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First gaming desktop
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Posted November 9, 2012 at 6:47PM
I am looking to buy my first gaming desktop. I want to be able to play games like Skyrim, Age of Empires,LOTR:online,Guild Wars 2 and the like. I am wondering what "off the shelf" pcs would be a good start or even where I should begin if I wanted to build my own pc. Thanks.
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Posted November 9, 2012 at 7:24PM
There are a lot of custom PC builders out there , you dont say how much you would like to spend tho . I would`nt recommend a gaming PC as your first build . I personally had mine built by Scan , did a great job , good price and warranty . Let me know what yopur budget is going to be
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Posted November 10, 2012 at 8:16AM
If you go to the websites of the various games you want to play, you will generally find a page with the minimum PC specifications for playing each game, and the recommended specification. That's a good starting point. You'll find some differences: my son plays Skyrim and Battlefield 3, and while he gets very good performance on Skyrim, performance on Battlefield 3 is less good with his set-up.
Then it's a question of what level of performance you will accept vs. how much money you have. The minimum specification recommended by the game manufacturer will give you adequate performance, but frame rates won't be high and you'll have to compromise on the level of detail. The recommended specification will give you excellent framerates and high levels of detail - but will generally be significantly more expensive (the difference, often, between a dual core processor and a quad core processor, and the difference between a £50 graphics card and a £250 graphics card.)
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Posted November 10, 2012 at 11:17AM
In addition to Ian`s excellent advice , it is also recommended to spend as much on your screen as you do on the graphics card ( approx ). Also are you starting from scratch , or do you already have some periferals ? eg mouse , keyboard , speakers etc
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Posted November 10, 2012 at 12:34PM
Alright, so my budget is about 800 and yes I am starting from scratch. Thanks for the tips guys. :-)
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Posted November 10, 2012 at 1:33PM
For £800, you should be able to do pretty well (although I was shocked to see a £5,000 gaming machine on eBay!) (see here to see what you're missing!)
This here is the kind of thing your money would buy you (I'm not specifically recommending it, but just to give you an idea. A quad core Intel i7, plenty of memory, a moderately good graphics card. It doesn't leave you any budget for screen etc. (nickf's is good advice, btw) though. Personally, I'd be looking for a brand name case (generally better air flow) and a good brand name PSU (it can contribute so much to smooth, reliable, fast running). I think 32GB memory is just showing off, and you almost certainly don't need a 1TB hard drive. An SSD would be cool, but just for boot/load times - it wouldn't do much for your game play). An HD7850 (or the NVIDIA equivalent would give you a lot more - but would add £100 to the price...
Food for thought.
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Posted November 10, 2012 at 2:11PM
Try looking at the custom PC builders , the likes of PC specialist , Scan , Arabico are some . An i5 chip , z77 mobo , 8g ram , gtx660 graphics card , and as Ian says a good case and PSU important , also cooling if you want to overclock for more grunt .
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Posted November 10, 2012 at 2:14PM
I think nickf means Arbico but also have a look at Chillblast.
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Posted November 10, 2012 at 4:26PM
Could you maybe increase your budget, to £1100? It would most definitely result in a gaming PC that would run rings around anything you would buy for £800 or even £2000 if you purchased it already built. There are a few issues with building or purchasing a gaming PC with a low budget. Two main issues to consider are the quality of the hardware (cheap & nasty), the other is reliability.
I have built many high spec gaming PC's & you can't go wrong with quality components, don't waste your hard earned cash on a system that looks good & cheap on paper, you will for sure regret it, in the months to follow.
I have put together a system for you, that in my opinion would kick some serious butt & will laugh in the face of anything else in the price range of £1100+
Gigabyte GZ-G2 Gaming Case £45.99
Corsair 800 Watt PSU £77.98
Intel LGA2011 Liquid Cooling £59.98
Gigabyte X79-UD3 S2011 Motherboard £155.98
Intel Core i7-3820 3.6GHz LGA2011 10MB £226.99
Corsair 16GB (4 x 4GB) Vengeance LP 2133MHz DDR3 DIMM CL11 £107.98
Asus AMD Radeon 7770 HD 2GB PCI-Express 3.0 HDMI £123.99
Pioneer Blu-ray 12x SATA BD-RW Burner £59,98
Intel 180GB Solid State Drive £89.98
Western Digital 1TB Green SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive £57.99
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme £24.99
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit £72.99
Total = £1104.82
I have gone to a very reliable shop for these items (Dabs) & find them to be one of the cheapest online stores, but I'm certain that you should shop around a bit more for the items, as you will likely save another £50-£100.
Hope this helps.
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Posted November 10, 2012 at 5:02PM
Another one to look at, click here, and scroll down to the lowest. If you already have a sata drive, optical drive, keyboard etc., you can use then all you will need is an OS, graphics card and a decent PSU. Further upgrades can be added when you need, or can afford, such as a good SSD.
spiderlegz listing is a very good reference for hardware. With the CPU and ram already set up it might be easier to create your personalized machine.
Whatever you decide then good luck.
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