Gaming Computer for 700 Deliverd

cherrytaz

Hi all,

The deal i had for a gaming computer has just fallen through so im just asking for advice etc.

I have 700 Euro to spend (delivered) and ideally would like the computer ready to go (dont really want to start building)

I have a monitor already so just the tower, not sure if 700 is enough but i'd really appreciate the help.

Thanks

Terry

jonny72

cherrytaz wrote: »

Hi all,

The deal i had for a gaming computer has just fallen through so im just asking for advice etc.

I have 700 Euro to spend (delivered) and ideally would like the computer ready to go (dont really want to start building)

I have a monitor already so just the tower, not sure if 700 is enough but i'd really appreciate the help.

Thanks

Terry

You want one with an operating system on it?

Getting a quality one at a good price from Ireland might be tricky.

hardwareversand.de (german) will build your PC for you and if you are extra lazy you can pay extra and they install the operating system on it (which is also a good way of guaranteeing the PC will work when you get it in the door)
Also you'll have to wait a week or two for delivery.

Perhaps have a look on overclockers.co.uk but they are expensive.

Do NOT get a dell, order from ankermann, buy anything from 'custompc.ie' or any of those dodgy expensive Irish dealers.

cherrytaz

Cheers for the reply, I've had a look at overclockers & the german store already, they look quite good. I'd need a OS also.

The pc's primary use would be flight sim so high end graphics are required, I was looking on ebay, and to me these don't look to bad Here and here. Any ideas?

Cheers,

Pi^2

700 euro is enough if you are building it yourself. It may be enough if you are lucky with a deal on some website. Try Overclockers.

I built a PC over Christmas. Cost me 800 euro delivered but that included a monitor (22inch) , peripherals and water cooling for CPU!

Some Specs:
AMD Phenom2 x4 965
Saphire 4890 Graphics
4 gigs DDR2 Ram
Gigabyte MOtherboard
Corsair Power Supply
Surprisingly great case for 30 euro - Asgard is the brand

It runs like a dream and plays all the latest games at close to highest specs on 1920 * 1080 resolution.

I sourced all my parts on Pixmania.ie and I found them to be great. Delivery was 15 euro - For Everything!!! I ordered on a Monday and the whole lot was at my house by that Thursday. Have bought other electronics from them since (headphones, cables etc) and same story. Great service and value for money.

So, the point to this is, I recommend building the PC yourself. Its not that complicated - bascially everything fits together in only one way. Its kinda like playing with Lego to be honest. It took me in total about 6 hours including installing Windows 7.

It was my first time building (though I had upgraded PCs many times before) and it was a very worthwhile experience and importantly I got excellent value for money.

Hope this helps

Goodluck

cherrytaz

Pi^2 wrote: »

700 euro is enough if you are building it yourself. It may be enough if you are lucky with a deal on some website. Try Overclockers.

I built a PC over Christmas. Cost me 800 euro delivered but that included a monitor (22inch) , peripherals and water cooling for CPU!

Some Specs:
AMD Phenom2 x4 965
Saphire 4890 Graphics
4 gigs DDR2 Ram
Gigabyte MOtherboard
Corsair Power Supply
Surprisingly great case for 30 euro - Asgard is the brand

It runs like a dream and plays all the latest games at close to highest specs on 1920 * 1080 resolution.

I sourced all my parts on Pixmania.ie and I found them to be great. Delivery was 15 euro - For Everything!!! I ordered on a Monday and the whole lot was at my house by that Thursday. Have bought other electronics from them since (headphones, cables etc) and same story. Great service and value for money.

So, the point to this is, I recommend building the PC yourself. Its not that complicated - bascially everything fits together in only one way. Its kinda like playing with Lego to be honest. It took me in total about 6 hours including installing Windows 7.

It was my first time building (though I had upgraded PCs many times before) and it was a very worthwhile experience and importantly I got excellent value for money.

Hope this helps

Goodluck

Thanks for the reply. I've looked into building a pc but would rather just have it built, & ready to go. But if I cant get what I'm looking for for the price I'm looking for I'll probably be building.

Would you mind just having a look at the ebay links I posted above?

Cheers,

witnessmenow

Maybe you should wait till your better advised but i put together this PC off Hardwareversand with the kind guidance of the good people of this forum!



Switch out the monitor and add the OS and you should be under budget. You could also get cheaper intake fans that dont light up red

Pi^2

I had a look at the ebay specs alright.

First thing I see is 8gigs of RAM. You probably won't ever need that. And the clock speed is only 800 MHz. You'd be miles better off with 4 gigs at 1066 or even 1600 for cheaper. In terms of upgrading in the future those motherboards don't look too great. And do you need the DVD burners. I'm not going into detail here because I could criticise everything to be honest. You look at these ads and they make the PC look really flashy, but the devil is in the details.

Its fine to say that it is a pretty good PC and it will work out of the box and play all your games very well. But at the end of the day, you're still paying for components that should be better or you are paying for components you don't need.

Its up to you what you want to do with your money, I know I spent months researching before I built my PC. And in the end it was blatantly obvious to me that building was the way to go. Hopefully you will come to the same conclusion before you waste your money. Even if it means finding a friend to do it for you and throw him 50 euro or something.

cherrytaz

Thanks for that info.

To me te ones on ebay look good, but then again I wouldnt know too much about them. Would anyone be willing to advise on what spec I should get on either hardwareversand.de or overclockers? I've been searching through the sites and been reading up on stuff the last few weeks and I'm still weary. I'm just looking for a good system, with good graphics for flight simulator, either new or self build with an OS for 740 max incl delivery.

If anyone could advise on the best system thats within my budget it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for the help lads,

Pi^2 wrote: »

I had a look at the ebay specs alright.

First thing I see is 8gigs of RAM. You probably won't ever need that. And the clock speed is only 800 MHz. You'd be miles better off with 4 gigs at 1066 or even 1600 for cheaper. In terms of upgrading in the future those motherboards don't look too great. And do you need the DVD burners. I'm not going into detail here because I could criticise everything to be honest. You look at these ads and they make the PC look really flashy, but the devil is in the details.

Its fine to say that it is a pretty good PC and it will work out of the box and play all your games very well. But at the end of the day, you're still paying for components that should be better or you are paying for components you don't need.

Its up to you what you want to do with your money, I know I spent months researching before I built my PC. And in the end it was blatantly obvious to me that building was the way to go. Hopefully you will come to the same conclusion before you waste your money. Even if it means finding a friend to do it for you and throw him 50 euro or something.

jonny72

Please do NOT buy from ebay unless you are very very good at it. 99% of the PC's on there have a very GOOD processor and GOOD graphics card and utterly utterly cack everything else. You will be shafted in the long run, trust me.

They put in cheap dangerous power supplies, the cheapest motherboards and very cheap ram.

Witnessmenow he has a monitor but needs an OS.

I am in work now so can't spec up a PC for you. (Ill spec one up later, the charges in hardwareversand are 20e - build; 35e - win install and activation; 30e shipping)

Do not rush buying a 700 euro PC, you wouldn't buy a Ferrari with cheapy fiat axles, wheels and exhaust, so its not a good idea to do it with a PC (like those pieces of crap from Ebay)

You do not need fancy direct11 cards, you just need a 4890 or 4870 graphics card and a quad/tri core

Dublin_Gunner

If you wanna build, seriously, you'll get a much better machine for the price:

http://www.komplett.ie/k/shoplist.aspx?mode=receive&si=753698&su=9F73E330-DEC3-4DA2-A6F4-2E1717FF6343

Core i5 750, HD5750GPU, 4GB 1600MHZ ram, 550W Corsair VX PSU, Win 7 Home Premium... €762.02

Don't worry about extra fans or aftermarket cooling for the minute - stock ones will do just fine.

The case I have there is pretty basic, but you can upgrade that for a few quid.

I know its a bit over budget - but its a fast, future proof, upgradeable and capable machine.

witnessmenow

How about this:



I forgot the CD drive (3rd time since yesterday :P) Went to add it but my basket had expired. €21.50 will buy you one of them

That last thing is them building it for you. Add €30 for postage.

So thats €550~

Buy Windows 7 somewhere else (off them would be in german) Amazon maybe? Im not sure wherever is cheapest. ~€100

So ~ €650 Delivered and essembled.

Dublin_Gunner

You could upgrade that to a Phenom X4, get a better PSU and better RAM and still stay well under budget...

That place doesn't look much cheaper for parts than komplett (do they build it for you?)

Here's a Phenom II x4 build for around €680
http://www.komplett.ie/k/shoplist.aspx?mode=receive&si=753647&su=585C72AE-1C76-4C55-BBB8-DC31466996C0

Phenom II x4 945 (3.0Ghz)
4GB Crucial Ballistix 1333Mhz Ram
500GB HDD
HD5750
550W Crucial VX PSU
Coolermaster Elite 360 case
Win 7 Home Premium
MSI 770 C45 AM3 Motherboard


Pretty damn good for the price

jonny72

What flight sims do you intend on playing?

Also what is the size and the resolution of the monitor?

If you had a built PC delivered from hardwareversand (about the cheapest site out there) would you install the OS yourself? or would you prefer to pay them 30 odd euro to install the operating system?

I think because most flight sims are old-ish you do not need an absolute beast of a system, a 5750 _should_ be okay, although I would recommend the 5770 and you should comfortably be able to run a very fast AMD quad processors. You don't need any extra fans or any of that as I doubt you will be overclocking.

cherrytaz

Thanks for the replies lads, very helpful indeed.

Well I'm going to be using the pc for testing scenery, so both FS9 & FSX.

The monitor is a Dell E197FP, got it a few years back. Dont really want to splash out on a new monitor at the moment, but its on the cards for the future.
As far as i know the resolution is 1280 x 1024.

I wouldn't mind installing the OS myself as long as its straight forward? Wouldnt like to send the whole thing back to Germany if anything goes belly-up!

Cheers,

UnionOfV

jonny72 wrote: »

I think because most flight sims are old-ish you do not need an absolute beast of a system, a 5750 _should_ be okay, although I would recommend the 5770 and you should comfortably be able to run a very fast AMD quad processors. You don't need any extra fans or any of that as I doubt you will be overclocking.

Actually flight-sims are very tough on your PC, you need a decent gaming rig with a quad-core processor. That's why I'd definitely go for the 5770 with that X4 Phenom.

cherrytaz

Alright I think i've picked out a decent setup:

http://www.komplett.ie/k/shoplist.aspx?mode=receive&si=764602&su=73F8C7C7-E386-44AE-8518-4A4EF6A6A69D

I've got a disc drive already, its a "Samsung WriteMaster TS-H552", would this
do the job?

Let me know what you think, thanks!

Dublin_Gunner

cherrytaz wrote: »

Alright I think i've picked out a decent setup:

http://www.komplett.ie/k/shoplist.aspx?mode=receive&si=764602&su=73F8C7C7-E386-44AE-8518-4A4EF6A6A69D

I've got a disc drive already, its a "Samsung WriteMaster TS-H552", would this
do the job?

Let me know what you think, thanks!

Lol thats the build I put together for you, so yes, I'd agree

Its an older drive, so will be E-IDE not SATA I'd say, but should work no problem.

In fairness though, for the sake of €20, I'd buy the newer SATA Sony drive I had in the build.

But yes, that will be a very nice build for the price, and should satisfy your Flight Sim playing quite nicely

cherrytaz

Do komplett build the pc, and install the OS or will I have to take care of it myself?

Dublin_Gunner wrote: »

Lol thats the build I put together for you, so yes, I'd agree

Its an older drive, so will be E-IDE not SATA I'd say, but should work no problem.

In fairness though, for the sake of €20, I'd buy the newer SATA Sony drive I had in the build.

But yes, that will be a very nice build for the price, and should satisfy your Flight Sim playing quite nicely

Dublin_Gunner

No, they'll only send the parts - you'll have to build it yourself.

In all honesty, it will only take you under 2 hours to build it and install the OS.

Putting it together (well for me anyway) would only take about 20 minutes. I'll say 45 if you're taking your time.

An hour or so for the OS (probably less).

And IMO you get more satisfaction knowing you put the blood sweat and tears into it!

cherrytaz

Thats great, im sure putting it all together will not be a problem.

Think i'll go for it, thanks all for your invaluable information.

jonny72

Dublin_Gunner wrote: »

Lol thats the build I put together for you, so yes, I'd agree

Its an older drive, so will be E-IDE not SATA I'd say, but should work no problem.

In fairness though, for the sake of €20, I'd buy the newer SATA Sony drive I had in the build.

But yes, that will be a very nice build for the price, and should satisfy your Flight Sim playing quite nicely

Nice build but bad prices, he could be getting a 965BE at pix or hwvs at that price, also the ram and 5770 look a little steep, not to mention that they won't even be sending his order till at least 21 Jan. Anyway will be fine for what he wants.

Just a wee note, I've always encouraged to build, but recently have changed that. Honestly out of the dozen or more people I've ordered PC parts in the last year, I can honestly say maybe two got their PC built and up and running within 2 or 3 hours. The rest ranged from a few days to utter catastrophies.
Its great fun of course, but for someone who wants something built, or working or something quick, and are not an enthusiast, I find they often try to built too quick and screw it up somehow. So just a word of advice, take it nice and slow the first time and don't try to wing it, have a laptop nearby with youtube video demonstrations, etc

massy086

better card igb rather than 512 http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=501602

Pi^2

Good on ya CherryTaz. I knew you'd see the light and go the building route.

And obviously if anything is bothering you while you are building, we will all be here to help Just read all the manuals and take your time and it'll be a piece of cake.

cherrytaz

Ok cool,

So should i replace the graphics card with the one mentioned above?

UnionOfV

cherrytaz wrote: »

Ok cool,

So should i replace the graphics card with the one mentioned above?

No, large graphics memory is overrated anyway. If anything go for a 5770, you'll see a performance boost with that. Otherwise we're really trying to suggest future-proof(-ish) suggestions, you'd be hard-pressed to get a bad pc in that price range.

marco_polo

cherrytaz wrote: »

Ok cool,

So should i replace the graphics card with the one mentioned above?

If your monitor resolution is 1920 X 1080 or over then the 1Gb would be a better option IMO otherwise not worth really worth it.

cherrytaz

How about this for 608 Euro on Pixmania.ie

INTEL Core i5-650 - 3.2 GHz - 4 MB L3 cache - LGA 1156 Socket (boxed version) + DH55HC - 1156 Socket - H55 - ATX Chipset + Gold Low Voltage 2 x 2 GB DDR3-1333 PC3-10666 PC Memory Modules

XIGMATEK Asgard PC Tower Case - black (CPC-T45UB-U01)

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 Hard Drive - 500 GB - 7200.

Corsair CMPSU-650TXEU PC Power Unit - 650 W

TWINTECH GeForce GTS 250 - 1 GB GDDR3 - PCI-Express...


Then just get an os

I know the graphics card isnt the best but can always upgrae at a later date

or this for 609.40

INTEL Core 2 Quad Q9400 - 2.66 GHz, 6 MB L2 Cache, 775 Socket + P5Q SE2 - Socket 775 - Chipset P45 - ATX

G.SKILL RAM 4 GB - 2x2048Mb

XIGMATEK Asgard PC Tower Case - black (CPC-T45UB-U01)

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 Hard Drive - 500 GB - 7200.

Corsair CMPSU-650TXEU PC Power Unit - 650 W

ZOTAC GeForce GTS 250 AMP! Edition - 1 GB DDR3 - PCI-Express 2.0 (ZT-20102-10P)

Dublin_Gunner

The i5 650 is the worst price/performance CPU currently on the market IMO. The i5 750 is about the same price and absolutely smashes it in everything. Thats whats adding to the cost of that (just because it has an integrated GPU - which isn;t even being used in that machine).

And get the 1GB card you were going for originally - GFX Ram is NOT overrated as some misinformed user posted earlier - you go over a certain resolution with decent textures and filtering and your shiny 512MB card will go from 40FPS to 5FPS fairly quick.

Jonny72 - if you can build the same machine for cheaper on a different site, then by all means post it up right here.

Advantage with Komplett is customer service right here on Boards, pick-up point (in Dublin anyway) to save on shipping, and their returns are pretty smooth.

I'd personally never order anything on pixmania. But thats just me, if someone else wants to take a chance go for it.

hwvs might be a slight bit cheaper - I've never used them. But ordering from Germany seems like a bit of a false economy as you'll have to pay shipping anyway - and would you have to pay duty/tax on the items? (I honestly don't know)

darealtulip

Dublin_Gunner wrote: »

hwvs might be a slight bit cheaper - I've never used them. But ordering from Germany seems like a bit of a false economy as you'll have to pay shipping anyway - and would you have to pay duty/tax on the items? (I honestly don't know)

You pay a €30,- flat rate at HWS as far as I can see so postage for a whole system is cheaper then from komplett, you don't pay tax because it is within the EU.

Komplett is really easy to deal with though but you pay the extra money for it, HWS can be hard to reach and they don't speak very good english (not a problem for me since I speak German)

jonny72

Dublin_Gunner wrote: »

The i5 650 is the worst price/performance CPU currently on the market IMO. The i5 750 is about the same price and absolutely smashes it in everything. Thats whats adding to the cost of that (just because it has an integrated GPU - which isn;t even being used in that machine).

And get the 1GB card you were going for originally - GFX Ram is NOT overrated as some misinformed user posted earlier - you go over a certain resolution with decent textures and filtering and your shiny 512MB card will go from 40FPS to 5FPS fairly quick.

Jonny72 - if you can build the same machine for cheaper on a different site, then by all means post it up right here.

Advantage with Komplett is customer service right here on Boards, pick-up point (in Dublin anyway) to save on shipping, and their returns are pretty smooth.

I'd personally never order anything on pixmania. But thats just me, if someone else wants to take a chance go for it.

hwvs might be a slight bit cheaper - I've never used them. But ordering from Germany seems like a bit of a false economy as you'll have to pay shipping anyway - and would you have to pay duty/tax on the items? (I honestly don't know)

That PC you just specced is quite a bit cheaper on hardwareversand, you save 25 euros on the processor alone. I specced up a build with i5 750, 4 gig ram and 5770 with a good Xigmatek case and it came in under 700 including shipping. You're right, there is a risk with foreign sites, but for someone who wants a built PC, I'll say now that hardwareversand are great at building.. I mean I just got a PC this morning, I haaate hate building mATX machines.. so being lazy as I am I got hwvs to build it, and of course, extremely good, cables all ziptied away, everything just perfect PC boots first time no hassle etc.

If you look at peoples builds here, they are all roughly the same, which makes me wonder why Komplett doesn't cash in on the built gaming PCs market, I mean they used to do it, but they were awful stupid things, 2 x 8500GT SLI and other mickey mouse stuff. Anyway theres lots of good builds here, as long as the fella doesn't get some piece of crap from ebay or doesn't spend 2 weeks fiddling with wires and trying to build the thing, then its all good.