Viewing Thread:
"Buying A PC"

Hi all, just wondering if you could lend me a hand or two. Seeing as my current pc is beginning to splutter and suck at everything it does I have decided its time to get a new one, problem is I dont really know where to start.

I have up to £1500 to spend and Id rather buy one pre-build although I could probably build one myself if need be. So just looking for recommendations of where to go what to buy ect ect.

I want it for gaming mostly along with some coursework for college and other general tasks. I was considering waiting for SR to bring back its MAXX pcs but its been a while since they were last here and I don;t know if they are still planning on re-introducing them.

Thanks, any help is much appreciated.

Nimco wrote:
> Is the X850 XT PE the best AGP graphics card you can buy?

Yep.

Better than a 7800GTX?

Sorry, didn't realise you couldn't get this in AGP, yet anyway :D.

Damarus wrote:
> - AMD 64bit 3500+ Processor
> - PCI Express motherboard (One in the £100 range)
> - 2Gb Ram (Corsair CAS 2)
> - Radeon x850xt 256mb (PCI Express)
> - 200Gb 7200pm or 75Gb 10000rpm hard drive

All together that would cost around £800-900, so you can do way better. Like I said when you asked before, get an FX55. They're £550 but if you're not bothered about saving money it's well worth it. And the 7800GTX is the fastest graphics card around, so go for that, you can afford it.

Here you go:

AMD Athlon FX55 San Diego 90nm (Socket 939) £474.95
Abit AN8 Ultra nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard £74.95
Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX (2x1GB) CAS2 (MY-079-CS) £179.95
BFG GeForce 7800 GTX OC 256MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)£299.95
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 NCQ 160GB 6L160M0 SATA 8MB Cache 46.25
HP dvd640i Dual Layer 16x LightScribe DVD±RW ReWriter - Retail £37.00
Antec NeoPower 480W ATX2.0 PSU £59.95
Asus TA-250 Series Midi Tower (Black) - No PSU £29.90
Samsung SM730BF 17" LCD Monitor £184.95
Subtotal £1,387.85
VAT £242.88
Total £1,630.73

Bear in mind that prices will fall by christmas, and if you fancy saving some money get a cheaper processor.

Pandaemonium wrote:
> Damarus wrote:
> I bought my x850xt for £320 not so long ago and now they're
> about £250 =(
>
> Just under 400 for my 6800gt last year. They're roughly 175 - 200
> now.

I paid £340 last october for my X800Pro VIVO AGP. Today my Leadtek 7800GTX arrived and cost me £289.00! Bonkers how the prices change so quick. Also glad I didn't hold out for the X1800 as the benchies place them behind the 7800GTX's and they're way more expensive!

Time to start putting it altogether!;)

Damarus wrote:
> If you really want to play games I'd recommend against this.

Actually Virtual PC 7 works absolutely fine with no lag on my iMac (less powerful than the G5 processor, in case you didn't know)

What games have you played on it then?

Warlords Battlecry 3, Americas Army, Age of Empires 2, The Sims 2, to name a few.

To name all old games then.......

To be honest, I don't much care for computer games anymore. I was simply trying to say that, contrary to popular opinion, it is possible to play reasonably demanding games on Virtual PC. Macs have a better operating system anyway.

Coatsy wrote:
> To be honest, I don't much care for computer games anymore.

This wasn't about you though. It was about gr13ve.

In which he said "I want it for gaming mostly" which implies that he wants to play the latest games with excellent specs.