looking for new gaming PC

[ciaran]

hi everyone this is my first post

i have been looking for a new gaming pc but sadly my pc knowledge is very limited so i would appreciate any help that you can all give me.

This is the pc that i have been looking at:

PCI Express Board
NVIDIA 6600 PCI Express 512MB Graphics Card
200GB SATA hard drive
1GB DDR400 RAM
Plus Case,Windows XP and DVD RW
this model would have a 3.4 GHz Chip

PRICE £465

is this a good deal/pc and could i do better?

Any advice wood be greatly apreciated

[saphalline]

I see some areas for improvement in terms of gaming. First of all, a 6600 with 512MB is probably going to be overpriced and underpowered for gaming. A budget gaming system doesn't need a 512MB vid card. Heck, a high end gaming machine doesn't need a 512MB vid card! There are no games yet that can use this much! Also, the 6600 is behind a generation now. The 7600's are out and available. Take a look at the 7600 GT. If you can't afford that, take a look at the 7600 GS.

I'm worried about your classification of a "PCI Express Board". Any ol' mobo will do for a basic system, but gaming is so much more than basic. When I design a gaming system, not only do I specify 1 or 2 chipsets that work the best, but I also spend a good couple hours picking out the perfect mobo. Remember, everything plugs into the mobo, so it better be good! The mobo is the spine of the system, and one of the two most important components in any PC (the other being the power supply). Whatever you do, don't skimp on the mobo!

Ok, so you're using DDR RAM with an anonymous 3.4GHz CPU? Can you be more specific about the CPU? Right now, I can only guess at what you might be using. But if you're thinking about using DDR with an Intel CPU, forget it! Intel is DDR2 now. Need more info here.

Also, where are you getting your prices? It would help if I could price parts (and part availability) at the same place you will be buying.

[ciaran]

i got the price from ss systems

[Vespa125125]

Here's A Good Gaming Pc For £500

http://www.pcnextday.co.uk/products/ProductDetail.asp?ProductCode=3361-3401

[ciaran]

what does everyone think of the pc given by vespa?

[madad2005]

Yep, that is worth it, but it doesnt come with a monitor. It might be cheaper building it yourself in that case. Here is a system I just built for a friend:

CPU: Athlon 3800+ s939 + Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 £75.32 + £13.12
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-K8N51GMF-9 NF4 £40.24
RAM: 2x 512MB Elixir £60.98
GfX: 7600GT 256MB £110.44
HDD: 160GB Seagate 7200.9 SATAII £39.66
DVD: Lite-on DVDWriter 16x OEM £20.12
Sound: Creative X-fi Soundcard OEM £56.98
OS: Windows XP home £57.56
Case: Scan 3XS '2012' 4 in1 Kit + 400W PSU + Keyboard
+ Mouse + 2.0 Speakers £26.66

In total, including p&p from scan.co.uk £517. This machine would kick ar$e. It is based on socket 939 and if you wanted the newer socket AM2 version, you just have to swap the CPU, mobo and RAM, for example:

CPU: athlong 3800+ AM2 $75.32
Mobo: Gigabyte GA M51GM-S2G NF430 £52.22
RAM: 2 x 512MB PC2-5300 Elixir RAM £51.00

It costs slightly more, but nothing excessive. You could make extra savings in your setup by going from an athlon 3800+ to athlon 3500+ (£13 saving), chaning the graphics card from a 7600GT to a 7600GS (£40 saving), and removing the X-fi soundcard completely (£57 saving), as the onboard sound isn't too bad. So that £517 system could come down to £407. Not too bad!

Plus, you get the fun of building it yourself!