PC upgrade specs question.

[Fubar]

I'm thinking of shelling out on a new PC as my current one is a little long in the tooth now. I've been looking at pre-built systems like this...

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/p...tegory_oid=

....but i've started to realize how out of touch i've become with the latest gear, i thought dual core was the dogs boll's but now i see there's a quad core.

My current games PC is a P4 3gig with 1.5 Gig of memory and an nvidea 6600 256mb GC, what i'm after is a new system that's a few steps up the ladder and will last me for a while but not cost the earth to buy.

Any advice would be great.

[Antoni Chmielowski]

Matt,

Whatever you do DO NOT get a pre built system.

If funds allow get a local (decent recommended by your mates) PC shop to build you a bespoke system.

The problem with buying a prebuilt system is you dont know the quality of the components.

Also post sales support is usually awful.

The setup you have @ present is better than mine !

[RedDevil]

I don't know what most of your options are mate, but the 1.8 dual is just fair for the times, get into the 2's if you can afford it.
Quads are top of the line stuff and very pricey still IMO

everything else on that rig looks good

[McIvan]

Nothing much wrong with your rig as it stands. Put it this way, for you to get a decent speed increase, you'd have to buy quite cutting edge. I suspect you'd get more mileage out of a new graphics card....your CPU would probably still be able to feed the graphics card info as fast as necessary.

[Tanker]

What games do you wish to play Fubar?

The pc you have sounds like it will work well on anything except high settings on the newest FPS or a game like World in Conflict.

If you want a new one, look at getting a bare bones system with the case, power supply, mother board and hard drive installed. That way there is no compatability issues and if it's all from the same vendor they can't say any issues are the fault of other components.
The bare bones will turn on and you'll be able to use it.
Then you can install the vid and sound cards, optical drives, more hard drives, etc of your choice.

[Fubar]

Thanks for the tips guys. :bow:

I shall not be buying from PC World, once bitten twice shy, i had problems with them in the past.

This system struggles with games like CoH and Silent Hunter 4, i have to have the options on minimum most of the time to get it to run smoothly, and games like Supreme Commander wont even run. I have to say that WiC does look very good indeed and should be reason enough to get a good system and of course Star Craft 2 is winging it's way closer. ;)

I could try upgrading this rig but i think the MB is maxed out for the processor, graphics card and the PSU. We have a small PC shop in town that used to be quite good i could try taking it in there and seeing what they recommend.

[Fubar]

My local PC shop has given me a spec for a system that they say would be a good games machine for about £599.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 (2.33 GHz)
2048MB 667MHz DDR2 RAM
250GB HDD
nVidia GeForce 8600GT 256MB
MSI P35 Platinum Motherboard
7.1 HD Audio
DVD RW
Vista Home Premium

The system is Quad Core ready whatever that entails plus another £150+ for whichever monitor i fancy, they start with 19" widescreen TFT monitors. They have said they will knock the price down as i told them i have XP Pro and anti virus software already.

I'm going to look around the internet and local shops for individual parts prices but is that spec any good and how long would it's shelf life be? It sounds good to me but i've not much idea about more modern gear.

[Bidermann]

Dont get any nividia 8000 series graphic card , as you wont play CM ever again.Trust me I know :-(

[RedDevil]

why's that Bider? i think the new drivers fix any vista /CM issues?

[Bidermann]

No They still cause big problems. If you load a CM game all is fine but when you start to move the mouse around to look at the map. The map does all sorts of things like trees jumping from small to huge! The map its self fans out like a deck of cards, lol. So CM is can not be played