Gaming Want to buy a Gaming Desktop :)

[Agjsdfd]

Since I got my Dell XPS laptop, I am getting into PC gaming

. I am loving the games. NFS Hot Pursuit looks nice, even Crysis runs pretty smooth on medium settings. Age of Empires and many other games already played through.
Seem to enjoy PC gaming. So I thought I want to have a desktop rather than playing on this laptop all the times.

I will not bother upgrading my current desktop, and rather have a fresh build

.

I am a dumbass when it comes to selecting the right parts and so on lol.
What I want on this desktop is, that it should be easily upgradeable(parts) in the future.
SLI, RAM, HDD etc.

Price should be as low as possible but please select parts for me that I can change in the future easily.

Things I want:
Large Tower with cooling system
500GB HDD
DVD-+ RAM Blue Ray Combo
2GB Graphics Card with SLI/Crossfire support(Direct X 11 support)
8GB DDR3 Ram
Motherboard(something that will be reliable for upgrading parts in the future, such as the graphics card)
Decent Sound card
Processor (You guys suggest

. Something that would be at least future proof for a while. i5? or AMD X4?

Nothing more needed really.

From UK. No Newgg links please.

 

[Fishaman P]

Lets see:

500GB is too small, you might want a 64GB or bigger SSD with either a 750GB HDD or a 1TB HDD.
You don't need a Blu-Ray drive unless you need huge discs for backup or if you're ripping PS3 games
SLI/CrossfireX is different from DirectX11
SLI/CrossfireX requires a lot of power and space, and can slow some games down
8GB is a good start, maybe you should go 12GB or 16GB though (My current kinda-gaming PC has 4GB of RAM and it leaves a page file just over 4GB, so 8GB will also leave a page file)
Mobo: Really only depends on if it has support for the above and if you want built-in Wi-Fi
Most mobos today come with a 7.1 channel sound card already
Processor: Intel i7 980X/995 if you want the best at a premium, otherwise the AMD Phenom 9850 has the best performance/$ ratio, although it's not that powerful.
The AMD Phenom II X6 1090T actually outperforms the 1100T without overclocking, and it's only around $230, plus 6-core performance lets you multitask the hell out of your machine.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[unnkown95]

i think 500 gb will be fine, i suggest the i7 quad core, if you have the money its the way to go

 

[unnkown95]

also i think 12 gb ram is over kill, unless you are gonna be running like gta iv, while having 3ds max 2011 open, along with photoshop, and like crysis and a bunch of other program 12gb ram is over kill

 

[Rydian]

Core i5 is fine for the processor, more games are GPU-limited, not CPU-limited.

Amount of memory on a video card is not a direct measurement of performance.
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php
That is a VERY GENERAL rating of video cards by power.

I don't recommend dual cards, save the money and use it to upgrade to a better card later and you'll get more power from it than from adding a second card.

12GB of RAM is overkill, 6/8 is the sweet spot right now. I can give a technical explanation if required.

 

[DeathStrudel]

are you trying to build you're own PC(recommended if you know what you're doing) or order one pre-built? like from dell, hp, etc

 

[unnkown95]

he is trying to build one

 

[Satangel]

If you are looking to ever emulate for example the PS2 (it's already very far in development, I'm playing God of War very smooth atm), definitely look for a top-notch CPU, since the CPU does almost all the work.

 

[unnkown95]

i mean you shouldnt buy a computer to emulate a ps2 as the main focus now a days you can get a ps2 for 40$ on craigslist, and either way an i7 at 3.0 ghz is plently plus you can always overclock it

 

[DeathStrudel]

well in the US i generally go to tigerdirect for computer parts, idk if they ship to the UK though :/

 

[unnkown95]

tiger direct is good but i would say new egg is better

 

[Satangel]

i mean you shouldnt buy a computer to emulate a ps2 as the main focus now a days you can get a ps2 for 40$ on craigslist, and either way an i7 at 3.0 ghz is plently plus you can always overclock it

With a CPU like that, it will definitely run as smooth as it does here

I really recommend you check the PS 2 emulator out though, a lot of games work wonderful (after fiddling a bit with the emulation settings). Games like God of War and DQ VIII always made me anxious to play them, and now I can finally play them myself. I have a 360 controller to play PS2 games on my PC, how awesome is that!?

 

[Originality]

"Large Tower with cooling system"... Antec 1200 springs right up to mind.
"500GB HDD"... Samsung Spinpoint series. I'd stick with 1TB myself, since 1/1.5/2TB drives are rather cheap right now.
"DVD-+ RAM Blue Ray Combo"...if you need BluRay, I'd use a PS3. DVD drives tend to be ~$18 if you don't need BR.
"2GB Graphics Card with SLI/Crossfire support"... SLI and "price as low as posible" don't mix. It's better to get one good GTX 570 or 580 than two GTX 460 in SLI, especially since most games aren't programmed for multi-GPU graphics and the drivers will only cause stutters.
"8GB DDR3 Ram"... more than needed IMO. At least you can just go for the cheapest 1600Mhz RAM and that'll set you for the next 3ish years.

"Motherboard"... one of the harder parts to pick. Generally you'll want to spend more than $100, because the cheaper motherboards are the ones that don't tend to last. It really depends on what exactly you want in the CPU too. Currently the Core i7-930/950 (same price) is the "king of gaming", according to most review sites I've read. Core i5 is also just fine for gaming if you don't need to have 4+4 cores and it can save a fair bit of money too. However Intel SandyBridge CPUs come out next month, so an entirely new range of motherboards will be released for the new socket type (LGA 1155 to replace the older LGA 1156).

If you want to save more money and don't mind compromising performance in games, you can go for the AMD PhenomII series. They're a lot weaker in games than Intel chips, and the architecture is aging, but the CPU/RAM/MoBo combination tends to be cheaper than with Intel.

EDIT: In the UK, best site to go to (first at least) is Scan.co.uk. After that Dabs, LambdaTek, eBuyer, OverClockers and YoYoTek are good sites to look at for price comparison (and occaisionally finding better deals), but Scan is the best place to go.

 

[DeathStrudel]

tiger direct is good but i would say new egg is better

well he said not to give newegg links, and i have a tiger direct store near my town so i usually just go there instead of waiting for shipping

edit: but for online shopping i would agree with you

 

[unnkown95]

oh sorry i didnt read that last part, oh i saw a tiger direct warehouse by atlanta/south carolina somewhere one time while i was traveling

 

[unnkown95]

with amd chips one thing i have realized is they tend to heat up much more, they are still the best chip for the price but if you do get an amd i suggest getting better fans

 

[Agjsdfd]

I dont think tigerdirect ships to US.
As for the suggestions, I will take everything in account

.
And yes, I will build it on my own, not buy a pre-built one. I guess the title is kind of misleading.

I have never bought all parts of a computer before, so I have no idea where to look for. Of course they need to be UK based..

RAM and Graphics card is pretty much decided. I will go for 8GB Ram and nvidia 580 GTX.
700W PSU should be sufficient for all that? I know graphics cards can be very power hungry and maybe I would overclock things in the future.

not a big fan of AMD to be honest. I would personally stick to Intel. I know the i7 is quite expensive thats why I said I will be sticking with the i5 at good speed.

The Antec 1200 is a very cool looking tower. I think I can live with that

.
The question is motherboard and where to buy the parts cheaply in the UK lol.

edit: yes unknown, the heating issue has been a big problem for my friend.

 

[unnkown95]

i use an acer laptop with an i3, intel hd intergrated graphics, 4gb ram, 320 gb hard drive for 499$. I dont play games that much but it works well with counter strike and the games i like, but i mean for gaming even an i3 will do it but if you want top of the line get an i7

 

[DeathStrudel]

If by tower w/ cooling system you mean liquid cooling, i personally wouldn't suggest it. It's not all that great and can be a hassle if you don't know what you're doing. If you really want it I would suggest building your own case, that's what i did and it made it much simpler and much more efficient

 

[unnkown95]

liquid cooling is cool, but unless you have an amd i see no use for it just get a nice fan