PC Buying help wanted....

[James Yates]

SATA 6 wont make any difference unless the HDD/SSD can go over ~265MB/s reads and writes. The only drive that actually does that at the moment is the Crucial C300. Any of the other quick SSD's use a PCIE interface.

 

[Andy Paries]

Hi guys, i'm looking to buy a new pc, and i would like to now what you think of the pc that i have in mind.

CPU -Intel core i5 650 2x3.2 Ghz
Motherboard -Asus p7p55 core i5
PSU- 650 watt corsair tx650w
Grafix card -Gigabyte OC Geforce GTX 460 1024 Mb (715 Mhz)
RAM -3x 2048 MB GeIL black dragon kit ddr3 1333 Mhz
Harddisk- Western digital caviar green 5400-7200 rpm 64 MB

Greetz,

 

[Christopher Aponte]

looks good
except on the ram. i would prefer for a ram 2x ramcards instead of a 3x ramcard....due to the motherboard specification

and although the wd green series i have heard good things, i would still go with a blue series (steady 7200 rpm)

 

[Andy Paries]

Thx allot dude!

Greetz

 

[Adam Farmer]

Help required

Hello,

Any advice would be gratefully received…

I have an old HP desktop PC (Pavilion a1000) which is poor and hasn’t been used for a couple of years, my excellent iMac and and Xbox 360.

I got Race Pro a few months ago and I really think it’s the best game I’ve ever played. I then found out about Simbin’s PC games and became very interested…

I got Race On for £5 from amazon. I re-installed Windows XP on the HP machine, and also in a bootcamp partition on the iMac. I picked up a second hand Logitech Momo wheel. I’m keen!

On the iMac I’ve never seen Windows XP run so smoothly, good hardware I suppose. With Race On I can get the graphics so they’re pretty good, but the game doesn’t feel 100% smooth, it seems ok but I can tell there’s a lack of smoothness of the passing scenery. It’s fantastic fun, but it’s not quite right.

On the HP, using an old cheap flat screen 20” TV the game is awful in every way.

I think the iMac has a very capeable processor, but the graphics card is average, and non replaceable.

I could put a new graphics card in the HP but I suspect it wouldn’t be worth the effort? If that would do the trick, then brilliant. It’s processor is a Athlon 64 3000+ 1.8 GHz. Full details here:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00446687&tmp_task=prodinfoCategory&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=uk&product=1120282&lang=en

At a push I could possibly afford £250 on something. I can deal with the old TV as a monitor for now. Is there any way to upgrade the HP? Is it best to start fresh? Is it possible to get anything for my limited budget?

I would not use the PC for anything else at all. I would want to play the Simbin games, and I’ll probably want to get into netKar Pro and rFactor/rFactor 2. So it would ONLY get used for sim racing games. I’d want them to run smoothly, and I’d like the graphics to be as good as possible.

I’ve never built a PC but I’ve happily swapped hard drives, replaced a wireless card in the deep depths of a laptop, and tinkered with and built all sorts of things. Ideally I like things that I don’t have to build, and that I know will just work!

Any advice would be great.

Many thanks,

Adam

 

[Christopher Aponte]

Adam
Although your pc might be upgradable with a new graphics card and adding some extra ram, I still think it is better to upgrade with a new pc
As that graphics card is onboard.
It will indeed help with a new graphics card, but I don't know if that pci-express version that you have is compatible with the current pci-express version (in theory it should)
Also getting a DDR memory module as extra upgrade might be hard in the current market, not impossible but a bit hard .

You can upgrade under the budget that you've put for graphics and ramcard
but adding £150 extra might help in a new pc that could run it much better

From Misco
http://www.misco.co.uk/

165887 :: LiteOn 24x Internal SATA DVD RW Drive (1 Kg) 	
£10.20 ex VAT
£11.99 inc VAT

Q107819 :: Western Digital Caviar Blue 320GB 3.5 SATA Internal Hard Drive (0.64 Kg) 
£25.52 ex VAT
£29.99 inc VAT

153343 :: Foxconn TLA-143 Micro ATX Midi Tower Case (Black/Silver) 450W Pe ak Power PSU (2 Kg) 	
£34.03 ex VAT
£39.99 inc VAT

162773 :: AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Processor Socket AM3 (0.5 Kg) 	
£97.86 ex VAT
£114.99 inc VAT

162830 :: Asus GeForce GTS450 1GB PCI-Express Graphics Card (0.5 Kg) 	
£85.10 ex VAT
£99.99 inc VAT

Q106823 :: Kingston HyperX 4GB (2 x 2GB Kit) PC6400 DDR2 Performance RAM (0.1 Kg) 	
£57.83 ex VAT
£67.95 inc VAT

162591 :: Gigabyte GA M68M-S2P Socket AM3 Motherboard (0.5 Kg) 	
£28.08 ex VAT
£32.99 inc VAT

Totaal
£338.62 ex VAT
£397.88 inc VAT

But on the other hand you do say that you are not using your pc that much, so you can try checking one of those desktops pc, but with integrated graphics it might produce the same problem that you have right now with your current.

Last but not least is to check a second hand old graphics card like the geforce 7900gs/gt. It might not be up to par in today's hardware performance, but it should do it's job just fine

 

[Peter Duivelaar]

I received my new PC today and everything runs very smooth. Thanks to everyone for helping me!

 

[Peter Duivelaar]

I need some help: Today I went for the first time online with my new PC in Race ON, and I'm having serious connection issues. I have a lot of lag and my game is constantly synchronizing. Does someone know the solution?

Solved: Resetting the router solved the problem.

 

[Peter Duivelaar]

I am now looking for a new monitor, because I ofcourse want to see the effect of the high graphics settings on my new PC
This one seems good if I can believe the reviews: http://www.4launch.nl/shop/#p-4-productid-094362
Does anyone have experiences with this monitor? Any other advice is also welcome ofcourse

 

[Nigel Atkins]

i was on the look out for a 24" monitor last year and was looking at Samsung monitors, but eventualy brought an Iiyama. http://www.ebuyer.com/product/161554

in all the reviews i read there was very little between them, but the Iiyama was a little bit cheaper and had a propper uk based web site and customer support. not sure if they have a dutch one though.

 

[Peter Duivelaar]

Thanks for the advice Nigel. Anyone else that has experiences with this monitor?

 

[Justin Allison]

I am now looking for a new monitor, because I ofcourse want to see the effect of the high graphics settings on my new PC
This one seems good if I can believe the reviews: http://www.4launch.nl/shop/#p-4-productid-094362
Does anyone have experiences with this monitor? Any other advice is also welcome ofcourse

Not personally but its very common amongst gamers here in SA. So far from what I've heard and read it's a good buy.

 

[Scott Webber]

Peter iv'e not personally had that screen, but samsung screen's are good. i have one myself.

however my brother has a DGM 24 Inch... and WOW it's better then Samsung, you can clearly see the HD difference.

it's half price aswell.... so if you wish to have it then go for it.
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/249226

 

[Peter Duivelaar]

Thanks for the advice Scott, but the one in the link is 22 inch and isn't full HD.