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"PC buying advice....."

Posted this in the gaming forum and then realised this place existed, so ummm here's the same post again.

Looking into getting a PC and to be honest I know jack all about computers these days. So I'd be greatful of any advice you can give me on specs to be looking for. I want a good PC that won't need to be upgraded for a while, doesn't have to be top of the range though.

Oh and also where's a good place to look for one? I'm the sort of idiot who buys the first one he sets eyes on when he walks into PC world so I really could do with some advice.

Oh and please don't tell me I'd be best off making it myself. I know it'd probably work out a lot cheaper but I have neither the time or the L337 skills for something like that.

Cheers for the help...if you helped.

For that money tilta you're being ripped off.

There is no need for a seperate sound card. They are better yes, but the performance boost isn't worth the money.

I'll re-iterate what I said about graphics cards - get nothing less than an ATI X800XL, or nVidia GeForce 6800 GT. The difference in price between a 6600 GT and either of those is around £100. Drop the sound card to save £50, add an extra £50 and you'll get twice as much graphical power.

XP Home and XP Pro are pretty much identical other than XP Pro having proper network logons etc. It doesn't have anything a home user needs.

I'm cool.

I'm gonna take the soundcard off and get a 19" monitor instead of a 17" for the same price..

I'm not willing to spend £200 - £300 on a graphics card that'll probably be half the price in a few months. The 6600Gt will do me fine for a long time yet.

Notorious Biggles wrote:
> There is no need for a seperate sound card. They are better yes, but
> the performance boost isn't worth the money.

But the improved sound quality and EAX surround sound environments in games are very much worth the money.

I got an Audigy 2zs new for £59 *cough*dabs.com*choke*

Sound is often overlooked by some gamers, which is a shame because people are missing out on some real neat features in games.
You'll need a good surround sound speaker setup to get the most out of a sound card, but you can pick up quality 7.1 setups for fairly cheap these days.

Plus you have the advantage of using sound to play the game, such as knowing which direction the enemy is because you can hear them coming from that direction physically in the room.

Tiltawhirl wrote:
> I'm cool.
>
> I'm gonna take the soundcard off and get a 19" monitor instead
> of a 17" for the same price..
>
> I'm not willing to spend £200 - £300 on a graphics card
> that'll probably be half the price in a few months. The 6600Gt will
> do me fine for a long time yet.

They won't come down in price, at least substantially, for quite a while, if ever. The 6600 GT is about on a par with the 9800 Pro, which was the king of the last generation. It all depends on how much gaming you are likely to be doing.

As for the sound, meh. It's only worth having for the improved EAX if you have decent surround sound. That's all. Sound quality wise for anything other than games get something else like an Emu, considering they are far superior.

I would say the soundcard boos**t is definitley worth it. As has been pointed out as well, the advanced EAX is excellent.

For £50-60 the Audigy 2 ZS is well worth it.

Also the 6600 GT would be fine. Gathering from what you have said you couldn't give a sh*t about top top settings anyway. You are wrong about all cards dropping in price though. I have had people offering me £350 for my X800 XT PE. Some cards are in pretty high demand.

Malaktix wrote:
> Notorious Biggles wrote:
> There is no need for a seperate sound card. They are better yes, but
> the performance boost isn't worth the money.
>
> But the improved sound quality and EAX surround sound environments in
> games are very much worth the money.
>
> I got an Audigy 2zs new for £59 *cough*dabs.com*choke*
>
> Sound is often overlooked by some gamers, which is a shame because
> people are missing out on some real neat features in games.
> You'll need a good surround sound speaker setup to get the most out
> of a sound card, but you can pick up quality 7.1 setups for fairly
> cheap these days.
>
> Plus you have the advantage of using sound to play the game, such as
> knowing which direction the enemy is because you can hear them coming
> from that direction physically in the room.

But most people only have a 2 speaker set-up, so unless you actually have 7.1 speakers or 5.1 or whatever, no point.

I bought a SB Live! card, for £20 a looong time ago.

I still regret it... £20 could have gone on something excellent.

Also - what's the point in blowing £300 on a graphics card? £300 buys you 10 games. And the whole point of upping your PC is to play games. So play more, and worry less.

And be happy.

Don't worry.

(Litte Marley plug there.)

How good is onboard sound nowadays? Not much difference in peformance or quality unless you by a Audigy 2 ZS etc?

Pssh, generally it's fine.

However Realtek pish me off with their whole incopatibility issues with iTunes, which is why a cheap (<£20) card is a good bet for a music / multimedia machine.

Coin wrote:
> Also - what's the point in blowing £300 on a graphics card?
> £300 buys you 10 games. And the whole point of upping your PC
> is to play games. So play more, and worry less.

So you can play games in all there glory.

On the graphics card side of things then the 6600 GT is a good card, at work we are demoing a 3.2Ghz P4, 512Mb RAM and the 6600 GT card and its playing Splinter Cell with nice graphics. If you have got a limit and your not a big gamer than that card will be fine. If you are building a machine for games than getting the top spec card is always worth it.

When I got my 9800 Pro it was £330, which is alot of money but it meant I could play games at top whack. If I had thought about spending just half that then a 9600 Pro would have got and by now I would have to upgrade to something like a 9800 Pro for £100 or so, so in fact I would have saved no money in getting a cheaper card and yet have not had the pleasure of running games on top graphical settings.

I would suggest the x800 if you wanted to future proof but it's not really that important.

Things change so much anyway, 3 months time all the computer people will be saying their previous suggestion is now crap.