Another new pc thread

[redrum217uk]

Hi

 

I need your help please:grin:

 

Well it looks like my PC has died , I'm not even sure what's wrong with it but its old and slow. The motherboard fan doesn't work,the graphics card doesn't kick in so I can't be bothered.

 

I'd love to have a go at building my own but I don't have the confidence or time to do so.

 

I used to use my PC for gaming but not really that much now, it would have to be good enough to run crysis on decent settings but it doesnt have to be able to run NASA.

 

The graphics card I currently have is Nvidia 8800GT, I'm not even sure if its good any more as its quite old, as I said I think one of the problems could be the graphics card. Hopefully I can use it again.

 

I'd say I'm happy to spend about £450 but I can go over.

 

I know nothing about current PC specs since its been so long since i've looked into anything. I'm gonna try use my old GPU but if it doesnt work Ill just upgrade later

 

Anyway HERE is what I've found.

 

I'm looking at the ones priced £429 or £489

 

 

If anyone can let me know if they think these are any good or suggest other places to look that would be great!

 

Thanks

[Nolan]

http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/system/AMD_Phenom_II_DDR3_Configurator/

I'd say upgrade the RAM to 4GB, the motherboard to the Gigabyte MA770T, and the CPU to one of the quad cores.

 

That brings it to 418 w/ VAT.

 

Alternatively

http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/system/infinity_i3_configurator/

Once again, upgrade the RAM to 4GB. That brings it to 399 w/ VAT. Depending on what you want to spend upgrading the CPU couldn't hurt either, the Core i3's and core i5's 6xx series are dual cores (but still very powerful) while the Core i5 7xx series is quad. Core i7's are mucho expensive. Going for the i5 750 brings it to 470 w VAT.

 

Neither of those comes with a GPU.

 

As for your 8800GT, if it is still working, it's still a good card. The best? No, and it's not going to max anything new, but it's still got a year or two of good playability in it. If you do need to purchase a new card, I would direct you to the 5770 which is a little over £100 and should suit you fine. There is also the 5750 which is a step below in price and performance.

[redrum217uk]

thats a great website thank you so much for your suggestions, better yet its based in Team Valley, Gateshead, just round the corner from me!

 

I really hope its not my graphics card that the problem, but with all the issues I'm having with my PC I'm thinking its just too old! Sometimes it wont boot up and I have to use my windows disk, which I wouldn't think was my graphics card.

 

Thanks again

 

Paul

[McPhee]

If you're confident to do it then buy your own RAM and upgrade it yourself. They want £72+VAT to upgrade the RAM, which is more than 2x2GB sticks cost in the first place without taking in to account the value of the 2x1GB sticks. The rest of the upgrade prices seem pretty reasonable though (more expensive than buying them separately and installing yourself, but not excessively so).

[RoadKill]

nvidia cards recently have been a massive issue, they tend to die prematurely (it's to do with the materials used in the bump grid array)

 

so it could be the card.

 

Good luck, though!

[redrum217uk]

This is what I've found

 

 

CPU: 01018 - AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition

CPU Cooler: 03001 - Standard CPU heatsink & fan

Motherboard: 04049 - Asus M4A785TD-M Evo (AMD 785G Chipset, 4x DDR3, Onboard Video)

Memory: 05028 - 4GB DDR3 1333mhz (2x 2GB)

Hard Drives: 06004 - 500GB S-ATAII 3.0Gb/s

Optical Drive: 07003 - 22x DVD±RW DL S-ATA

Graphics card: 08038 - Onboard Video

Sound card: 10001 - Onboard 7.1 Audio

Operating System: 11014 - Microsoft® Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Internet: 13003 - Wireless 802.11G PCI card

PSU: 18011 - 500W Eagle

Case: 17016 - Piano Black ATX

Warranty: 1000 - 3 Year Bronze Warranty

 

from HERE

 

 

All for £471, what do you think? Its similar and cheaper than the original PC suggested.

 

I can use my current sound card and GPU so no need to buy them

 

Still I can't help thinking I'm going OTT for a PC i'll mainly use for music, moves internet and the odd high end game. I used to spend my life on PC games so its hard to get the old gamer out of me and buy a cheap PC! A huge expense is updating windows, I could save myself 80 quid and stick with Vista but 7 looks so much better!

 

Paul

Edited April 4, 2010 by redrum217uk

[McPhee]

http://www.dinopc.com/shop/pc/20-002-Intel-Core-2-Duo-PC-95p378.htm

 

Sounds like it might be a better choice for you. The E7500 will easily keep up with the 8800GT and it's a lot cheaper. I'd look to upgrade the video card and buy an SSD before going Quad, both offer far bigger boosts in performance (unless you do CAD, video editing and other stuff that stresses the processor a lot). Upgrade the PSU though, a no name 400W PSU will be fine for the base system, but there's no guarantee that it'll last once the 8800GT is plugged in.

Edited April 4, 2010 by McPhee

[redrum217uk]

Cheers for the reply McPhee, I'm not sure what to do now, the PC you suggest is good for what I need right now and much cheaper but if I want to upgrade I'll have to buy a whole PC since it doesn't seem very future proof (ddr2 and so on)

 

I'd rather spend a bit more to get more and last longer than buy all over in a few years time I think. I could be talking crap though since I'm not all up on PC speak now.

 

Still its your advice thats made me look at Dino Pc's in the first place which is great so thanks for that!

 

Do you think the set up I posted above will work well together?