fir3vip3r
Member
Registered: 14th Jun 06
Location: Stevenage, Hertfordshire
User status: Offline
|
After seeing videos for that dayz game and planetside 2 being released I'm wanting to get a good pc but honestly ive only ever used consoles so most of this stuff is completely alien to me.
Im looking to spend sub £500 to get a PC that will play games well and hopefully wont have to upgrade for a while. Ive been looking on overclockers as that seems to be where most of the clued up people go and have found the following:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-210-OK&tool=3
Whats that like for the price? Is it worth my time? Is there anywhere else I should be looking?
Any help much appreciated
|
Russ
Member
Registered: 14th Mar 04
Location: Armchair
User status: Offline
|
scan 'today only' often have deals that are basically 'just add gfx card'
|
Russ
Member
Registered: 14th Mar 04
Location: Armchair
User status: Offline
|
infact, number 1 http://www.scan.co.uk/todayonly/index.aspx
that deal will vanish by 10am i suspect though, as they change every day
|
Sam
Moderator
Premium Member
Registered: 24th Dec 99
Location: West Midlands
User status: Offline
|
You will struggle with a budget of just £500 (assuming you don't have a monitor/keyboard/mouse to go with it already).
£650/£700 is more realistic for a full system, including a half decent graphics card.
|
chris_uk
Premium Member
Registered: 8th Jul 03
User status: Offline
|
My system is now, id say is medium/high end so see what you can get similar to that. It runs the majority of things on high (bf3 for eg, 1920x1080 maxed i get anout 100-120fps)
Intel i7-920 (cpu)
Asus Rampage II extreme (motherboard)
6gb DDR3 1600mhz (ram) (get 8gb)
2x SLi Nvidia 460gtx cyclone (graphics cards) (for sale i might add)
800w Tagen (psu)
You will want a ssd hard disk now they are pretty cheap.
You will also want a decent mouse, keyboard not so important. Look at a relativly decent case with plenty of ventilation, dont cram everything together, plus some of the newer gpus are huge!
If you spec a system close to them components you shouldnt go far wrong.
|
Sam
Moderator
Premium Member
Registered: 24th Dec 99
Location: West Midlands
User status: Offline
|
Another example (my own system I just built):
Intel Core i3-3220 CPU
ASRock H77 Pro4-M motherboard
8GB DDR3 1600 RAM
(XFX) AMD Radeon HD 6870 video card
XFX 650w 80-plus certified modular PSU
128GB Samsung SSD
Edit - the RAM is now 7.5 on that scale.
[Edited on 26-11-2012 by Sam]
|
chris_uk
Premium Member
Registered: 8th Jul 03
User status: Offline
|
How well foes that run games sam?
|
Sam
Moderator
Premium Member
Registered: 24th Dec 99
Location: West Midlands
User status: Offline
|
I've only played 4 games on there so far - the most graphic intensive one being Dishonored - seems to have no problem running at full detail.
I do need to modify my case slightly and get better cooling though as the stock Intel cooler makes my PC sound like it's about to take off when I'm gaming! 
I thought it wouldn't be that great on my spec but TBH the little i3 processor seems more than capable!
|
chris_uk
Premium Member
Registered: 8th Jul 03
User status: Offline
|
I suppose it depends whether or not the game uses cpu or gpu primarily. Ideally you need to get fraps or something to measure your true fps while you play.
Imo
<30fps = shit system
>30fps but <60fps = middle of the road
>60fps = high end ish
In my eyes a game isnt running smooth unless its 60fps or over, i also use vsync on most things it tends not to tear the screen and when a lot of shit kicks off in the game you dont notice a fps drop like you would if it was disabled.
I use a corsair h60 water cooled unit, absolutly great and even clocked to 3.4ghz (from 2.6) it runs at 35-40 on idle and never hit more than 65 when running prime95.
|
Sam
Moderator
Premium Member
Registered: 24th Dec 99
Location: West Midlands
User status: Offline
|
I just downloaded FRAPS and ran it whilst playing Dishonored. Seems to be between 58-60fps:
Not sure what you mean by vsync though?
|
chris_uk
Premium Member
Registered: 8th Jul 03
User status: Offline
|
Vsync limits your fps to the screens refresh rate (usually 60)
Basically the reason you would use this is because when playing with high fps, lets say 150 and you get to a bit in the game maybe overlooking a city and it say drops to 90fps you will actually see/feel the slowdown but if you limit it at 60 then regardless of anything that happens it will always feel silky smooth.
Ive not played dishonoured before so not sure on the engine it uses. Some game engines are very well optimised and require little but give alot. It looks like the unreal 3 engine but cant be sure without looking, but that engine is pretty good and you can get away with a lower end machine and still receive great results.
Crytek engine from crysis 1 was soooo poorly optimised even decent pc's nowadays struggle running it 60fps+ with everything maxed. The virtual reality engine 1&2 which bohemia used for arma 1&2 are equally as bad.
Frostbyte is another good engine which battlefield 3 uses, the engine live for speed uses all be it only dx9 runs fantastic on very low end cards, at some points on track i max out the fps to 999 as it wont allow me to go higher. Lol
Id be interested how your machine runs the poorer engines.
|
Sam
Moderator
Premium Member
Registered: 24th Dec 99
Location: West Midlands
User status: Offline
|
Yeah I don't expect it to run 100% with everything TBH, I do think the SSD helps though as I can imagine things being a bit slower with a normal hard drive.
I too would be interested in finding out what it's like with the poorer engines, might have to get Arma off Steam and report back lol
|
chris_uk
Premium Member
Registered: 8th Jul 03
User status: Offline
|
Go for it, you can join me and the others on DayZ then. 
|
