go for PC gaming. You really want a mid-range graphics card (£100-£200) on top of those computer specs to get a good gaming machine.

 

[adey1986]

I would purchase the upgrade available and get the 256MB AGP GRAPHICS CARD. With this card would the pc be good for gaming?

 

[alphaomega16]

im sorry £40 for graphics card and £40 for extra 1GB that dont sound right unless its not a Dual Channel setup.

£40 Graphics Card would probably not let you play much past CS:Source.

 

[Wicker]

It really depended on which card he would provide for that price. Usually they buy the cheapest possible card in for the money. I would really suggest putting the money up as close to £100 as you can as this will last you a lot longer.

In the PC games market your PC can be made redundant very quickly. I bought a top spec machine 18 months ago and im looking to upgrade again already

You need to know that he is only offering an AGP graphics card and not a PCI-express which is the current specification for PC's these days. Very few AGP cards are being manufactured currently.

So this machine has no future proofing.

 

[adey1986]

seemed like a bargain to me lol, i bought a 22" monitor off the company the other day so i'll see if that turns up working fine before I make any decisions

 

[adey1986]

So I really need a PCI-express card rather than the one he is offering?

 

[Wicker]

Unfortunatley the motherboard would either be an AGP or PCI-Express not both.

So the motherboard he is selling would be fairly old as PCI-Express has been around for about 3 years now.

The machine itself would be good for desktop tasks (i.e. email, web surfing, office) but not for gaming. If its gaming you are after I would suggest looking elsewhere.

Do you have an idea for what type of budget you would have?

 

[adey1986]

Other than the change of graphics card is there anything else that anyone thinks would be better changed?

 

[adey1986]

I really want a machine for gaming as pretty much every machine I have owned up till now has been rubbish for it. My budget would probably be in the £500 region

 

[Wicker]

Here is a better machine for the money if you wanted really cheap...

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/125242/rb/27010065611

 

[adey1986]

wow that is cheap! and that's a better machine than the ebay one? how good would this pc be for gaming?

 

[Knyght_byte]

if your willing to build, a basic but decent gaming machine can be had....

it wont be the total dogs b's right now, but it can be upgraded in future for games like Crysis to run smooth

go to overclockers.co.uk and spec it up...

Antec Sonata II case with 450watt PSU £70
C2D bundle (6300, Gigabyte DS3 Mobo, 1Gb Geil RAM) £266
any HDD you prefer £40 approx for 160-250Gb
likewise and dual layer DVD-+RW £20
X1950 Pro approx £100 (I think they have one that price on offer this week)

£500 bingo, it'll do the business, and when DX10 cards come down in price in future you can upgrade that, the Mobo will also take a Quad core upgrade in future too, although you can usually overclock the CPU you get quite happily to a very nice speed (i got unlucky and i dont think mine will overclock much but its speedy anyhow compared to my P4 3ghz...lol)

edit: btw, the specs on that ebay one, Dual 3600? I may have missed it but i thought AMD X2's started at 3800?

 

[adey1986]

i'm a bit of a technophobe when it comes to building pcs or even opening the case lol, too scared of breaking anything, so building my own pc isn't really an option. I simply want a pc that runs todays games pretty well and has the capacity for upgrading to tommorrows games

 

[Wicker]

Now that sounds a great build, I would recommmend asking a friend with competent IT knowledge to help you build it if you don't know how to yourself.

It is a great experience building a machine.... this will allow you to know components and have some hardware knowledge should any failures occur.

 

[Wicker]

Have a look at this one the, not as good value as a self build but it will do the job....

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-028-OK&groupid=43&catid=781&subcat=

 

[adey1986]

thanks wicker, that looks like a good pc

 

[adey1986]

what kind of games will I be able to play with that kind of system Wicker?

 

[Wicker]

what kind of games will I be able to play with that kind of system Wicker?

All of todays games not a problem.... maybe not at the highest settings but you would run them fine. I think you are looking about 12- 18 months out of that card before you will be playing games on the minmum graphics settings.

 

[adey1986]

whats the systems capacity for upgrades like? how much more time would I get out of the system by upgrading?

 

[Wicker]

The motherboard is socket AM2 which is the current standard for AMD. I think you will be able to buy better processors for this for the next 2 years or more, this includes any dual cores currently available. It also is PCI-Express which isnt going to be updated anytime soon.

It even includes Vista so you wont need to update the operating system either.

Any graphics cards that come out (inc direct x10 cards) can be used in this system.

 

[adey1986]

Brilliant! Thanks so much Wicker! This looks like the system for me then D!

 

[Wicker]

Excellent..... let us know how it goes.