#1

My old clunker of a PC has died - and died in style, two hard drive failures, USB controller knackered then the graphics card shat itself. So, time for a replacement, not sure I can be bothered to build one as I find reading up on the components so tedious that I would rather hump a wasp nest.

Any suggestions for a reasonable system for 1K or there abouts? Doesn't need to be the nuts just able to keep up with what you guys do should I wish to abandon the X-box.

#2

Check out this link - to a talk me and Andy had about it. There are a few links to some various priced PC's and good sites to look. You can't go wrong with any of the linked sites. Just take a PC at the value you are looking at, then bolt stuff onto it until you are satisfied.

For 1K you will get yourself a really good machine.

If you find one you like the look of, by all means post a link and I will take a look at it for you to see if I can offer any sage advice.

#3

I was looking at this

#4

Looks pretty damn good to me... Up until I read this:

On board High Definition Audio
Windows 8 64bit

...both of which are a no-go in my eyes. Although you could live with on-board audio, I would definitely not recommend Windows 8!.

I would suggest Windows 7 x64 with a Creative X-Fi or something similar. Of course, this is stuff you could buy afterwards.

EDIT: Although at that price you are getting a lot for your money - so it is a very decent machine, with or without my comments

Last edited 15 Apr 2013 at 11:55.

#5

Thisis the system I ended up with, but it is topping 1.5K so I am wondering if there are premade systems that would be better to get at that price level.
Alternatively I was thinking about getting a mid-range machine, that would not have the same longevity but I could simply replace it in a year or two when it gets long in the tooth.

The link to your recommendation for a mid-level machine seems to be broken by the way.

#6

TBH Greg, the one you linked to in the first place is pretty damn awesome. That won't need upgrading for a few years! It beats the living crap out of my machine.

To give you some perspective: You remember when I went all nuts and smashed my car to tiny pieces? Well, the computer I bought from my insurance money is the one I still use today. The only 'upgrade' I made was new graphics cards - but that was only because my original ones got fried.

...so that's getting on almost 6 years old and is still going strong. A machine with an i7 processor, 16GB RAM and a GeForce GTX Kepler 680 graphics card will be safe for a few years - no problem!

Here are two more examples from one of the sites I linked:

An i7 machine for £1199.99 inc. VAT

An i5 machine for £899.99 inc. VAT

Last edited 15 Apr 2013 at 12:51.

#7

Oh, and take a look here too.

#8

Ah Greg

So does this thread mean you are finally hanging up your controller?

It is good that you are finally gona man up and get a proper games platform.

Assuming you are that sort of person?

#9

Well I am not that kind of person I am afraid, I will be keeping my X-box as this will allow me to play games with the rest of humanity.

I wanted to just swing by and pick up a run of the mill computer from PC world but they all have bleeding windows 8 on them, this peeves me.

#10

Well you are that sort of person

#11

You don't really wanna be buying from there unless you can help it. Their 'gaming rigs' are pretty poor anyway.

#12

I know, it's just with stuff like this I rather just buy it then worry about how to pay for it later, if I have to shop around I sometimes talk myself out of it.

Sod it I will get the MR2 re-sprayed then get a computer.

#13

Originally posted by Gregory:
Sod it I will get the MR2 re-sprayed then get a computer.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Don't do it! Computer first!

#14

Thinking about it, I will probably just order one when I am pissed.

#15

You have more money than sense Greg re spraying the MR2 honestly.

Do them both Gregory you tricky little swine!!!

#16

It's going to be the same colour and everything, it just that the poor old thing is starting to look a bit tatty (the car that is).

#17

Ensure you have ample drinkage tonight, then you can tell us tomorrow what computer you ended up buying, Greg. The dear MR2 can wait, I'm sure. But as Maximus says, you do have dollar coming out of your ear-holes - so just do both.

If you want, pay me a fiver and I will re-spray your MR2, Bricky style

#18

You mean with feces and ditty's? Well thank you cheers tar but no thank you cheers tar.

Tell you what, could you spec up the first PC I linked to and repost the link? I am not sure about the graphics card and cooling so it would be interesting the see what you go with. If I get pissed tonight it makes ordering it simpler you see.

#19

Well, the offer stands anyway.

Unfortunately, sharing the link does not seem to keep your customisation settings. Tried it myself. Also, the second link you sent me earlier didn't come to 1.5k as you said, so that proves it (cookies I bet ya).

I will, however, help you out as best I can:

1. Try and ensure your primary drive is a solid state ("flash") drive. I think that was the default on that model - so, er, ignore this comment.
2. Secondary drive as a large hard drive would also be a good idea. 500GB or 1TB is enough. They are all pretty fast. Adjust as necessary.
3. Unless you are worried about hard drive failure, RAID is a waste of time. This will also mean you would need 2 additional IDENTICAL HDDs. Don't bother.
4. Even the cheapest card on the customise list for that machine is awesome. So if you can afford more, great, but don't worry if you can't as they are all really good.
5. Power supply only really matters if you are running multiple drives/graphics cards etc. In my experience, it is better to get 1 good graphics card rather than 2 medium ones (that run in SLI). If you are only running one, maybe play it safe with the 750watt one incase you later want to add stuff.
6. Cooling: the other fans seem to just be quieter ones, so that's completely up to you if you want to spend more money for less noise.

Note: I am sure if you build a system that won't work (e.g. due to too small a power supply or insufficient cooling), they will tell you! So don't worry about messing it up too much, they can't very well send you a system that won't turn on cause it's eating too much juice!

Last edited 15 Apr 2013 at 16:22.

#20

Fair points Greg, duly noted thank you cheers tar.

The only slight problem now is trying to tell the misses that we can't go on holiday because I have spunked my money on a PC………tricky one.