PC Gamers

[dawolf]

My current PC is about 5 years old and struggles to run a lot of the latest games so I've decided I'm going to upgrade to a whole new system with a nice large TFT monitor. I will be using it for a mix of internet use and games including online gaming (Crysis, Call of Duty 5, PES 2009 etc). I know I could spend a ton of money on it but I'm setting myself a limit of £650. I was thinking of this kind of specification:

400W power supply
Intel Dual core E8500 processor
Gigabyte or Asus motherboard
4GB DDR2 800mhz RAM
250GB 7200rpm Hard Drive
22x DVD-RW Drive
1GB NVidia 9500GT Graphics card
Soundblaster Audigy Sound card
19" Hanspree TFT Monitor
8 USB ports
10/100 Internet connection
Windows Vista Home 32-bit

Does that sound like a decent gaming system? Is a dual core processor good enough or is it better to go for a quad core?

Cheers.

[un1eash]

A few things i'd consider would be first a more powerfull PSU, forget 4gb ram unless your running 64bit, 3gb is the max for 32bit. go for a SATAII 32mb hard drive and i would look at a HD4870/GTX260 graphics card.

[nitric4k]

log onto overclockers forums but dont buy from there shop you can get a system cheaper from ebuyer.com

but if you post on the forum ppl will do all the research for ya

64bit vista is great with a fast enough pc with 8gb ram

[Slarty]

go for a SATAII 32mb hard drive

32 meg hard drive? I assume you meant a 32 gig h/d? Which would be a SSHD which are still over priced and aren't that much quicker than a conventional platter h/d.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/136395 case

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/114941 PSU (I have one, very good)

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/147222 Mob

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/139971 CPU

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/139739 H/D

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148468 GPU

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/111439 RAM

Sadly, that little lot comes to £560 (excluding shipping) and is for an E8400 (cheaper than an E8500) and a HD4850 which is far superior to a 9500gt (you wouldn't be able to play crysis on a 9500gt). Plus it doesn't included a monitor/DVD/OS.

hth a little?

[un1eash]

I meant atleast 32mb cache.

[dawolf]

Hmm okay. I may spend a bit more and go for a higher PSU and better graphics card then. I didn't know Vista 32-bit only allows up to 3GB RAM.

Of course the other option is to just buy a PS3 or 360 for gaming. Oh decisions decisions .

[Slarty]

I meant atleast 32mb cache.

Ah, my appolgies

Another H/D for consideration, and a good one too:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/146252

[Goto10]

www.aria.co.uk are also very good - between Ebuyer & Aria you can get the best deals.
Also factor in a good case, I bought an Antec P182, temps dropped by 10c from my old Thermaltake case which gives a little more OCing headroom.
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/126946

I think striping HDDs is beneficial for a gaming rig too, I have 4 decent sata2 drives in a stripe which gives phenomenal sustained transfer rates, games & Vista itself load much quicker. Obviously valuable data isn't kept on there, just the OS and game installs.
I'd go for 64bit if I were you though, can get a decent wedge of memory in there then. I favoured quad core cpu (6700) but I use video editing/encoding software that takes advantage of them, if I were using it solely for gaming then dual core would be fine.
Make sure the gfx card is SLi/Crossfire, you can always bung another one in for a cheap upgrade in the future. (Which was also my plan, but temptation got the better of me and I stuck a 2nd one in almost immediately!)

[pcp]

A few things i'd consider would be first a more powerfull PSU, forget 4gb ram unless your running 64bit, 3gb is the max for 32bit. go for a SATAII 32mb hard drive and i would look at a HD4870/GTX260 graphics card.

i've read that before but my 32bit desktop has 4gb ram and displays it as such in the properties

[Goto10]

A few things i'd consider would be first a more powerfull PSU, forget 4gb ram unless your running 64bit, 3gb is the max for 32bit. go for a SATAII 32mb hard drive and i would look at a HD4870/GTX260 graphics card.

i've read that before but my 32bit desktop has 4gb ram and displays it as such in the properties

It's a hard limit, only with PAE can it be extended. 4gb is the ceiling on 32bit but that's for the *entire* system, graphics/PCI etc etc need to fit inside that address range, every device requires an allocation of resources from that 4gb address pool, every device that you add will require mapping and thus each time some more of your RAM will go by the wayside. It's impossible for your system to be utilising all 4gb, it may well report seeing the memory modules but that's another matter. Anything above 3gb on a 32bit system is a waste of time.

[pcp]

A few things i'd consider would be first a more powerfull PSU, forget 4gb ram unless your running 64bit, 3gb is the max for 32bit. go for a SATAII 32mb hard drive and i would look at a HD4870/GTX260 graphics card.

i've read that before but my 32bit desktop has 4gb ram and displays it as such in the properties

It's a hard limit, only with PAE can it be extended. 4gb is the ceiling on 32bit but that's for the *entire* system, graphics/PCI etc etc need to fit inside that address range, every device requires an allocation of resources from that 4gb address pool, every device that you add will require mapping and thus each time some more of your RAM will go by the wayside. It's impossible for your system to be utilising all 4gb, it may well report seeing the memory modules but that's another matter. Anything above 3gb on a 32bit system is a waste of time.

? so if i'm understanding that right every device that carries it's own memory has to be deducted from that 4gb total (3gb really)? so even tho i have 4gb the pc can only use 3gb, but because my gfx cards both have 512mb my pc can only use 2gb out of the 4gb?

[Goto10]

i've read that before but my 32bit desktop has 4gb ram and displays it as such in the properties

It's a hard limit, only with PAE can it be extended. 4gb is the ceiling on 32bit but that's for the *entire* system, graphics/PCI etc etc need to fit inside that address range, every device requires an allocation of resources from that 4gb address pool, every device that you add will require mapping and thus each time some more of your RAM will go by the wayside. It's impossible for your system to be utilising all 4gb, it may well report seeing the memory modules but that's another matter. Anything above 3gb on a 32bit system is a waste of time.

? so if i'm understanding that right every device that carries it's own memory has to be deducted from that 4gb total (3gb really)? so even tho i have 4gb the pc can only use 3gb, but because my gfx cards both have 512mb my pc can only use 2gb out of the 4gb?

Not only devices that carry their own memory, every single device needs a chunk of that range, but devices that carry their own memory do indeed take that amount out of the usable address pool too. I was saying 3gb to take into account graphics and whatnot, although a pair of 512mb cards takes it down to 3gb immediately, then any other devices on top of that, so you certainly have under 3gb of usable memory, you could certainly remove 1gb and not see a jot of difference, probably remove 2gb and not notice any difference either. Might be time to start thinking about a 64bit OS...

[pcp]

is there any restriction on what motherboards will run 64bit ok tho?

[Goto10]

Yes, well the CPU is key, but that goes hand in hand with the mobo anyway - do you know what processor/board you have?

HNY to all btw.

[pcp]

HNY

not sure on the exact mobo, i know it's an asus rog formula maximus, and the cpus are intel core 2 quad Q6600, i'll have a look later and see if i can find the mobo manual.

was quite happy whilst searching on the net to see that vista ultimate disk comes with both 32bit and 64bit versions on it, looked for mine but it's oem and so only has the 32 bit version

[Goto10]

64bit will run fine on that, OEM Vista is locked to the motherboard too so you can't sell on or otherwise utilise the old 32bit version which is a shame.

[pcp]

64bit will run fine on that, OEM Vista is locked to the motherboard too so you can't sell on or otherwise utilise the old 32bit version which is a shame.

i bought the oem from a shop round the corner , should've got the 64bit one, not shelling out again for another one especially as it'll be outdated in about 14 months

[nitric4k]

im pretty sure your vista key will work on the x64 version you just need obtain a cd

worth a try when u next format

just obtain the vista 64 oem disk thats knocking around

[pcp]

im pretty sure your vista key will work on the x64 version you just need obtain a cd

worth a try when u next format

just obtain the vista 64 oem disk thats knocking around

ahhhh, worth a try :thumbleft: , i'll check the net for a free oem disk