New computer advice

[shamrock_uk]

Hooray, I've finally got the money together to buy a new gaming PC! Go me Unfortunately in my shared house we have no large table to speak of, so rather than build it using the bed I've basically got to go with one that's already assembled.

I've turned to Mesh computers as they offer a nice 'build your own' option, but if anyone knows of other UK sites that do this, please do let me know!

I'd like to spend no more than £1,000 if possible, so that generally means around £850 before VAT. I can go higher than that if necessary, but there would have to be a good argument for it - I don't want to throw money down the drain in search of a 5% performance increase.

I'm looking for a machine that will play all current games (half life 2, oblivion etc) smooth as silk with everything turned on. Ideally it'd be able to have a decent stab at games released for the next couple of years too.

I do have a few criteria:

The CPU must be from AMD, the graphics card must be NVidia. I'm not interested in SLI and I definitely want 2GB of RAM. And if I'm being forced to buy another copy of Windows then it has to be XP Professional before anyone suggests that XP Home is cheaper. Oh, and I already have keyboard/mouse/speakers/monitor.


I'll list the ones I've customised in price order from lowest to highest.

So far I have the budget option:

Matrix 3500 + Max AMD Athlon™ 64 3500+ with HyperTransport Technology Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional Edition Midi-Tower ATX Case +550W PSU -Black/Silver 2048MB DDR400 Memory - PC3200 (2x1024) 300GB Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer SONY 16x Dual Layer DVD-Re-Writable +R/-R/RW 256MB nVIDIA GeForce 6600 LE - TV-Out + DVI - PCI-Express Without 17" TFT Display 5.1 Channel Surround Sound Audio-SoundMAX (on-board) Logitech S100 - 2x Stereo Speakers Without Keyboard & Mouse Free Microsoft® Works® 8.5 + 60 Days Microsoft Office Trial Classic Warranty - 3 Years Back-to-Base - Parts & Labour £609 excl VAT.

My main concern with that is the graphics card - I ideally have my eye on the Nvidia 7800GT but that was the best I could select with this base.

The dual core budget option:

Matrix^2 3800 + OTM AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core 3800+ with HT Tech. Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional Edition Midi-Tower ATX Case +550W PSU -Black/Silver 2048MB DDR400 Memory - PC3200 (2x1024) 300GB Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer SONY 16x Dual Layer DVD-Re-Writable +R/-R/RW 256MB nVIDIA GeForce 6800 - TV-Out + DVI - PCI-Express Without 19" TFT Display 5.1 Channel Surround Sound Audio-SoundMAX (on-board) Without Speakers (SBS) Without Keyboard & Mouse Free Microsoft® Works® 8.5 + 60 Days Microsoft Office Trial Classic Warranty - 3 Years Back-to-Base - Parts & Labour £724 excl VAT

This next one is basically the first PC with the GeForce 7800 in it:

Matrix Value BTO AMD Athlon™ 64 3500+ with HyperTransport Technology Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional Edition Brushed Aluminium ATX Midi Tower +550W PSU- Silver ASUS A8N-VM - Nforce 410 PCI-Express Mainboard - Micro ATX 2048MB DDR400 Memory - PC3200 (2x1024) 300GB Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer SONY 16x Dual Layer DVD-Re-Writable +R/-R/RW 256MB nVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT - TV-Out + DVI - PCI-Express 5.1 Channel Surround Sound Audio-SoundMAX (on-board) Classic Warranty - 3 Years Back-to-Base - Parts & Labour £814 excl VAT

This one is moving up to a decent dual-core system:

Titan^2 GTI AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core 3800+ with HT Tech. Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional Edition Brushed Aluminium ATX Midi Tower +550W PSU- Silver ASUS A8N-E - Nforce 4 PCI-Express Mainboard - ATX 2048MB DDR400 Memory - PC3200 (2x1024) 300GB Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer SONY 16x Dual Layer DVD-Re-Writable +R/-R/RW 256MB nVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT - TV-Out + DVI - PCI-Express Without 19" TFT Display 7.1 Channel Surround Sound Audio (on-board) Without Speakers (2.1/5.1) Without Keyboard & Mouse Free Microsoft® Works® 8.5 + 60 Days Microsoft Office Trial Classic Warranty - 3 Years Back-to-Base - Parts & Labour £860 ex vat

And finally the top dog - looks like I'm paying a premium for the A8N-SLI motherboard.

Matrix^2 SLI BTO AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core 3800+ with HT Tech. Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional Edition Brushed Aluminium ATX Midi Tower +550W PSU- Silver ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe PCI-Express Mainboard - ATX 2048MB DDR400 Memory - PC3200 (2x1024) 300GB Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer SONY 16x Dual Layer DVD-Re-Writable +R/-R/RW 256MB nVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT - TV-Out + DVI - PCI-Express 7.1 Channel Surround Sound Audio (on-board) Classic Warranty - 3 Years Back-to-Base - Parts & Labour £922 excl VAT

So, there you have it - I'm wondering about either the Matrix Value BTO or adding an extra £50 to get the dual core Athlon. It seems hard to justify the price of the last one and I want a really decent graphics card so I'm not sure about the first two.

I guess my questions are these:

1) Which would you pick?

2) I assume that the GeForce 7800GT isn't overkill for any of the PC's that have it?

3) Given that primarily it's a gaming machine, is it really worth getting a dual-core CPU? I may sometimes do some hardcore multitasking, but it's not the reason I'm buying the computer.

4) Am I right in not wanting to splash out on the latest CPU's as the advice given here suggests?

5) I'm also considering the Titan with the A8N-E motherboard, the extra over the budget dual core goes towards the better gfx card, a nice aluminium case with lots of screwless options and the better motherboard. I'm thinking it might well be the one to go for...do you agree?


Many thanks for any help you can give!

(edited for formatting and additions)

[ 01-29-2006, 12:14 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

[Ilander]

...To be honset, I'm a "build your own" advocate. If you read the instructions and all your parts work, then the assembly/installation process shouldn't take more than three or four hours...Plus, it gives you more of an option over your parts.

That said, I think I would recommend the first one, given the current state of the industry...

There are a lot of competing standards, the most important of which is the dual graphics card standard. While I'm not a big fan of plunking down the cash for the extra card, I have to admit that to not be prepared for it will be a cause for woes...that said, until there's a motherboard out there that can handle SLI AND Crossfire, or ATI finally throws in the towel and lets SLI be the industry standard, I would be wary of putting too much cash into that aspect of the machine. Besides, SLI can stand some improvement, like allowing for NOT using the exact same graphics card in each slot.

Also, there's the AMD DDR2 motherboards on the horizon...

The industry really is a mess right now, with a "you have to pay a LOT to get an increase in performance" theme running throughout.

If you're wanting a machine that gives you more than a 5% boost in performance about the first one, you'll probably have to spend more than on the last option. :S

Last thing...with a prebuilt machine, nothing's free...including "Microsoft Works," a program suite you can easily replace with OpenOffice and be much more satisfied with your compatibility.

And yes, it'll run Oblivion.

[shamrock_uk]

Thanks for the reply Ilander. I'm fully in agreement with you, I've built a good 10 PCs or so from scratch, but now I've moved from home there just isn't a suitable space to do it in.

Also share your sentiment re. buying a gaming machine now, but my current machine is dying on its feet so I'm pretty much forced to get a new one. As I'm primarily a Linux user I also get what you're saying about MS Works, unfortunately I have no choice about that either. If MS didn't strong-arm vendors into excluding other operating systems, then I wouldn't be forced to get Windows or Works at all!

Thanks for the advice though, I shall take it to heart [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 01-29-2006, 05:23 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

[Felix The Assassin]

I build on the dinning table. Pre assemble everything on the table mat, place the case on another mat and install. Presto, no need for a big fancy set-up. Just remember to stay grounded, and/or use a grounding strap.
That Asus board will command a premium, nice board thou. This rig is my first without Asus, but am using and liking MSI. Food for thought.
Graphics, as we all know is purely personal choice, but you shy away from the over priced CPU, but yet opt for the overpriced GPU? Could shave some duckies on the GPU, and get at least the same performance! But, again, persoanl choice.

If it were a lottery, I would not turn down the Titan.

And sadly, windoze must be loaded first in order to get the GRUB setup correctly. Even in a complete custom configuration, one must still bow to the window before fully loading! One day, there will be a load without GRUB!

[Lucern]

I wouldn't normally get involved in these discussions, as there are about 2000 folks on these boards who know hardware better than I. However, my compy's on it's last leg of the race, and I'm more or less prepared when I find it DOA.

I more or less agree with Ilander on the choice between those, but I'd go for any dual core machine (barring Intel's 840 series) before single processor from now on. Single cores have the run of the board currently as far as price/processing, because games aren't programmed to make proper use of two (or more). However, I believe this will change, and Oblivion will be the first to do it. Consider that it's being released for the Xbox 360 as well, which sports 3 cheap dual cores. If you're serious about that computer lasting into the next few years, I don't think you'll be unhappy with a dual core (especially the nice upper 3000 ((or even 4000, ahem)) series).

And I think you're right on with AMD at the moment...Intel gave them a run for the money this month, but they also gave you a run for yours to do it The current AMDs run at a lower wattage too.

The ideal situation would be to be able wait it out, until we see some evidence of games actually using 2 processors and until dual cores start coming on separate pieces of silicone. Out of those, I'd go with No 4, but if I had to get one tonight, I'd buy a refurbished Dell online at half the price of any of these (not as good, yeah I know).

A little Tom's Hardware goodness about the current (grotesquely overpriced) top of the line, with an AMD processor table in the back.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/01/...ult/index.html

[Ilander]

Oh, yeah, certainly. I completely overlooked that in my recommendation. Dual-core is the way, now and for quite some time. I just hate to recommend getting a nice processor when a person may decide to change motherboard in a year or so...what'd you do with the processor?

[Lucern]

Oh I agree with that...probably the worst thing you could do cost-wise would be to get the FX 60 in that review, given that it uses the exact same motherboard as some of those processors.

I overlooked that because when I read SLI and Crossfire, my eyes glaze over

[ 01-29-2006, 11:03 PM: Message edited by: Lucern ]