Need a new PSU and Gfx

TigerUK

TigerUK

TigerUK

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1 Sep 2008
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I've finally took the plunge and bought various different parts to build a gaming rig to play GTAIV

All parts bought on the internet today and should arrive this week.

As follows


Intel QuadCore Q9400 £125
Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2 Socket 775 Intel Core 2 Multi-core £31
Western Digital (WD5000AAKS) 500 GB SATA Hard Drive £31
Crucial ballistix 2x2GB ram £43
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Socket LGA775 £10

So far costing £250

Still need to buy a PSU and a Gfx

I'm stuck at the PSU because I'm not sure what rated PSU I need to go for, will Hiper X Modular ATX 530W PSU Power Supply be sufficient?

And what is a good card that I can buy cheaply that will play GTAIV flawlessly.

Thanks
 
I dont think computers can play gta4 flawlessly, the port is so terrible that overclocked quad cores still can't cope. You've made a couple of slightly odd choices there, so I presume you will not be overclocking?

A decent 500W will do you fine. Corsair/OCZ are much more respected than hiper. Cheaper if you don't buy a modular one.
GTA4 is cpu bound, but a good cheap card would be the 4870 from 120 quid or so.
 
I can play GTA4 perfectly fine with my specs, although it depends on what you mean by flawless... besides, Its a bad port, you can't get it to run any better (not by much anyway) by getting new hardware.
 
For PSU, this one is perfect, as mentioned above, OCZ are a good power supply maker.

As for the graphics, GTA4 is not a particularly graphically intense game, I run it on high settings on 9800gtx and it looks great, my friend uses a 4850 and get the same results.
Therefore, this is probably the GPU to get.
 
I've heard that GTA IV runs better on Dual Core machines then it does Quad.

I can't remember where i saw it but i'll try and dig it up.
 
I'm certain you have that the wrong way round. The game is badly ported and ideally needs 3 cores to do its thing (like xb360). My friend had to overclock his c2d to 3.5GHz to get acceptable framerates.

If you want a system to play GTA4, you should be looking for Triple core or more.
 
Casdawer said:
I've heard that GTA IV runs better on Dual Core machines then it does Quad.

I can't remember where i saw it but i'll try and dig it up.
Click to expand...

I've looked at reviews, and it definitely works better with Quad Core... so you probably have it wrong way around.. but I think it plays quite smoothly with my setup.. so have no complaints and don't see the point in upgrading my machine to make it run 5fps more than what I'm getting.
 
UPDATE

Intel QuadCore Q9400 £125
Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2 Socket 775 Intel Core 2 Multi-core £31
Western Digital (WD5000AAKS) 500 GB SATA Hard Drive £31
Crucial ballistix 2x2GB ram £43
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Socket LGA775 £10
Tagan Easycon 530 Watt (530w) Modular Power Supply PSU £22.50

Total spent so far £272.50

I'm going to shop around and look for a cheap 4850 gfx, since this is almost a complete overhaul, I'll buy a atx case maybe an antec 300, so I have a complete system that I can donate to a school or a college, or a charity who donates IT equipment to struggling families.

because I don't think I'll get many pennies for my amd64 3000+ system, 1gb ram, gt6600
 
TigerUK said:
UPDATE

Intel QuadCore Q9400 £125
Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2 Socket 775 Intel Core 2 Multi-core £31
Western Digital (WD5000AAKS) 500 GB SATA Hard Drive £31
Crucial ballistix 2x2GB ram £43
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Socket LGA775 £10
Tagan Easycon 530 Watt (530w) Modular Power Supply PSU £22.50

Total spent so far £272.50

I'm going to shop around and look for a cheap 4850 gfx, since this is almost a complete overhaul, I'll buy a atx case maybe an antec 300, so I have a complete system that I can donate to a school or a college, or a charity who donates IT equipment to struggling families.

because I don't think I'll get many pennies for my amd64 3000+ system, 1gb ram, gt6600
Click to expand...

Quite a bargain hunter aren't you! ;)
 
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