Advice for a complete noob please!

WhiteHartMart · 1 Aug 2011 at 18:21

Having decided to invest in a new office desktop for simple office tasks, I thought I should dabble in some PC gaming also.

Main targets are for some iRacing action together with some Battlefield 3 if at all possible.

Working on a very strict budget I managed to pick up the following for less than the price of a half decent graphics card:-

-Gigabyte GA-G31M-25L motherboard
-Intel Pentium Dual core E2220 (2.4GHz dual core)
-250GB Maxtor 7200RPM SATA II hard disk
-NVIDIA® GeForce® 9600 GT Graphics card 512MB
-Thermaltake 500W TR2-500 ultra quiet power supply
-2 GB GEIL PC2-6400 DDR2 800MHz RAM (1GB X 2) [expandable to 4GB]

In addition I sourced a Intel Q6600 CPU for a further £50.

Question is, if I had £150 or so to spend, where would I now be best focusing for improving possible gaming action - the PC will feed a 24" Dell 2405 monitor. I know in the future a complete rebuild will be best - but I want to test the water before parting with that serious amount of cash!

Cheers in advance

stulid · 1 Aug 2011 at 18:23

4GB of RAM and a faster GPU.

In addition I sourced a Intel Q6600 CPU for a further £50.

Not bad at all.

Jegethy · 1 Aug 2011 at 19:06

For £150 you could get a very good mid-range card. Something like 5850, which is currently on offer. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-259-SP

Then search around a bit for 2 sticks of 2GB ddr2, though they're increasingly expensive so I doubt you'd be able to get a 4GB pair for less than £30

stulid · 1 Aug 2011 at 19:07

Ziddy1232 said:
For £150 you could get a very good mid-range card. Something like 5850, which is currently on offer. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-259-SP

Have to alert you to this - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-190-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1866

kristmace · 1 Aug 2011 at 19:10

^^ That 6870 stulid suggested plus £30 on 4gb of ram gives you a very respectable system for gaming.

nightrider1470 · 1 Aug 2011 at 19:11

Jegethy · 1 Aug 2011 at 19:11

stulid said:
Have to alert you to this - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-190-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1866

Oops, ignore this. Misread it.

stulid · 1 Aug 2011 at 19:13

Ziddy1232 said:
Oops, ignore this. Misread it.

I know what you typed

26.2mm long

Jegethy · 1 Aug 2011 at 19:15

stulid said:
I know what you typed

26.2mm long

Yeah I looked it up after I had typed it

stulid · 1 Aug 2011 at 19:22

Ziddy1232 said:
Yeah I looked it up after I had typed it

Its actually longer than my GTX570 by 4cm

WhiteHartMart · 1 Aug 2011 at 19:23

Brilliant - thanks for replies - I know where to focus my spending now :-)

Lemin · 1 Aug 2011 at 19:29

I think his mobo only has 2 ram slots, so he'd need a 4gig kit.

WhiteHartMart · 1 Aug 2011 at 20:41

Yea it does only have 2 slots so been looking at a Kingston Hyper X kit.

Will focus on the GPU first then Ram so have got some time to search out the best deal - thanks :-)

WhiteHartMart · 3 Aug 2011 at 13:43

Gonna pull the trigger on either that 6870 card linked or maybe the MSI 6870 Hawk? - will order on Friday so thats the GPU sorted.

Looking at Ram and boy - DDR seems expensive - might look at the Crucial Sport deal on til 6pm today? Any other suggestions Ram wise please?

stulid · 3 Aug 2011 at 13:45

The MSI Hawk is slower clock speeds and £40 more expensive.

WhiteHartMart · 3 Aug 2011 at 13:52

I've seen it for £5 more than the XFX (with only one game though) - been mulling over the 2 tbh due to the probable better cooling of the MSI?

Maybe its a simpler decision than I'm making it

stulid · 3 Aug 2011 at 13:56

Get the cheapest with the extra games (worth?? £25'ish? each?)

Jegethy · 3 Aug 2011 at 14:06

WhiteHartMart said:
Gonna pull the trigger on either that 6870 card linked or maybe the MSI 6870 Hawk? - will order on Friday so thats the GPU sorted.

Looking at Ram and boy - DDR seems expensive - might look at the Crucial Sport deal on til 6pm today? Any other suggestions Ram wise please?

I personally own http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-190-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=813 and they're quite nice. Same price as the Crucial ram for this week only.

WhiteHartMart · 3 Aug 2011 at 14:07

stulid said:
Get the cheapest with the extra games (worth?? £25'ish? each?)

Good point - Dirt3 is the more appealing but a game's a game I suppose - the XFX did review well so will probably stick with that!

Thanks

WhiteHartMart · 3 Aug 2011 at 14:10

Ziddy1232 said:
I personally own http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-190-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=813 and they're quite nice. Same price as the Crucial ram for this week only.

Thanks for the link - looking at Corsair, Crucial and Kingston all around the same price.

DDR2 certainly a tad more expensive than DDR3 right now.

Need to get the Ram sorted in the next week or so, 'cause I have my eyes on a new case, keyboard and mouse after that - haven't even got the actual machine yet (due tomorrow) and I've already spent any spare cash for the next month