Purchasing a new PC gaming/multimedia system for around £1000 approx

[lowlandsmatt]

Hello and Happy New Year to you all,

First post so here goes!
I am looking to purchase a new PC for around £1000 ish or thereabouts . I would like to play the latest PC games (the last game I played on PC was Carmageddon 2 and the old Unreal Tournament a long while ago
( ahh memories!) so would like to get back into it) but I will also be spending too much time (according to my girlfriend ) downloading and playing music , browsing the Net etc etc

I will be connecting to it the Logitech z5500 speaker system which I should imagine sounds pretty good via a decent sound card (anyone else have this setup?) so I would want the best sound card I could get.

I have been looking at the Dell XPS 420 which with the 24" Monitor & 3 year warranty came out at around £1300

PROCESSORIntel® Core™ 2 Quad-Core™ Processor Q6600 (2.40GHz, 8MB, 1066MHz) with
MEMORY 4096MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [4x1024
HARD DRIVE500GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA/100 Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst™ cache
GRAPHICS CARD SINGLE 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT card
OPTICAL DRIVE16x DVD+/-RW & 48x CDRW/DVD Combo Drive
SOUND SOFTWARESound Blaster® X-Fi Xtreme Gamer PCI Soundcard

I was all ready to purchase this tonight (especially with the 10% discount that runs out tonight) but then this little beauty caught my eye from Overclockers 2.4 Ghz with overclocking to 3.1 –3.3 Ghz and the 8800GTX card for £1115 inc VAT - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-005-OC and now I am in two minds...

1) Would the Ultima overclocked PC be suitable for my needs as I will be be spending as much time downloading/playing music as playing the latest games. To be honest, I don’t know much at all about overclocking a PC bar the real basic principle - Is an overclocked PC likely to be more tempermental than the XPS 420? I have read some bad reviews of Overclockers aftersales service – any other opinions? Love that case though!

2) Will the XPS 420 spec cope with power hungry games now and in the near future – FEAR, Crysis etc? Is it worth waiting until after the next gen of cards are released (I know everyone asks that but its soon from what I can tell?) I understand the 8800 GTX card is someway better than the GT but is it going to be that much more future proof?

3) Is a 24” monitor comfortable for general use apart from gaming? I like the thought of a big screen for gaming with the Logitech z5500 sound blasting away around me or is it a bit OTT when simply net browsing?

4) Should I be looking at a better sound card - I need to be hearing Jimmy Page's fingernails sliding down the fret board !!!


Could anyone suggest any better deals or any other advice ? The other option I have considered is CCL online custom build – would I pay more for what I want this way but would this provide better after sales?

Apologies for length but this is a big purchase for me (probably last one before I get a mortgage so want to make it a good one and get a PC thats going to last me 3+ years )

Thanks for reading.

Matt

 

[TeamGers]

Try this spec, a good friend gave it to me.......


A top of the range spec imo would be:
Quad core Q6600 (or q9450 if released soon) £150
Asus P5K Premium Black Pearl Special Edition £115
4GB Corsair 800mhz 4-4-4-12 ram £70
Antec 900 case £70
650W Corsair Psu £85
500Gb Western Digital Hard Drive £60
Pioneer CD/DVD writer £15
X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Sound Card £50
Vista Premium 64-bit £50
price £665

leaving u £335 to get a Graphics card

 

[Deleted member 209349]

i would go that spec that teamgers friend posted

them prices were from www.scan.co.uk however if u didnt want to build ur comp then like u said cclonline will build it for you. and their parts are very similar to scan, some cheaper some more expensive.

from cclonline
Quad core Q6600 ~ £170
Asus P5K Premium Black Pearl Special Edition ~ £115
4GB Corsair 800mhz 4-4-4-12 ram ~ £80
Antec 900 case ~ £65
650W Corsair Psu ~ £75
500Gb Western Digital Hard Drive ~ £55
Pioneer CD/DVD writer ~ £15
X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Sound Card ~ £60
Vista Premium 64-bit ~ £65
price ~ £700

costs £70 to build so cost = ~ £770 inc vat + 1 year warranty
still needing to get a graphics card. and i suggest waiting for the D8E (expected Jan) or the D9E (9800gtx expected Feb) and will prob be around £300 - £400 mark but cant be sure as no info yet. so mayb ditch the sound card leaving u nearly £300 to get a graphics card or increase ur budget

or u could just buy a 8800gt for £170 if u didnt want to wait and dont want to max games like crysis etc but if ur not upgrading for 3+ years i would say the wait for the next gen card would be worthwhile especially if u plan to use a 24" monitor

 

[lowlandsmatt]

Thanks TeamGers & Future Tech. I do like the sound of the CCL online with the warranty and peace of mind with that.

Any other opinions about the XPS 420 or the overclocked Ultima? Would either be easily upgradeable (Elsewhere on the Net, I've heard the Dell XPS' are not as easy to upgrade?

Also whilst I'm here, is the X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Sound Card able to cope with DTS quality DVDs through my Logitech z5500 set?

Thanks,

Matt

 

[jeky]

Dell xps would be hard to upgrade if you wanted to upgrade the motherboard which would most likely be ATX. You could not fit it into an XPS as the case is BTX. To upgrade the motherboard you would have to buy a new ATX case to fit it. Upgrading all the other components is fine.

 

[Stockholm]

Overclockers UK are currently running these two deals

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-058-GL&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=813

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-136-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=813

I ordered 4GB of the GeIL yesterday. The earlier versions are Micron D9 modules. Consequently, they OC well.

If you intend to OC have a look at this list to find D9 modules.

http://ramlist.ath.cx/ddr2/

Thanks