Hello all, can I have some help with first gaming PC pls?

rik1301

rik1301

rik1301

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Hello all,

Can any of you experts point me in the right direction for a new gaming PC please?

I thought I had it all sussed out after reading some reviews and recommendations on trustedreviews.com I was going to go for a certain system containing 'Achilles' and ending in 'XT' until I took a look at their user forum and found a ton of very unhappy customers. :eek:

So here I am and looking for some impartial advice. I am wanting a ready built system for ~ £500 budget and the only gaming requirement is that it must be able to play COD4 and the latest MS Flight Sim on max settings without any problems. I have to say I'm quite tempted by the "Titan Nero" that this site sells but I don't know if the ATI 4850 will have enough guts for what I want? Can anyone advise here please?

Also, the blurb for the Titan says "AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 250 2.90GHz" on the first line but then a few lines further down it says "CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 240 2.80GHz". Am I missing something here or is one of those an error?

I've got my own copy of XP Pro to put on it and have a Xerox XM3-19W (5ms) 19" widescreen monitor - will this be good enough to play COD4 on or do I need to upgrade this as well?

I've read in a few other threads that people seem to recommend upgrading to the 5770 graphics card for my kind of budget but - assuming the 4850 had the guts what I want - will I really see any advantage for the extra cash?

Oh and one more thing on the Titan - "Sound: ALC888B 8-channel High Definition Audio CODEC" - does anyone know if this card has 'stereo mix' or 'what u hear' in the recording settings? This is an absolute requirement for me.

Comments on the Titan and any other PC suggestions/recommendations much appreciated.

Thanks all for help. :)
 
Hi there, welcome to the boards.
First off:
For gaming on a 19" monitor, your max. resolution (99% of the time anyway) will be 1440x900, so a 4850 will play COD4 with no probs at all. My 3 kids have 19" screens and play COD4 using 3870's, so you're fine with a 4850.
A 5770 is obviously better, but you won't benefit greatly imho. You will probably be able to turn AA (anti-aliasing) up and tweak ALL settings to absolute max, but i reckon your 4850 would do that anyway, given your 1440x900 resolution.
The AMD X2/X3 are a good price for gaming rigs, but the intel 'i' series are better.
However your £500 budget wouldn't be enough for a good i7 gaming rig.

Why is the sound specifics and absolute must?

A note about your XP Pro. Is it retail or oem? If retail, then its fine, if oem, then you cannot legitimately transfer it to another pc from the one it was first installed on.

Hope this helps.
 
Have you considered building your own system? It may seem a daunting prospect, but it is relatively simple - just ask the folks here for a full spec and give them your budget and uses and they will provide you with a complete list of all the parts you need (it would also be a good idea to do a little bit of reading on building a computer - nothing too heavy). Then when you have the bits, have a look at this thread which walks you through how to put the bits together. The main benefits of building a system yourself are that it is cheaper than getting one built for you and you can pick the exact component to fit your needs.

However, if you definitely don't want to build your own then the the Titan Nero is a very good system. OCUK make their computers well and this one performs well in most games and is a great price. For your gaming needs the 4850 will be sufficient, however I do hear that FSX is a very CPU intensive game. I'm sure the AMD Athlon II will cope fine, but you may need to turn some of the settings down.

As for the CPU used, it mentions the 240 twice, but the 250 only once - I would assume that the 250 is a typo and the 240 is the CPU used in the system.

Finally, on the sound question - I truly have no idea, hopefully someone more informed will see this thread.
 
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Banzai_Joe said:
Hi there, welcome to the boards.
First off:
For gaming on a 19" monitor, your max. resolution (99% of the time anyway) will be 1440x900, so a 4850 will play COD4 with no probs at all. My 3 kids have 19" screens and play COD4 using 3870's, so you're fine with a 4850.
A 5770 is obviously better, but you won't benefit greatly imho. You will probably be able to turn AA (anti-aliasing) up and tweak ALL settings to absolute max, but i reckon your 4850 would do that anyway, given your 1440x900 resolution.
The AMD X2/X3 are a good price for gaming rigs, but the intel 'i' series are better.
However your £500 budget wouldn't be enough for a good i7 gaming rig.

Why is the sound specifics and absolute must?

A note about your XP Pro. Is it retail or oem? If retail, then its fine, if oem, then you cannot legitimately transfer it to another pc from the one it was first installed on.

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

Hello Joe, thanks for your speedy reply!

You are right, the max res with this screen is indeed 1440x900, I have just looked.

I remember reading some posts by Big Wayne and others that said that AMDs are better for budget end machines rather than Intel. You don't agree with that then? Can I ask what your reasons are?

The sound specifics are because I listen to live amateur radio streams and the signals need to be decoded in order to make them intelligble. Without stereo mix (or 'what u hear' on Creative cards) there is no way for the decoding program to pick up the audio directly from the sound card - the only way it can do it is by looping the line out to the mic socket (as there's no line in socket) and the mic socket is only mono, not stereo. There are other ways such as getting a USB sound card and looping line out to the line in on the USB adapter but it's a messy way of doing it. There is also the Virtual Audio Cable option as well, but I've tried that and it doesn't work to my satisfaction, hence the requirement for a stereo mix.

The XP Pro disk I have has installed and worked fine on 4 other machines so far so I see no reason why it won't work on another new machine? I was given to me by an old work mate but I've no idea where he sourced it from.

:)
 
cmndr_andi said:
Have you considered building your own system? It may seem a daunting prospect, but it is relatively simple - just ask the folks here for a full spec and give them your budget and uses and they will provide you with a complete list of all the parts you need (it would also be a good idea to do a little bit of reading on building a computer - nothing too heavy). Then when you have the bits, have a look at this thread which walks you through how to put the bits together. The main benefits of building a system yourself are that it is cheaper than getting one built for you and you can pick the exact component to fit your needs.

However, if you definitely don't want to build your own then the the Titan Nero is a very good system. OCUK make their computers well and this one performs well in most games and is a great price. For your gaming needs the 4850 will be sufficient, however I do hear that FSX is a very CPU intensive game. I'm sure the AMD Athlon II will cope fine, but you may need to turn some of the settings down.

As for the CPU used, it mentions the 240 twice, but the 250 only once - I would assume that the 250 is a typo and the 240 is the CPU used in the system.

Finally, on the sound question - I truly have no idea, hopefully someone more informed will see this thread.
Click to expand...

Hello Andi,

I did give it due consideration (building my own) but I have absolutely no patience whatsoever and nor the free time either. Let me put it this way, just doing a fresh install of XP and finding/downloading and installing the drivers is a whole pile of hassle and agro as far as I'm concerned. If someone was here and said they'd do it for a tenner or so then I'd just hand them the cash and let them get on with it, so you can imagine where building my own from scratch ranks in all this. :p Of course, money talks, but there'd have to be a considerable difference in price between building my own and having a ready made one land on my doorstep. 'Considerable' = roughly half price for it to be worth my while and i highly doubt the parts could be sourced for that kind of cash. :)

Re FSX, yes it is CPU intensive and looking around some forums it seems to be generally accepted that a 3.2 ghz quad is needed to run it on max settings. :( Will the 2.8 AMD not be up to the job then do you think? :(

:)
 
rik1301 said:
Hello Andi,

I did give it due consideration (building my own) but I have absolutely no patience whatsoever and nor the free time either. Let me put it this way, just doing a fresh install of XP and finding/downloading and installing the drivers is a whole pile of hassle and agro as far as I'm concerned. If someone was here and said they'd do it for a tenner or so then I'd just hand them the cash and let them get on with it, so you can imagine where building my own from scratch ranks in all this. :p Of course, money talks, but there'd have to be a considerable difference in price between building my own and having a ready made one land on my doorstep. 'Considerable' = roughly half price for it to be worth my while and i highly doubt the parts could be sourced for that kind of cash. :)

Re FSX, yes it is CPU intensive and looking around some forums it seems to be generally accepted that a 3.2 ghz quad is needed to run it on max settings. :( Will the 2.8 AMD not be up to the job then do you think? :(

:)
Click to expand...

Yea, in that case just buy a pre-build, the savings are never going to be that big unless you are looking at one of the pre-built PCs that cost thousands. At this level (~£500) there are savings to be made by building yourself, but it is only in the tens of pounds - the main benefit sits in picking the exact components you need.

As for FSX, that sounds about right. The AMD dual core CPU will certainly run it fine, but you will not be able to run it anywhere near the max. You may want to consider asking OCUK to drop in a CPU like this into the Titan Nero instead. It will cost a good deal more - but would make the machine much more capable in one of its main uses.

Finally, Big Wayne is right that in most cases a budget build is best served with an AMD CPU. However, with the arrival of the Intel i3 and H55 motherboards - there are cheaper Intel CPUs that are worth a second look. However, for your uses I think you would be better with a true quad core than a hyperthreaded dual core - so a Phenom II X4 or possibly Athlon II X4 would be the best bet IMHO considering your budget.
 
cmndr_andi said:
Yea, in that case just buy a pre-build, the savings are never going to be that big unless you are looking at one of the pre-built PCs that cost thousands. At this level (~£500) there are savings to be made by building yourself, but it is only in the tens of pounds - the main benefit sits in picking the exact components you need.

As for FSX, that sounds about right. The AMD dual core CPU will certainly run it fine, but you will not be able to run it anywhere near the max. You may want to consider asking OCUK to drop in a CPU like this into the Titan Nero instead. It will cost a good deal more - but would make the machine much more capable in one of its main uses.

Finally, Big Wayne is right that in most cases a budget build is best served with an AMD CPU. However, with the arrival of the Intel i3 and H55 motherboards - there are cheaper Intel CPUs that are worth a second look. However, for your uses I think you would be better with a true quad core than a hyperthreaded dual core - so a Phenom II X4 or possibly Athlon II X4 would be the best bet IMHO considering your budget.
Click to expand...

Andi, thanks again.

Getting into unfamiliar territory now with all these different processors. You say that I would be better off with the Phenom 2 X4 to run FSX or maybe the Athlon 2 X4 (£136 and £81 respec.) - how much is this likely to add to the price of the Titan if I swap the standard Athlon 2 X2 to one or the other of them? I'm not 'up' on processors, but would I be right in thinking that the only difference between the X2 and X4 Athlon 2 is the number of cores?

Thanks. :)
 
rik1301 said:
I remember reading some posts by Big Wayne and others that said that AMDs are better for budget end machines rather than Intel. You don't agree with that then? Can I ask what your reasons are?
Click to expand...

Sorry, that wasn't really what i meant. The AMD's are better for 'bang for buck' performance, although i5's are now a similar price bracket i think and the overclocking potential of the intel cpu's more than equal out the price diffs in my opinion. But benchtests do prove that no matter how good your gpu is, the cpu still has a say and the i7's can't be beaten at the moment.

The XP Pro disk I have has installed and worked fine on 4 other machines so far so I see no reason why it won't work on another new machine? I was given to me by an old work mate but I've no idea where he sourced it from.
:)
Click to expand...
Lol, in that case i won't probe any further, it's not like i'm Mr Microsoft after all. ;)

I can't comment on your audio query because i simply don't know about that stuff, sorry. Might be worth starting another thread in the audio/sound section.

To reiterate then, nothing wrong with an AMD X3 or X4 rig if its within your budget.
 
Getting into unfamiliar territory now with all these different processors. You say that I would be better off with the Phenom 2 X4 to run FSX or maybe the Athlon 2 X4 (£136 and £81 respec.) - how much is this likely to add to the price of the Titan if I swap the standard Athlon 2 X2 to one or the other of them?
Click to expand...

For the price increase, in terms of parts the Athlon II X2 240 cost around £46 when it was in stock on OCUK on its own. Therefore, the increase in parts cost would be around £35 for the Athlon II X4 635 and around £90 for the Phenom II X4 955. The main difference between the two chips is the stock clockspeed - 2.9GHz for the Athlon X4 and 3.2GHz for the Phenom II X4. However, this is not the only difference - the core architectures are not the same, the phenom has much more cache - so it is faster clock-for-clock.

Obviously, this is just the cost of the parts, OCUK may add on an additional charge for installing the non-standard CPU into the system.

You may want to consider this system. It comes with an Athlon II X4 CPU already installed and the other specifications are very similar to the Nero.

I'm not 'up' on processors, but would I be right in thinking that the only difference between the X2 and X4 Athlon 2 is the number of cores?
Click to expand...

This is pretty much it. As I have mentioned above, the Phenom series is a performance step up from the athlon chips (the phenoms come in Quad core and dual core as well).
 
wilko49 said:
If you are an audiophile, I would recommend upgrading to a dedicated sound card. The Asus DX is supposed to be very good.
Click to expand...

Ooh, you've just reminded me of something actually. In my current Compaq D31vm desktop I've got a dedicated sound card in this - it's a Creative Soundblaster Live 24-bit. Would that be transferable do you think, or would there be some driver issues and whatnot on the new system? If that would work then it would solve my sound card issue as the Creative cards have the 'what u hear' option on them.

:)
 
cmndr_andi said:
For the price increase, in terms of parts the Athlon II X2 240 cost around £46 when it was in stock on OCUK on its own. Therefore, the increase in parts cost would be around £35 for the Athlon II X4 635 and around £90 for the Phenom II X4 955. The main difference between the two chips is the stock clockspeed - 2.9GHz for the Athlon X4 and 3.2GHz for the Phenom II X4. However, this is not the only difference - the core architectures are not the same, the phenom has much more cache - so it is faster clock-for-clock.

Obviously, this is just the cost of the parts, OCUK may add on an additional charge for installing the non-standard CPU into the system.

You may want to consider this system. It comes with an Athlon II X4 CPU already installed and the other specifications are very similar to the Nero.



This is pretty much it. As I have mentioned above, the Phenom series is a performance step up from the athlon chips (the phenoms come in Quad core and dual core as well).
Click to expand...

Hi, hmm the Titan Krypt is like an extra £80 though which doesn't really add when you compare the stock prices of the Ath X2 and X4. Aside from getting a 500 gig drive instead of 250 (which I don't need) I'm not seeing where the rest of the cash is going? :confused:

Also, any ideas what sort of weight these are? I see that one needs to fork out for delivery on top so that's another tenner to add on as well.

Hmm, decisions decisions :p. Really tempted by the Phenom X4 but not sure I can justify to price increase over the Athlon X4 :( . Will have to find out if there's any charge for swapping that on the Nero as well. That could be the deciding factor :p .
 
rik1301 said:
Ooh, you've just reminded me of something actually. In my current Compaq D31vm desktop I've got a dedicated sound card in this - it's a Creative Soundblaster Live 24-bit. Would that be transferable do you think, or would there be some driver issues and whatnot on the new system? If that would work then it would solve my sound card issue as the Creative cards have the 'what u hear' option on them.

:)
Click to expand...


If you will be using XP in the new system, then you should have no driver issues (if you didn't in the past on XP). If you go for the Titan Nero or Krypyt you can happily slot the card into the 2nd PCI slot on the motherboard.
 
I've just ordered the machine today. :D

No charge to swap the bits over :) but Sam in sales said there was no way that FSX would run on the standard ATI 4850 card :eek:, which is contrary to what you guys reckon. :confused:

Anyway, went for the Titan Nero but with the AMD Phenom II X4 3.2 Ghz Quad Core 955 :D and on Sam's recommendation I upgraded the graphics to the ATI 5770 :D. Rest of machine as standard.

He threw me in free delivery as the deal on the Nero ran out yesterday, so £600 all in, delivered.

Thanks for your advice, all. :)
 
FSX will run on a 4850. You may have to turn down the sliders to get a good framerate, but it will run. Considering the inital spec was for a £500 pre-built machine, then this was one of the best choices. Obviously, if you can afford another £100 then a faster card is good to have, but a 5770 is only 25-30% faster in most games - so saying a 4850 will not work and a 5770 will work is not accurate.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but i'm sure Nvidia cards were always far better for FSX? Whether this is still the case I'm not 100%, but something the op may want to look into if he's wanting to play this game with the sliders up to the max.
 
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