[DirtyRotten]

I know next to nothing about PC gaming as I've only ever owned consoles and laptops, however my Dad was thinking about picking up a new desktop for the family to use, and so I thought it'd be a good idea to get a computer with some gaming potential.

So, out of the two following, which is better? How long are they likely to last before needing to be upgraded? Please try and keep jargon to a minimum as I'm totally new to this.

Choice 1: Intel Core i5 3450 Processor - 4GB DDR3 1333Mhz Memory - 1TB 6GB/s SATA Hard Drive - NVIDIA GT430 1GB Graphics Card

Choice 2: Intel® Core™ i3-2120 Processor (3.30GHz, 3MB L3 Cache, 2C) - 4GB 1333MHz (2x2GB) Dual Channel Memory - 1TB Serial ATA (7,200 rpm) - 1GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 545

Thanks in advance guys!

[mucgoo]

The second is marginally better.
There both crap though.

You could play older games on lowered settings.
BF3 wouldn't be playable though for example.

[DirtyRotten]

(Original post by mucgoo)
The second is marginally better.
There both crap though.

Oh damn that's a blow. Both those desktops run into the £600+ mark with Windows 7 and monitors. Guess you don't really get much for your money with desktop PCs.

Can anybody else reccommend a pre-built desktop? How much should I be looking to spend for a relatively future-proof machine? TBH, the games I'm most interested in playing are those that you can't get on consoles, like real time strategy games and Civilisation for example, but I wouldn't mind kicking back with something like the Witcher 2 on maxed out settings.

Anything from here seem decent?

http://www.novatech.co.uk/pc/gaming/?th=g

[mucgoo]

Build one yourself?
For £600 after about £200 for windows and a monitor you'll have £400 left.

For that you could probably play say Witcher II and BF3 on medium settings. Throw another £200 at it and your looking at near maxed out. It just goes to illustrate how overpriced pre-builts are.

Putting it together is no harder than a lego model.

If your up to that then I reccomend you go here.

[Cannotbelieveit]

A good one that will run all the latest games well will cost at least £900.

[Supertoaster]

Witcher 2 is very graphically intence on PC, to play with everything on max more than Battlefield 3, something I just looked up quickly http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...d=2040&subcat= is a pretty decent but no monitor, unless you are building it yourself you are looking at 700+ for a reasonable one with a monitor (I changed the graphics card to an ATI 6770 as it is much better than the default.

That's £670ish + £70 for a 19" monitor from there.

[mucgoo]

(Original post by Cannotbelieveit)
A good one that will run all the latest games well will cost at least £900.

Case/PSU/RAM/HDD-30/45/30/60-£165
Then something like say an AMD Pheonem 955+motherboard-£150
leaving £85 for a graphic card so a 5850/gtx460

Then if you had another £200
a 3570k+motherboard so £250 rather than £150
and a £180 graphic card e.g gtx570 territory

Yes you have to skimp in certain areas but the above would play BF3 at medium for £400 and near ultra for £600

And above post that PC costs 25% more than building it yourself would.

[ELs123]

(Original post by Cannotbelieveit)
A good one that will run all the latest games well will cost at least £900.

Only if you want to run all the latest games at above 60fps and 1080p

I build a 450£ PC a while back that can run everything. albeit not the most demanding games on maximum but medium will still look better than a console.

for a fresh copy of windows and monitor the initial price will be higher, but those are transferable to future builds.

I could have knocked off over £200 from my build if things like windows, monitor and keyboards were not included.

As for the two PC's. They are both crap for £600 in terms of gaming performance.

[OmeletteAuFromage]

(Original post by DirtyRotten)
I know next to nothing about PC gaming as I've only ever owned consoles and laptops, however my Dad was thinking about picking up a new desktop for the family to use, and so I thought it'd be a good idea to get a computer with some gaming potential.

So, out of the two following, which is better? How long are they likely to last before needing to be upgraded? Please try and keep jargon to a minimum as I'm totally new to this.

Choice 1: Intel Core i5 3450 Processor - 4GB DDR3 1333Mhz Memory - 1TB 6GB/s SATA Hard Drive - NVIDIA GT430 1GB Graphics Card

Choice 2: Intel® Core™ i3-2120 Processor (3.30GHz, 3MB L3 Cache, 2C) - 4GB 1333MHz (2x2GB) Dual Channel Memory - 1TB Serial ATA (7,200 rpm) - 1GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 545

Thanks in advance guys!

I'm an expert. You'll have to spend at least 1200 pounds to get a decent computer.
I recommend at least 500gb of storage at 7200 rpm.
intel i5 or i7 quadcore at least 3.0 ghz
8 gb of Ram at 1600mhz.
AMD radeon 7950 card with 1gb memory
windows home edition

That configuration will allow you to play any game available today at maximum settings.

And you're set to go

[Scott1541]

(Original post by OmeletteAuFromage)
I'm an expert. You'll have to spend at least 1200 pounds to get a decent computer.
I recommend at least 500gb of storage at 7200 rpm.
intel i5 or i7 quadcore at least 3.0 ghz
8 gb of Ram at 1600mhz.
AMD radeon 7950 card with 1gb memory
windows home edition

That configuration will allow you to play any game available today at maximum settings.

And you're set to go

Expert you say? A PC of that spec would be way over the top.

I would say either an i3 2120 or i5 2500K/i5 3570K should be sufficient, cheap Z68/Z77 motherboard, 4GB ram and a GTX 560 or even a GTX 560Ti. This spec PC would play most modern games on high to medium settings and should be able to max older games.

[OmeletteAuFromage]

(Original post by Scott1541)
Expert you say? A PC of that spec would be way over the top.

I would say either an i3 2120 or i5 2500K/i5 3570K should be sufficient, cheap Z68/Z77 motherboard, 4GB ram and a GTX 560 or even a GTX 560Ti. This spec PC would play most modern games on high to medium settings and should be able to max older games.

That's just cheapass bro. With those specs he'll play on medium high.
For people who want to play at maximum quality for games today and in the forseeable future he'll need more than that.

With a good quality monitor (220 pounds) and a good mouse (10 pounds), keyboard (15 pounds) and speakers (80 pounds), he'll need:
-AMD radeon 7950 3gb memory (320 pounds)
-Creative titanium soundblaster soundcard (80 pounds)
-16 gb of RAM (60pounds)
-i7 3770k CPU at 3.5ghz (300 pounds)
-2 TB of hard drive (50 pounds)
And then not to mention money for the fans, the case, the motherboard, the power supply. It all adds up to over 1200 pounds for a good PC that'll last a long time.

[Intriguing Alias]

(Original post by OmeletteAuFromage)
I'm an expert. You'll have to spend at least 1200 pounds to get a decent computer.
I recommend at least 500gb of storage at 7200 rpm.
intel i5 or i7 quadcore at least 3.0 ghz
8 gb of Ram at 1600mhz.
AMD radeon 7950 card with 1gb memory
windows home edition

That configuration will allow you to play any game available today at maximum settings.

And you're set to go

You are clearly not an expert. If you were really trying to make money no option you wouldn't care what RPM your harddrive is (within reason) and you'd get an SSD. Furthermore, 7950s do not come with 1GB Memory and even furthermore - a 7950 will not play any game available today at max settings at a good framerate. It'll do a brilliant job but not quite good enough for absolutely everything. Moreover; you haven't specified a resolution. If I'm spending £220 on a monitor like you say I'd want higher than 1080p - in which case max settings for some games is not going to run very well at all on a 7950.

[Camoxide]

You can build a very good PC for £600


£26.79
LN41541
Coolermaster Elite 334U Black Midi Tower Case w/o PSU
£26.79 £32.15
£69.98
LN36724
Intel Core i3 2100, S 1155, Sandy Bridge, 3.1GHz, 5GT/s, HD2000 IGP 850Mhz, 3MB Cache, 31x, 65W, Retail
£69.98 £83.98
£134.56
LN42351
1280MB Gainward GTX 560 Ti Limited Edition, 40nm, 3800MHz GDDR5, GPU 732MHz, Shader 1464MHz, 448 Cores, 2x DVI/ DP/ HDMI
£134.56 £161.47
£44.98
LN40846
500GB Seagate ST500DM002 Barracuda SATA 6Gb/s, 7200rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.5ms, NCQ
£44.98 £53.98
£27.39
LN40264
8GB (2x4GB) Corsair XMS DDR3 PC3-10666 (1333), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, 1.5V
£27.39 £32.87
£64.77
LN43584
MSI Z77A-G43, Intel Z77, S 1155, DDR3, SATA III - 6Gb/s, SATA RAID, PCIe 3.0 (x16), D-Sub/ DVI-D/ HDMI, ATX
£64.77 £77.72
£48.98
LN38740
600W PSU, Corsair Gaming Series GS600 CMPSU-600GUK, 80% Eff', 80 PLUS, SLI/CrossFire, EPS 12V, Quiet Fan, ATX v2.3
£48.98 £58.78
£59.07
LN29161
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit SP1, Operating System, Single, - OEM
£59.07 £70.88
£13.38
LN36039
Sony AD-7261S-0B 24x DVD±R, 12xDVD±DL, DVD+RW x8/-RWx6 ,12xRAM SATA, Black, Lightscribe, OEM
£13.38 £16.06

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[pastor of muppets]

Don't listen to half these guys saying 'you must spend over a grand or nothing will run!'. I built my own pc for £200 and it runs crysis maxed (honest! Took a lot of scrounging though). The first one is better overall but will perform poorer in games because it has a weaker card. It will run games well but not at a high resolution or with antialiasing. The second pc will run most games on high but is less future proof as the processor will become too slow for newer games. If it were up to me, I'd buy the first one and upgrade the card to a 6770 or gts450/gtx 550 ti. The best case scenario would be to build your own though. If you are inexperienced then go On lambdatek.com and you can customise and buy your own pc there. Hope this helps!

[NYU2012]

For something for gaming, I wouldn't touch anything below an Intel i7-2600. Of course, I run large graphics-heavy games on full, such as FFXIV.

[pastor of muppets]

By the way, I your looking for a fast and cheap processor, check out the amd phenom 2 1055t, it's 6 cores and only £100. It even outperforms the i7 920 and cools better too.

[Scott1541]

(Original post by NYU2012)
For something for gaming, I wouldn't touch anything below an Intel i7-2600. Of course, I run large graphics-heavy games on full, such as FFXIV.

The i5 2500K performs about the same as the i7 2600K in games, as does the i5 3570K and i7 3770K. That is a fact, proven over and over in game benchmarks.

(Original post by pastor of muppets)
By the way, I your looking for a fast and cheap processor, check out the amd phenom 2 1055t, it's 6 cores and only £100. It even outperforms the i7 920 and cools better too.

Bull****, a 1055T will perform similarly to an i3 2100, an i5 would wipe the floor with it. (Not a fact but a very educated guess)

EDIT: I guess this makes my statement a fact... http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/147?vs=289

[Camoxide]

(Original post by Scott1541)
The i5 2500K performs about the same as the i7 2600K in games, as does the i5 3570K and i7 3770K. That is a fact, proven over and over in game benchmarks.



Bull****, a 1055T will perform similarly to an i3 2100, an i5 would wipe the floor with it. (Not a fact but a very educated guess)

EDIT: I guess this makes my statement a fact... http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/147?vs=289

This is why i've recommend a dual core Intel CPU on the rig i've posted.

It gets nearly 20 more FPS in Crysis than a 6 core AMD CPU...

[pastor of muppets]

Bull****, a 1055T will perform similarly to an i3 2100, an i5 would wipe the floor with it. (Not a fact but a very educated guess)

EDIT: I guess this makes my statement a fact... http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/147?vs=289[/QUOTE]

Check any other reviews, the 1055t is miles better than an i3. It has a 6mB cache to the i3s 3mB and has 3 times the cores as well as a faster clock speed. It may. It run games as well as some others as many games can't of utilise it's 6 cores but that test that was 'fact' is really inaccurate. In
Most tests It is around about with a high i5 but when all of it's cores can be used it can outperform the i7 920. It was a mistake to say it outperforms it but that's all I remembered of it other than it was Pretty damn cheap and it had 6 cores and is still a bargain and definitely faster than an i3!

[OmeletteAuFromage]

(Original post by hassi94)
You are clearly not an expert. If you were really trying to make money no option you wouldn't care what RPM your harddrive is (within reason) and you'd get an SSD. Furthermore, 7950s do not come with 1GB Memory and even furthermore - a 7950 will not play any game available today at max settings at a good framerate. It'll do a brilliant job but not quite good enough for absolutely everything. Moreover; you haven't specified a resolution. If I'm spending £220 on a monitor like you say I'd want higher than 1080p - in which case max settings for some games is not going to run very well at all on a 7950.

Are you retarded dude? Even my radeon 5870 at 1gb can play every single game at high or max settings. You really think the 7950 which is pretty much as powerful as the 7970 (which costs 100 pounds more) can't play everything at max. You don't know a thing. And are you serious about the SSD?
Those cost a fortune. There's a difference between a 1200 pounds budget and a no cost barrier budget. With a no cost barrier budget you could easily buy a PC that costs 10000 pounds.