New PC £800 all in - What spec?

danceMB · 27 Nov 2008 at 12:41

I am after buying a new machine as my current one is now several years old, and can no longer run the latest & greatest games, and as I will be having a few new games at xmas time, they will not play to how I have been used to them in the past.

I already have a mouse, keyboard, speakers & monitor, so it will only be the actual machine I need a spec for, and I have a maximum budget of £800, hopefully a bit less if possible, as I need this machine to last me into the future as good as my current one did.

I was thinking of buying an OCuK machine, but everyone keeps telling me that buying separate parts is better.

If you guys can give me a decent spec so I can see the kind of machine I will be looking forwards to

ro55o · 27 Nov 2008 at 13:02

I'd normally spec the antec 300 for the case, but are out of stock at ocuk. You could maybe source it elsewhere, or pretty much pick another that you like the look of.

The E8400 will overclock pretty well, I've got mines with the tuniq I've shown clocked to 3.8ghz, can go higher but I'm fine with how it is. The OCZ 8500 ram will help get a bigger overclock.

What resolution are you gaming at? If it's 1680*1050, then the 4850 I've spec'd will be more than enough, if you game on a 24" monitor, I'd be tempted to change the graphics to a 4870.

VortexA1 · 27 Nov 2008 at 19:00

I would personally go for the HIS ATI Radeon HD 4850 IceQ 4 Turbo 512MB @ £137.

Better cooling.

danceMB · 1 Dec 2008 at 08:05

It would be the 1600x1050 that I would be gaming at with this 22" widescreen size, so maybe I might need to go a little further to a 4870, or should I have a look at going to Nvidia?

Having a look at all the thing to put a whole new rig together by hand, would it not be a slightly better idea to just buy a OcUK machine instead, because then at least I would know that it works straight away after plugging it in?
I was even thinking of an Alien machine, until I saw the price for one, I mean £2550 for a "gaming" Intel i7 machine, in my dreams :rolleyes:

ro55o · 1 Dec 2008 at 09:27

For 1680*1050 the 4850 is more than enough to run any game at max (minus crysis, even though you can still get it up to high detail). I've got one in my rig at the same resolution, hasn't struggled with anything.

If you buy the components and build it yourself you'll find you can get a better PC for your money. Theres a premium for ocuk building it for you, but like you said you get peace of mind. In my opinion, get it built yourself

Stay away from the alien, overpriced, overhyped garbage. You are basically paying them a huge premium so you can say to your friends, 'look I got ripped off for a PC :cool:

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