How much should i save before looking for a new computer?

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but other factors might be able to help pin down the budget further.

if £400 is all you got, you could still make a good gaming rig.
if you've got £900 then you'll get a far better gaming rig.

so the next question is, what monitor are you running?

if it's a TFT with 1280x1024 native res then the very top end graphic cards will be overkill and quite possibly money wasted.
 
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Buy the graphics card last as they are changing so quickly in both price and performance! :)


As for how much you spend its entirely up to you. Stuff like SLI will bump the price up dramatically!

Albaba
 
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Depends on how much of your old computer you can still use.

If you can still use your monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers, sound, case & PSU, the price would drop dramatically.

Then of course if you can use your HD, mem & DVD drives, even less would need to be spent.

I'd say £800 for everything in the box:- Case & PSU, MOBO, Mem, HD, GFX, DVDRW & CPU.
 
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MrWhippy said:
but other factors might be able to help pin down the budget further.

if £400 is all you got, you could still make a good gaming rig.
if you've got £900 then you'll get a far better gaming rig.

so the next question is, what monitor are you running?

if it's a TFT with 1280x1024 native res then the very top end graphic cards will be overkill and quite possibly money wasted.
believe me its not overkill. my x850xtpe didnt last long before it got pasted by cod 2
 
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Eliot said:
believe me its not overkill. my x850xtpe didnt last long before it got pasted by cod 2

maybe, but that's you. what i was trying to get at with the OP is what res he plays at and what he wants to play. the OP might not be into cod2.

if someone says spec me a PC, first thing you ask is what's the budget, second thing is what do you wanna do with it.
if it's games then are we talking hardcore, or casual, because the answer to that should dictate how much the rig will cost or where to spend the budget.

if he's not playing high res and/or he's not a serious gamer, maybe the top budget wouldn't be apropriate. that's all i'm thinking.
he started out asking if £700 ish would do it. well, maybe it will but that depends on just how good a games experience he's looking for.

i wasn't argueing against a high end spec, just trying to establish if that fits his requirements. :)
 
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Here's a very rough guide on how much one might spend on a reasonable gaming rig:

Case+PSU - £100
Mobo+CPU - £200
Memory - £120
GFX - £250
HD - £65
DVD-RW - £30
Soundcard - £35
Mouse+KB - £50

So a total of ~£850, assuming you buy everything. You can save money in certain areas and bring it down closer to £700, but that's just the kind of figures I personally would be looking to spend. Add another £250 for a quality monitor.
 
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What sort of monitor do you have and if its a crt will you be going tft any time soon ? If so 17 and 19 inch tft's usually have a native resolution of 1280x1024 so you would want a graphics card that could handle that resolution if you were upgrading it soon.
 
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