want to build a half decent gaming unit...

[debtlessdragonracer]

Hi, been off the gaming scene for ages as cars took over most of my life lol.... fancy building/buying another nice little gaming unit.

im thinking of budgeting £500 odd towards the tower unit and all its internals, what kind of unit would this get me now?

any help would be brilliant as i really have no idea anymore....

thanks in advance,
Dafz.

[Barley]

Think this might need to be moved to the hardware section *coughs* admins :)

Anyway.. hmmmm £500. Is that purely just for the box and insides? You have a monitor, mouse, keyboard etc?

[debtlessdragonracer]

yes just for box and insides.

already got a tidy wireless mouse/keyboard combo, also have a 19 inch monitor which will have to do for now as the old bank account isnt looking too healthy! :roll:

[mac124]

Personally i wouldn't bother with a wireless kb/mouse for gaming. I have a wireless setup on my net pc which i occasionally game on if i just want a quick blast on css and it just doesn't feel right, almost slow motion in comparision to my proper setup, though this maybe because its a cheap set. Also its damn annoying when your batteries die half way through a round, lol.

£500 hmmm thats not gonna get you a great setup for gaming im afraid you will probably be looking at something like

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y1/mac124/quote.jpg

I haven't included a case in that as its a personal preferance but you should be able to get something for £30ish that will suit your taste. Also you sould really be looking at 2gb of ram but for the buget that isn't possible, but the above will suffice for now and you can always add more memory later.

[debtlessdragonracer]

well what kind of budget should i be looking at for something half decent?

i dont want to spend my life on it but would like to enjoy my gaming when i want to :)

i have a tower unit here that i am gonna strip down, imnot sure if the memory units from that will be suitable though? is there a preference?

thanks in advance,
dafz :lol:

[mac124]

Well add £250 or so and you could get a 7900gt, 2gb of mem, upgrade the cpu to a 4400/4600 and a psu upgrade (for the 7900gt). Then you would a have a pc thats capable of playing the latest games at pretty much max detail etc.

[debtlessdragonracer]

right then stripped my dad's old crapper down as he doesnt use it anymore, i used to use this as my gaming machine a few years ago and it was pretty shitty back then lol

the insides are

gigabyte GA7VA motherboard http://www.ciao.co.uk/Gigabyte_GA_7VA__5410165

kingston kVR400 X64 C25/256ddr 2.6volt memory http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetail.do?oid=108886&catOid=-12993&JSESSIONID=GpGCfM3wLxQSQHBnqM1ypjtyYd6F7y!-557102429!1156154914502

premier LC B350ATX power supply unit http://www.itekcase.com/PowerSupplyLCB350ATX.pdf#search=%22premier%20lc%20 b350atx%22

western digital WD400 Protege + wD800 Caviar HDD's

http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200205/20020529WD800JB_1.html

http://prodspec.pricesaving.com/proddescrspec.aspx?id=328084&navb=0011

Galaxy fx5200 128mb tv64bit graphics card

now then, is any of this rubbish usable? :lol:

thanks,
dafz

[Robin]

[quote:9ffe6de5b4=\"Barley\"]Think this might need to be moved to the hardware section *coughs* admins :)[/quote:9ffe6de5b4]

better late then never :P

[Belso]

[quote:f0e6c2e932=\"debtlessdragonracer\"]
$nIp
[/quote:f0e6c2e932]

Nope. :P

_____________________________________________

£500 i reckon go with what mac124 is recommending.

I would though change the board, to an Asus or MSI. And go with normal Sata.

Also stay clear of Maxtor there terrible. Go with either Seagate or Western Digital.

Just my 2p

[Gregoroth]

I think the proposed system is a lovely mid range pc, although personally I would swap out the GeForce 7600GT and get a Radeon X1800GTO from somewhere else and I'd change the HDD to a Seagate.

That will still be ok for your budget.

As for the comment about getting a better processor, I don't see the need. An X2 3800 is PLENTY of power.

So yeah, at a later date you can upgrade to 2GB RAM and get a more powerful graphics card. You can then sell on your proposed graphics card above^ and make a fair bit of money back on it.

I wouldn't bother spending a fortune on a computer right now. DDR2 may look tempting for those in-the-know but I'd say wait until AMD's quad-core processors are established before going to the next platform up.

That's a good 'bang-for-buck' machine!

[m0nk3y]

How much of an upgrade is going from 1GB to 2GB of RAM. Its well know than BF2 is a huge memory hogger, but do you think 2GB is the new standard for a gaming Rig? Its been 1GB for years now, so longs your 1gb is in Dual Channel and has tight timings, does 2GB make that much of an impact?

[Robin]

got 2GB in mine.... good for bragging but little else..

[David]

[quote:2c4c025796=\"Robin\"]got 2GB in mine.... good for bragging but little else..[/quote:2c4c025796]

Very true (for now at least ;) )

Maybe developers have just got better at optimising memory usage, but I find that Operation Flashpoint (yes, I still play it from time to time) takes as much memory as more recent games like Oblivion or F.E.A.R. and none of them ever seem to exceed about 800mb on this 2gb machine

[mac124]

No games actually need 2gb atm that i know of but some do seem to benefit from it, as mentioned BF2 being the prime example. It does seem to be rapidly becoming the norm for gaming pc's to have 2gb and if this pc is going to last a while sooner or later you will need to upgrade. 1gb will definately suffice for now though. :D

[Gregoroth]

You will probably want to upgrade to 2GB around Christmas when games like Crysis start popping up. 1GB is plenty as of now!

[Anonymous]

[Removed at the request of the author]