Viewing Thread:
"Thinking of building my own PC..."

I've done it before, but I'm a bit out of step with what constitutes a good PC. It's mainly for gaming, as I've got a half-decent laptop for work with the following specs:

P4 2.66GHz processor
40GB HDD
512 RAM
GeForceFX 5200 64Mb graphics card
DVD reader/CDRW

So I'm guessing that the minimum to incorporate future gaming needs would be something like:

P4 3.5GHz+
200GB+ HDD
2Gb+ RAM
Hefty graphics card (blimey they're expensive!)
etc.

Is that about right for a starting point for the next generation of games? The motherboard would have to be future-proof too. I remember building a PC before with ISA slots, then everything went PCI! Looking through SR's range of components and PC's, it seems I could get a half-decent PC for £500, then beef it up for another £300-400 - is that what people normally do? I'm quite capable of starting from scratch and waiting for it all to come together...

Cheers for any advice.

I think it'll be one 6600EXTREME!!!1 for now, then add another later - that'll keep costs down.

Indeed.

Also, i'd imagine the RAM SR sell is a bit crap.

Although, if you get an SLI capable motherboard, you can just throw another 6600 in there at some point.

A GF 6800 standard or a Radeon X800XL will be about £220.

:' {

It has more RAM, but it's a less capable core. It doesn't have as many pixel pipelines. The amount of RAM in a card isn't a very accurate measure of its performance. For example, a 128mb Radeon 9800 Pro will give about twice the performance of a 256mb FX5200, if not more.

For something that will last you should be looking at 6800+ and X800+, although it will be expensive.

Memorandum! wrote:
> The 6600 is better, but if you stretch to about £200 you could
> get a 6800 which would last you a fair bit longer.

How come the 6200 has twice as much RAM as the 6600EXTREME!!!1, but is worse? Something to do with bus speeds or something?

And don't forget to buy a decent PSU. The ones in those cheap ebuyer cases probably couldn't power a mobile phone without blowing up.

The 6600 is better, but if you stretch to about £200 you could get a 6800 which would last you a fair bit longer.

Cool, wondered why they were being compared so much. Thank you magic internet stranger.

So this is what I'm looking at so far:

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ [URL]http://specialreserve.co.uk/Cpu_AMD_Athlon_64_4925_r.html[/URL]
£207.99

Motherboard: Asus A8N SLI Deluxe [URL]http://specialreserve.co.uk/Asus_A8NSLI_Deluxe_2628_r.html[/URL]
£127.99

Graphics: Can't decide for 2 of these [URL]http://specialreserve.co.uk/XFX_Geforce_6200_2590_r.html[/URL] or these [URL]http://specialreserve.co.uk/XFX_Geforce_6600XG_1798_r.html[/URL]
One has EXREME!! in the title, but the other would give me twice as much RAM at a lower speed...what's more preferable to have?

Memory: 1024Mb DDR DIMM RAM [URL]http://specialreserve.co.uk/DDR_DIMM_1024_MB_4750_r.html[/URL]
£114.99

HDD: Seagate Baracuda 200GB [URL]http://specialreserve.co.uk/Seagate_Barracuda_1606_r.html[/URL]
£89.99

Then obviousy I'll need a case (some nice ones on ebuyer for about £20), monitor (I can live with CTR!), keyboard, mouse, sound card and a few other things which should set me back £150-£200. So that's about £800-£900, is it worth it? I'm talking small purchases though, maybe an item per month, so it'll be nice and obsolete in 8 months time...

Oh, and I'm just going by SR's online prices at the moment.