How much dollar are you looking at for a kick bottom PC?

alexthecheese

alexthecheese

alexthecheese

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The last time I upgraded properly was way back when Half-Life 2 came out. I cant even remember when that was but it must've been a couple of years ago now. I went for an XP3500 64bit Athlon, a gig of Ram, 6800GT 256 and a new mobo which I cant remember the details of. It's all a bit knackered at the moment and won't even turn on - I think the graphics card has died and I really cant be bothered to fix it.

After seeing the likes of Crysis coming out in the imminent future I'm getting the upgrade bug a little. I'm not into PC's so much any more, but I'm wondering what the latest kit is and more importantly how much it all costs? My 6800GT was about £250 and at the time I thought that was a lot of money, but these days we're talking much more aren't we?

If I do it I want to do it properly, and will have to get the works - case, cpu, mobo, ram, graphics card, keyboard, mouse and screen. And whatever else required. How much am I looking at for all this for a computer that will make me want to stay in and fondle my mouse, killing beasties in Crysis, as opposed to going to the pub and blowing wads of cash growing a sizeable beer gut?
 
Set yourself a reasonable budget that you can afford. Then just spend it on here, ask for advice when your making decisions. Easy Peasy.
 
alexthecheese said:
My 6800GT was about £250 and at the time I thought that was a lot of money, but these days we're talking much more aren't we?
Click to expand...

Not really, relatively speaking the prices are probably about the same. The 6800GT was, on release, a good high end card but not the very top of the line which was the 6800ultra at ~£300-350. Take that forward to today and you have the 512mb 2900XT or 640mb 8800GTS which are both in the region of £250 and you can see that little has actually changed in relative terms.

I haven't included peripherals or anything here but £1,200 (as an example) would buy you a very decent system, I could cut back on the system fairly easily if required. :)

Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £57.99
(£68.14) £57.99
(£68.14)
Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 3200AAKS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £39.99
(£46.99) £39.99
(£46.99)
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT SILENT Heatpipe 512MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £204.99
(£240.86) £204.99
(£240.86)
Gigabyte GA_P35C_DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 & DDR3 Motherboard £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) £27.99
(£32.89) £27.99
(£32.89)
OCZ 4GB (2 x 2GB) PC2-5400C5 Dual Channel Vista Upgrade Gold Series DDR2 (OCZ2VU6674GK) £104.99
(£123.36) £104.99
(£123.36)
Akasa AK-ZEN-01-BK Zen Black Case - No PSU £26.99
(£31.71) £26.99
(£31.71)
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) £5.99
(£7.04) £5.99
(£7.04)
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £153.99
(£180.94) £153.99
(£180.94)
NEC AD7170S Serial ATA 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £15.99
(£18.79) £15.99
(£18.79)
Samsung SM-223BW 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Glossy Black £159.99
(£187.99) £159.99
(£187.99)
Sub Total : £868.89
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £14.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £154.67
Total : £1,038.51
 
I'd probably change the case, cpu cooler and memory from semis spec but the rest is spot on.

I'd go with a Lian Li PC7 II+ for that little extra. Also a Noctua CPU cooler isn't much more expensive and will knock a few degrees C off your temps. I've heard of some issues with the OCZ 4GB kits so I'd go with the Corsair 4GB PC6400 memory kit.
 
Here's a pretty good value for you to drool over:
biguneg9.gif

Like Semi-pro's spec it can easily scale up or down depending on your needs and budget.

Selected Features:
  • Best processor for the enthusiast
  • 4 GiB fast RAM with tightish timings
  • Good cooler for the money
  • Best graphics card for the enthusiast
  • Great power supply
  • Best case
 
BillytheImpaler - looks good, would that hack through Crysis and other soon-to-be-released games?

£90 seems a bit steep for a case though, is it worth it? Thinking about it, I could say £80 on that spec and rob a keyboard and mouse off my dad, and then put it towards a better monitor. Would 24" be available for a decent price?

I just feel out of touch and want something decent to play games on. W
 
You could get something cheaper (and tackier) like the Antec Nine Hundred and save a bit. The first things I'd do if I wanted to cut it down is drop to 2 GiB RAM and one hard disk.
 
The case is probably the one thing entirely down to personal preference, but what you spedn really does seem to reflect on the quality of what you recieve.
would that hack through Crysis
Click to expand...
Masses of speculation on what will or will not run crysis, nobody really knows, but it will run it as well as most rigs at this point.
 
alexthecheese said:
BillytheImpaler - looks good, would that hack through Crysis and other soon-to-be-released games?

£90 seems a bit steep for a case though, is it worth it? Thinking about it, I could say £80 on that spec and rob a keyboard and mouse off my dad, and then put it towards a better monitor. Would 24" be available for a decent price?

I just feel out of touch and want something decent to play games on. W
Click to expand...

Crysis at 24"? Are you crazy? :p

You'll need all the GFX welly you can get, I'd imagine.
 
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