Gaming Need advice, anything welcome.

[eltrut]

Recently i have decided that I need to buy a decent PC as for the last 2-3 years I have been making do with a laptop.

I'm leaning towards a HP Pavilion P6020a as it is cheap and sounds to me to be fairly powerful (although i know next to nothing about computer hardware) and was wondering if I should get it or fork out an extra 5-600 to get a custom built one.

It's specs are:
* CPU - Intel Pentium Dual Processor E5200 2.5GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB, EM64T, Execute Disable Bit, EIST
* FSB - 800MHz
* STANDARD MEMORY - 2048MB DDR2
* HARD DRIVE - 320GB Serial ATA Hard Drive at 7200RPM
* OPTICAL DRIVE - SuperMulti DVDRW LS DL SATA Drive
* NETWORKING ⁄ WIRELESS - Integrated 10⁄100 BaseT network interface (Broadband Ready)
* GRAPHICS - nVidia GeForce 7100
* OPERATING SYSTEM - Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium

Vista I can do without, but how does the rest size up? I do have more than enough money to upgrade it as necessary, but would rather not have to.

So, any thoughts?

 

[blitzer320]

how much did you say you would pay for those specs on a custom built because i built one like that but more ram for $500 but then again i didn't buy vista

 

[eltrut]

I haven't looked at these specs for a custom built, just an average gaming computer build. As I said I don't know anything about hardware so really my question in summary was "Is this computer any good?".

Also, I'm talking $AU which is about 1.28 $US, plus we have to pay heaps on most electronics for importing. The computer I mentioned above costs $899 which is $US700.

 

[moodswinger]

You can upgrade the CPU to a E7400. I don't think it costs that much.

 

[blitzer320]

well it's good for just computing but not gaming if you want gaming go for at least a geforce 9800 and a core 2 duo. I use vista and don't have any problems i actually like it better than xp even though linux has my heart but since you don't know much about building a pc you're gonna have to pay more than i did.

 

[eltrut]

This is from a general electronics store (Dick Smiths, doubt you have it over there) so upgrading or downgrading anything pre-purchase is impossible

 

[moodswinger]

I have a 1gb geforce 9400 and I don't have any problem in any games I play. Tell us what kind of games are you going to play.

 

[eltrut]

To be honest, I will use this to play pretty much any game that tickles my fancy. I mainly play 360 and DS but on those I have no real common theme to the games I play. GTA, Halo 3, Oblivion, WoW, Super Princess Peach (By FAR the best game EVER!), Pokemon, etc. See my point?

So the general consensus is just fork out the cash and get a custom built?

 

[Joe88]

I have a 1gb geforce 9400 and I don't have any problem in any games I play

until you try to play crysis with the eye candy and a respectable resolution that is

 

[Captin]

I always get Seagate hard drives as they give the longest warranty, normally 5 years. The performance of hard drives will not worry 90% of the peeps as there isnt much to choose from unless your are setting up a raid array.

Get as much ram as you can afford. I use 8Gb and both Windows Vista and Windows 7 run without a swapfile which makes a big speed improvement.