PC Gaming

[Scott]

Hey guys, I saw from the gamertag/Id thread that we have a few PC gamers on here! I've been playing 360 for a fair old while now, and have been wanting to get into PC for a couple of years but have never made the plunge...It's been a little while since I've taken a look into newer graphics cards so a bit of advice on what's about would be appreciated

Main games I'd be playing are the likes of Battlefield 3. And well yeah, that I know budget is a big thing that'll come into it, but I already have plenty of storage (not to say I wouldn't mind more), so that cuts down some of the potential cost.

Also please no lmgtfy links or posts saying consoles are better I will say 'your couch' in advance to any of you thinking of it

[silverzx]

PC gaming has always been the best way!

Not looked recently but google some bench tests for GFX cards and find the best in your budget.

[vlj]

I have a 6970 and even though its a year or two old, it runs everything (incl BF3) at max graphics with a minimum of 60fps at all times, mostly run at 80/100 (doesn't even matter as your eye can't even pick that up).

[ginge191]

i've seen rowell has some gfx cards for sale.

I used to be BIG into PC gaming, building home gaming PC's and such, but havnt touched it in 2/3 years now; so im a bit out of touch with what's going well

A great site to find some good gfx cards and reviews : http://www.aria.co.uk/ and http://www.ebuyer.com/

Again, it comes down to 2 main competitors, Radeon and Nvidia, i've always been a Radeon fan myself, my brother has always opted for Nvidia, but again, comes down to motherboard compatability.

Also, you may want to consider other components to play - similarly to a car, replacing one thing doesn't always make it FAST. When upgrading gfx, new CPU's/PSU's/RAM is also a good idea...

again, im fairly out of touch with NEW tech, i'm running a Radeon X800, which at the time was AMAZING, but, by todays standards can be picked up for 50p

[Toby]

If you want to build a decent rig, there are a few areas which you will want to spend your money in..

Motherboard - A decent Sandybridge one will set you back £100
Processor - Bang for buck, the i5-2500k is a great cpu. £170
Power supply - You CANNOT skimp here. No excuses. Budget £60+
RAM - Cheap as chips these days. £40 gets you 8GB of decent stuff.
Graphics Card - Does the bulk of the work for modern games. The more you spend the longer it will last. £140 gets a decent GTX card.
HDD - Although you have storage, you will ideally want an SSD for your OS, but this is optional. £80 gets you 120GB.
Case & Cooling - Whatever you like really. A decent cpu cooler will set you back £20.



I recently built a gaming rig, in total it came to roughly £700. That includes 2 monitors and fan controllers etc though..

[Eeyore]

Its ATI not Radeon ginge. Nvidea Vs Ati has always been a big battle but there isnt much in it. I was running two 8800GS cards and now i run a single ati 5760. Processor is an i7 @ 2.8Ghz, 120Gb SSD with OS on. 3 500Gb HDDS for everything else. 8Gb of memory. Its quite simple to build one really. Just got to make sure the socket types are the same and the memory sockets etc.

[ginge191]

Its ATI not Radeon ginge.

again in my day, i was fighting a radeon corner, with my brother nvidia.. i am out of touch hifty:

[Jonny b]

Get a ps3





Lol






Don't they do a red one now? Tee hee

[Scott]

If you want to build a decent rig, there are a few areas which you will want to spend your money in..

Motherboard - A decent Sandybridge one will set you back £100
Processor - Bang for buck, the i5-2500k is a great cpu. £170
Power supply - You CANNOT skimp here. No excuses. Budget £60+
RAM - Cheap as chips these days. £40 gets you 8GB of decent stuff.
Graphics Card - Does the bulk of the work for modern games. The more you spend the longer it will last. £140 gets a decent GTX card.
HDD - Although you have storage, you will ideally want an SSD for your OS, but this is optional. £80 gets you 120GB.
Case & Cooling - Whatever you like really. A decent cpu cooler will set you back £20.

I recently built a gaming rig, in total it came to roughly £700. That includes 2 monitors and fan controllers etc though..

Thanks mate Yeah I was planning on getting myself an SSD, I've noticed they've dropped a lot in price recently so £80 for the 120Gb drives isn't too bad at all. One thing I'd probably want to add is a decent sound card.

Forgot to mention I'm happy to build it myself too, so no need to worry about adding cost for that. I'd say £700 sounds pretty reasonable really.

[lolsteve]

Motherboard : cheapest one never seen point in spending more
Processor: AMD bulldozer x4 , housemate did "stage 1" from 3.6ghz to 4ghz £90
Power supply: Silent supply would be ideal, cheap one tend to be fairly noisy
Ram: As said before pretty cheap £40~
Graphics: toms hardware guide (link below)
HDD: Seen SDD in life is mad fast but harddrives are darn cheap now for what you get in terms of storage £60-100
Case+cooling: What ever takes your fancy, cheap cases do feel a bit more weak but if it's just meant to sit down in on place forever why does it matter

Overall: can build a pretty good rig that will do all modern games and be future proof for about £350~400

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-gr ... 32442.html
http://www.ebuyer.com/287683-amd-fx-4-4 ... 100wmgusbx

[Ruan]

Cheap Motherboards are really shit - remember, everything busses through them, the lower the quality, the crapper your machine. Getting the right motherboard is imperitive in my experience.

I'm an old school kinda guy - I'm still reppin' the x2 Opteron 2360SE Quads on a Supermicro H8-DAE, with a 9800GX2 - FB-DIMM y0h!!! If you know what that is, you're my kinda guy... However, it's shat x2 Corsair TX720s and a Tagan 680 so far, so yeah, it's quite hungry.

I can't stress how important PSUs are though, a crap one will probably die, the cheaper it is the more likely it is to wipe out your entire machine with it... At least the expensive ones die quietly...

[Carlos182]

I know someone who ahd two GTX570's up for sale soon. Had them in SLI and is now getting a GTX680. Doesn't want too much for them either.
£700 could build something truely epic tbf.
The Corsair 'watercoolers' are good, not what I'd call watercooling as its a bolt on jobbie, but 5gHz is achievable on them with decent temps as long as you go push pull over the radiator.
Quite a chunk of money can be easily spent on a case/fans though, but it does make a hell of a lot of difference. Also getting a case with holes in the mobo tray to keep cables out tthe way helps temps and what not.
Just ranting on and probably saying stuff you already know. Just started an e-bay thing selling PC's so if you need a hand with anything give us a shout

[4WayDiablo]

haha odd carlos, my brother has a GTX 680 OC Twin Frozr he might be selling soon, its only been in a computer for a week or so then was removed
i dont really know much about them but he got it from the website below and that makes them better so he says lol


http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... =GX-156-MS

[blinkdagger]

Hey guys, I saw from the gamertag/Id thread that we have a few PC gamers on here! I've been playing 360 for a fair old while now, and have been wanting to get into PC for a couple of years but have never made the plunge...It's been a little while since I've taken a look into newer graphics cards so a bit of advice on what's about would be appreciated

Main games I'd be playing are the likes of Battlefield 3. And well yeah, that I know budget is a big thing that'll come into it, but I already have plenty of storage (not to say I wouldn't mind more), so that cuts down some of the potential cost.

Also please no lmgtfy links or posts saying consoles are better I will say 'your couch' in advance to any of you thinking of it

PC gamer here
Here are my personal choice for my future upgrade:
CPU: i5 3570 (ivy)
CPU Cooler: CM Hyper 212 EVO
GPU: Sapphire HD 7850 OC
Mobo: Gigabyte Z77 UD3H
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB 1600MHz (dual channel)
HD: Western Digital Blue 500GB
SSD: Intel SSD 330 Series Sata 3
PSU: Corsair GS600
Case: NZXT Phantom 410 Gunmetal

Check them out, they are the best I can come up with since I'm on a tight budget

[Scott]

Didn't see that post! ^^ Thanks

Bumping this as I'm now building one for definite. My mum wants a new PC since the desktop she is using is a Sony Vaio PCV-V1/G, P4 2.4Ghz processor with 120GB hardrive and 512mB RAM, which is about 8/9 years old now I think. It's one of those all-in-one things.

Anyway, she wants a new PC, and is looking to spend around £400, and I'll add an extra £600 or so, so we've got around £1k to play with for this build.

I'll be buying an SSD, but don't need any other hard drives, and also don't need an OS

[Kezzieboy]

Much more importantly than all this nonsense...how do I get TOCA and TOCA2 to run on windows 7? Wont run in compatibility mode

[Midnightclub]

VMware maybe? Separate partition running XP? Either of those should work

[Scott]

Much more importantly than all this nonsense...how do I get TOCA and TOCA2 to run on windows 7? Wont run in compatibility mode

Get your own thread!

[Kezzieboy]

Screw you Scott

[Scott]

Hmmm now where is that ban button

[kyleo92]

What cases are everyone using.. Im about to start a build and don't know if I was the cooler master 690 II nvidia edition or the akasa venom case... Hmm.. Looking for a medium build cost (i5 ivy, gtx 670,ssd+hdd)

but then I work away for 2 weeks of the month and are trying with the idea or an alienware m17x r4 or the Samsung 7 series gamer.... Too many decisions..... Arghh!!

[Carlos182]

What cases are everyone using.. Im about to start a build and don't know if I was the cooler master 690 II nvidia edition or the akasa venom case... Hmm.. Looking for a medium build cost (i5 ivy, gtx 670,ssd+hdd)

I'm using a xpredator Evil Black at the moment. If you want plenty of space and plenty of cooling then it's certainly worth a shout...
Mind you, if you want a full set of 140mm fans for it, be prepared to fork out haha!

[Scott]

Bumping these due to the Steam winter sale! Portal 2 is 3.74 which is an epic price for such a great game.

Also Skyrim is only £9.99 on Gamestop! Taking full advantage of these

[Scott]

Bumping this as apparently we have a fair few more PC gamers than I thought!

[4WayDiablo]

Nerd content below haha...
   

[Niall]

yup ive just got steam and love portal2 haha. niallharper if anyone wants to add me

[Scott]

Turns out I didn't even post my PC spec here:

Asus P8Z77 Deluxe mobo
Intel i5-3570k
Evo 212 cooler
Corsair Vengeance 8GB
Gigabyte Windforce 2 670GTX
Corsair GS600 PSU
Corsair Obsidian 650D Case
Corsair K90 keyboard and M60 mouse

I ended up getting a fair amount of Corsair products for this build and I'm actually really impressed, definitely don't regret the decision!

[Just Sean]

Corsair is reallygood... Andy will tell you all about my computer room at my old house!!

[Scott]

Anyone play CS:GO? I've just started getting into it so it'd be good if anyone else on here wants to play with myself and Foobs

[Niall]

I downloaded it when it was cheap on steam but never played it.