Help me build a great gaming pc

Patricide

Ok heres the situation, i have 1500 euro to spend on a new p.c. and i want to get the most bang for my buck and i was told that the best way to do that is to build it myself, however im not great at picking out P.C. components cuz the last time i got me a pc was 1999 and its a whole new ballgame now.

I was wondering if someone out there could find me all the parts i need for a kickass pc thats gonna be used basicly for mostly gaming from komplette.ie(chose here cuz its in english for one, and I trust the site number two).

I allready have a moniter and the system must include: 5.1 surround sound,a good dvd and cd burner and a cheap ass printer + scanner would be nice but im willing to sacrifice them for a powerhouse machine.

Thanks to everyone who helps me with this

astec123

Basically you go to a site like dell or any other major maker and find the system thats worth about 1700 or so and just build it from that, then work out the overall price and from that you can change bits away from it to make it suit you best. I would suggest the dual core 64bit system with dual GT6800s in SLI mode and a couple of raid sata cards. If you want to be even more insane forget about dual SLI and take a top end card and spend it on 2 insane 10000rpm scsi's! More than powerful enough and be sure to get a good 500W+ PSU.

Patricide

O....K dont have a clue what you just said, back when i still knew my **** bout computers there was like 4 main things ram, hard drive, processor speed and your graphics card so all this stuff just totally confused me. i was gonna do what you said with like just getting like a template thing from dell but i wouldnt know if all the parts would fit for me or not an all that.any chance of you figuring out a nice gaming system for me as in like finding me all the parts id need, i know its a pain in the ass but at least itd be somewhat of a challenge,

DemonOfTheFall

You want it to include speakers? Do they have to be good? Decent 5.1 is gonna set you back 170 on komplett. How about overclocking, you willing to do that? If you are you can turn your 150euro CPU into a 450 euro one fairly handy

Blitzkrieger

You'll have to say exactly what you want. Do you just need the box, or do you need mouse, keyboard, monitor, speakers and the whole lot? If you have a good monitor already you can knock a good bit off the price already. I was thinking of getting one recently. This is sort of what I was looking for :

Motherboard with onboard LAN and SLi support.
Reasonably priced Athlon 64 chip (not the latest, but almost)
A gigabyte of the best RAM
One of the latest graphics cards with SLi support (get a second one later)
A 160GB SATA hard disk
Dual layer DVD writer

It's very hard to get into specifics because things change almost weekly. Get a mate who knows what he's doing to sit down with you and go over it - it doesn't take long.

DemonOfTheFall

http://www.komplett.ie/k/shoplist.asp?mode=receive&si=264296&su=CF0E8DDE-69FC-47D7-8285-54D3FA1D9A0A

Theres a faaaaast PC.

RicardoSmith

Why bother building it?
A quick browse on the Dell outlet gives you this

Price incl. VAT excl. del: EUR 1,297.92
SYSTEM SPECIFICATION
Dimension 8400 (System Identifier. DDCARAMT)
BASE, TSMT, P4PD, 560, 8400, PFC, 3.6GHz
Win XP SP2 Home (Backup Media)
Memory: 2048MB Dual Channel DDR2 533MHz [4x512]
Floppy Drive: 1.44MB Floppy Drive
Hard Disk Drive: 250GB SATA Hard Drive
250 GB EIDE Hard Drive, SATA (7, 200 RPM)
Video: 256MB nVidia Ge Force 6800
Modem: V.92 Data Fax Modem UK
CD Read-Write Drive: 16 X DVD +/- RW
DVD Drive: 16x DVD Drive
Software: Microsoft® Works® 7.0
USB KEYBOARD UK MG
Dell 2 Button USB MG Scroll Mouse

Dell 17" UltraSharp Flat Panel Monitor with Hight Adjustable Stand

Some of them have 256MB ATI Radeon X850XT cards. You just have dig around a bit.

delly

RicardoSmith wrote:

Why bother building it?
A quick browse on the Dell outlet gives you this

Price incl. VAT excl. del: EUR 1,297.92
SYSTEM SPECIFICATION
Dimension 8400 (System Identifier. DDCARAMT)
BASE, TSMT, P4PD, 560, 8400, PFC, 3.6GHz
Win XP SP2 Home (Backup Media)
Memory: 2048MB Dual Channel DDR2 533MHz [4x512]
Floppy Drive: 1.44MB Floppy Drive
Hard Disk Drive: 250GB SATA Hard Drive
250 GB EIDE Hard Drive, SATA (7, 200 RPM)
Video: 256MB nVidia Ge Force 6800
Modem: V.92 Data Fax Modem UK
CD Read-Write Drive: 16 X DVD +/- RW
DVD Drive: 16x DVD Drive
Software: Microsoft® Works® 7.0
USB KEYBOARD UK MG
Dell 2 Button USB MG Scroll Mouse

Dell 17" UltraSharp Flat Panel Monitor with Hight Adjustable Stand

Some of them have 256MB ATI Radeon X850XT cards. You just have dig around a bit.

I'm getting a total around the €2,400 mark when i enter your specs.

christophicus

You really dont want to get a vanilla 6800. For a high end system the very minimum you will want to get is a 6800 GT which is far better

DemonOfTheFall

He found that system on the dell outlet store, the place where they sell PCs that were ordered but then cancelled. IF you feel like checking it every day to find a good deal you can save a fair few yoyos. Otherwise it's just a pain in the whole tbh

christophicus

Is it possible to get really good offers there?

RicardoSmith

There can be good deals on the outlet store. But not always. You have to have a look at a few of them to find a good deal. There can be €500 difference between two identical machine on the outlet.

http://outlet.dell.com/Emea_Dfo/EuDispatcher?country=IRL&target=InventoryPage&lob_constraint=DIM

Price incl. VAT excl. del: EUR 1,206.24
Dimension XPS Generation 4 (System Identifier. ZRA9ZJ9Z)
Dimension XPS Gen-4 P4 660 3.60GHz, 800FSB
Operating System: English - Win XP SP2 Home (Backup Media)
Memory: 1024MB PC-4200 DUAL CHANNEL (2X512mb)
Floppy Drive: 1.44MB Floppy Drive
Hard Disk Drive: 160GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive
Video: 256MB ATI Radeon X850XT Platinum
Modem: V.92 Modem Data/Fax/Voice PCI Ire/Spn
CD Read-Write Drive: 16 X DVD +/- RW
DVD Drive: 16x DVD Drive
Microsoft® Works® 7.0
Dell 2 Button USB MG Scroll Mouse
USB KEYBOARD UK MG

This on has a X850XT Platinum but I haven't added a monitor.

DemonOfTheFall

Wow, now thats a nice find on the outlet store! Could you ring them up about an outlet store purchase and try to haggle them down?

awhir

are the dell xps any good could you change any part and are they well built

RicardoSmith

claregalway Qs wrote:

are the dell xps any good could you change any part and are they well built

No the case, motherboard and PSU are proprietary to Dell. Well built compared to what? I'd say not as good as one you'd build yourself. You buy a Dell, with the intention of not upgrading it, just selling it on to fund the next new one. It works out much the same cost wise IMO.

Dinner

RicardoSmith wrote:

No the case, motherboard and PSU are proprietary to Dell. Well built compared to what? I'd say not as good as one you'd build yourself. You buy a Dell, with the intention of not upgrading it, just selling it on to fund the next new one. It works out much the same cost wise IMO.

You can upgrade any Dell PSU to any PSU. Some take standard (4600) and others, such as the XPS you would need an adapter . It is possible. Just not as straight forward as possible.

RicardoSmith

Arabel wrote:

You can upgrade any Dell PSU to any PSU. Some take standard (4600) and others, such as the XPS you would need an adapter . It is possible. Just not as straight forward as possible.

I take it you've never actually seen inside a Dell XPS chassis then? and are just assuming its the same as all the other Dell Dimensions. Because it isn't. Its very different. Heres a picture of the insides...

http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow_viewer/0,1205,l=149681&s=1564&a=149702&po=4,00.asp

Can you find the PSU? Is the long thin black box at the bottom.

I have a Dell 4600 and it takes a standard ATX PSU. The XPS machine (which are same chassis as the precision workstations) have a completely different format. I don't know if it is a standard or not. I've never seen anything else like it. Other than the Precision workstations.

juliuspret

Good luck getting a replacement PSU for the Dell XPS without spending a LOT!!!

Loobz

Build a PC.
Dont buy a prebuilt Dell.

I would only buy a Dell if I or a friend could not build a PC. Even at that I would have to think hard about it. Id say get parts from Komplett and build. 1500 clams will get u a beast these days.

Dinner

RicardoSmith wrote:

I take it you've never actually seen inside a Dell XPS chassis then? and are just assuming its the same as all the other Dell Dimensions. Because it isn't. Its very different. Heres a picture of the insides...

http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow_viewer/0,1205,l=149681&s=1564&a=149702&po=4,00.asp

Can you find the PSU? Is the long thin black box at the bottom.

:eek: Crazy Dell and their awkward builds.

delly

Decided to bite the bullet and buy a similar model to which RicardoSmith had first mentioned. Only difference being i added a 2 year warranty and the ram is a 2 x 1024 instead of 4 x 512. All in its €1,330 including delivery.

tbh i wouldn't be into building my own, and these specs should be able to play the games that i have lusted after for a while (HL2 + Silent Hunter III). The gfx card is a 'nVidia GeForce 6800 GTO 256MB' i know its not the ultra, but it should still do the job right?

Thanks to RicardoSmith for showing me the way.

Loobz

Originally Posted by RicardoSmith
I take it you've never actually seen inside a Dell XPS chassis then? and are just assuming its the same as all the other Dell Dimensions. Because it isn't. Its very different. Heres a picture of the insides...

http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow_view...702&po=4,00.asp

Oh...
my...
God...
:eek:

DemonOfTheFall

Yeah the GTO is very close to the Ultra. Should easily overclock to Ultra aswell.

Nice deal

airetam_storm

DemonOfTheFall wrote:

Yeah the GTO is very close to the Ultra. Should easily overclock to Ultra aswell.

Nice deal

Fcuks sake all new rating systems on tne next gen cards - GTO and XL and the likes :rolleyes:

delly

airetam_storm wrote:

Fcuks sake all new rating systems on tne next gen cards - GTO and XL and the likes :rolleyes:

I only know that there is two types cause one of the lads in work here filled me in. It was all a lot simpler in the days where bigger memory = better performance.

airetam_storm

delly wrote:

I only know that there is two types cause one of the lads in work here filled me in. It was all a lot simpler in the days where bigger memory = better performance.

Back in the day of 3DLabs and Creative and Wildlabs?

delly

airetam_storm wrote:

Back in the day of 3DLabs and Creative and Wildlabs?

Up to quite recently i had a TNT2 card with a whole 32mb of memory.

airetam_storm

delly wrote:

Up to quite recently i had a TNT2 card with a whole 32mb of memory.

Oh dear, i'd love to see a comparison between that and Intel Integrated Extreme Graphics

DemonOfTheFall

TNT 2s were great cards, theyd reef the intel graphics apart

The GTO is one of those bull**** dell only models. Its a GT just clocked slightly lower. Just like the x800se. Why the hell do dell bother ? Wouldnt simple GT have been better than the GTO and a 9800 pro instead of the x800se ? I do wonder...

airetam_storm

DemonOfTheFall wrote:

TNT 2s were great cards, theyd reef the intel graphics apart

The GTO is one of those bull**** dell only models. Its a GT just clocked slightly lower. Just like the x800se. Why the hell do dell bother ? Wouldnt simple GT have been better than the GTO and a 9800 pro instead of the x800se ? I do wonder...

I dunno some a the newer IEGs have a shared memory thing so they can do up to 512MB extures

Patricide

Blitzkrieger wrote:

You'll have to say exactly what you want. Do you just need the box, or do you need mouse, keyboard, monitor, speakers and the whole lot? If you have a good monitor already you can knock a good bit off the price already. I was thinking of getting one recently. This is sort of what I was looking for :

Motherboard with onboard LAN and SLi support.
Reasonably priced Athlon 64 chip (not the latest, but almost)
A gigabyte of the best RAM
One of the latest graphics cards with SLi support (get a second one later)
A 160GB SATA hard disk
Dual layer DVD writer

It's very hard to get into specifics because things change almost weekly. Get a mate who knows what he's doing to sit down with you and go over it - it doesn't take long.

I need a pc just mostly for gaming and casual surfing of the net(not downloading **** or anything just for checking se mails and browsein), i was told that a pentium processor would be **** in comparison to an amd even though the amd was 1.3 ghz and the pentium d was 1.8 ghz so im prob gonna go for an amd processor.Dont have a clue bout overclocking someone explain to me what it is.

I was origionally going to go onto dell.ie but then loadsa people were telling me that dells suck major a$$ and they dont do amd processors either.
its gotta have just a surround sound thats decent not brilliant but not crap either.i have a decent moniter allready and a decent keyboard but i do need a new mouse(must have a mouse wheel).it needs a decent cd and dvd burner and around 1024 ram with about a 100 GB hard disk.it defonatly needs a good 256 mb graphics card and windows operating system and works aswell.

After thinking about this for a while now id say id be up for building a pc if someone could help me pick out parts that actually fit together perfectly cus to be honest i wouldnt know how to tell for that.
I would like to get all the parts off komplett if possible cuz like i said i trust that site and its in english. Hope this clears some stuff up, thanks for any help

DemonOfTheFall

I already posted a link to a shopping list to a lethal AMD based pc for u

krz7e

why aren't you giving this fella the advice he is asking for?

First of all, Look up Alienware (http://www.alienware.com) and check out the specs of the boxes on there. They build high performance computers for gamers and stuff.

When you find out what the hardware is, go and look up reviews and stuff. Its the only way to go if you want to get the best bang for your buck.
Lots of places, will give side by side comparisions of different products in the same market. From this it will make it easy to decide, whats best for your purposes.

I would say get a 2.66ghz AMD processor. Theres **** all difference between a 3.2 and 2.66 anyways (except the price). Use this as a starting point. Remember, your graphics card will be the most important thing after this.

If you have no experience building computers, make sure you get that episode of tech tv where they show you how to. Its available on alot of bitorrent trackers. You dont need it but it will give you a running start.

Oh yeah, and when your buying your stuff, don't forget about ebay.
You might get lucky and get a mental machine & under budget.

Best of luck!

DemonOfTheFall

um kr7ze theres no such thing as a 2.66ghz AMD or a 3.2

2.6 is an FX-55 and is gonna cost 900 euro for the chip alone...

krz7e

ok soz.

im no processor expert.


but the rest still goes....

DemonOfTheFall

Just thought i'd mention it incase he felt obliged to buy a processor that wont exist for at least 6 months and when it does will cost 1100 euro

krz7e

he heh, yeah. we wouldnt want that!!!!

superfly

whatever happened to Moore's Law?
why are we still on 3ghz processors at least 2 years after they came out?

DemonOfTheFall

Well we're up to 3.8.....

Moore's law was about transistors not clock speed though. I think transistor counts have been steadily rising, for new instructions, 64-bit, etc. If you make a dual core processor it doubles pretty quick too

RicardoSmith

delly wrote:

I only know that there is two types cause one of the lads in work here filled me in. It was all a lot simpler in the days where bigger memory = better performance.

Thats never been true. Ok maybe back when we had Local Bus VL cards etc. About 10 yrs ago.

krz7e wrote:

why aren't you giving this fella the advice he is asking for?

First of all, Look up Alienware (http://www.alienware.com) and check out the specs of the boxes on there. They build high performance computers for gamers and stuff. ...

Yes great value for money there...not...

Patricide

DemonOfTheFall wrote:

I already posted a link to a shopping list to a lethal AMD based pc for u

o i didnt see it sorry, yea this machine looks good, any idea if komplette will assemble it for me or how much theyd charge me to do so, i also noticed the graphics card costs like 500 euro is it really nessisary to have that badass a graphics card?also im gona need like windows and works so, any chance of refining it down a bit?

DemonOfTheFall

Sure ill give it a go a in work tomorrow . I just put in the badass GFX card because had a lot of money left over after picking the other parts.

christophicus

Whats the maximum resilution of your moniter ?that will help to determin how good a gpu you need Also someone said that it will be 6 months before a higher clocked CPU from AMD,but infack they just released the Athlon 64 fx-57 which is clocked at 2.8 Ghz.and it is close on €1100

DemonOfTheFall

I said it'll be at least 6 months before u see a 3.2ghz Athlon, not before u see a faster athlon

RicardoSmith

Theres an irony about people enthusing about clock speed on AMD CPU's.

Heres a thread to make you think...
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17430177

Patricide

christophicus wrote:

Whats the maximum resilution of your moniter ?that will help to determin how good a gpu you need Also someone said that it will be 6 months before a higher clocked CPU from AMD,but infack they just released the Athlon 64 fx-57 which is clocked at 2.8 Ghz.and it is close on €1100

maximum res of my moniter is 1280x1024 its a 17" one too if that helps

krz7e

RicardoSmith wrote:

Yes great value for money there...not...

I wasn't telling him to buy an alienware computer. I know there a rip-off. I was just giving him a few ideas to start from when he was looking around to see what kind of hardware he should be looking at.

Maybe, you should have actually read my post before commenting on it.

christophicus

DemonOfTheFall wrote:

I said it'll be at least 6 months before u see a 3.2ghz Athlon, not before u see a faster athlon

Ok sorry man I must humbally apolligise.

Ok you will get a playible framerate from a 6600gt at that resolution on doom and the like so you dont need to go all out and get a 6800 gt

RicardoSmith

krz7e wrote:

I wasn't telling him to buy an alienware computer....

Maybe, you should have actually read my post before commenting on it.

Did I say you did?

The only thing you need to know about Alienware is that they are expensive and poor value for money.

krz7e

No, actually theres one more thing you should know about alienware:
they come packed with top hardware.

Maybe, you should have actually read my post before commenting on it.
Maybe, you should have actually read my post before commenting on it.
Maybe, you should have actually read my post before commenting on it.

Fallschirmjager

anyone ever buy from here....

http://www.lucomputers.com/aStore/default.asp?systemid=178&showcase=1

i know its canada..of course the custms could shaft it right up the ying yang...

and you would need a better graphics card. this is about 1000 euro worth.