Please help me choose a gaming pc!

[Rob Carver]

Evening all. I hope we are all well!

Okay so this is the situation - i absolutely love my racing! I have owned an xbox 360 for a few years now and last year invested in a fanatec rig to enhance the experience of f1 2010,2011,2012,2013, forza etc. After patricipating in the RD leagues for a couple of years now (and winning the championship last year ) i have had to temporarily pull out due to work committments. I now need to invest in a pc for work and thought i might aswell make it a gaming pc as i have heard a lot of good things about pc racing sims such as iracing and rfactor and i am assuming i could use the fanatec wheel and pedals with the pc.

The problem i have is i am an absolutely newbie when it comes to pc technology and being educated about what to buy (also my budget isnt huge).

I have seen the following pc advertised on ebay and was looking for some helpful advice on wether this can handle pc sim racing. I have included the link. Any advice is more than welcome with what i should expect or be wary of when moving from years of console gaming to pc sim racing

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=181380750291

 

[Tom]

Never, ever, buy a PC that's labeled "gaming" by the vendor. Buy the parts and put it together yourself, that'll be both cheaper and lead to a better result.

Prebuilt machines are always (99.9%) having an issue somewhere and they're cheap for a reason. Some machines are running at the bare mininum, PSU wise, others are using slow RAM, others are using slower HDDs etc. - it's often unpredictable, sometimes vendors are even using used hardware or faulty stuff they got back from another customer, so a repaired part.

The machine linked above, for example, is simply having a very slow CPU (gaming-wise) - it won't get you very far. I have an i7-4770 in my machine, which I had put together at the end of May 2012 - now, look at how this CPU is doing comparatively. The graphics card is not exactly "gaming" either but well, for an extremely limited budget it might be worth a shot.

If you're unable to put it together yourself a friend might be able to do it for you, some stores offer such services as well. Might cost you some money but you'll profit in the end. If you tell me what you're looking for exactly and what budget you're having I'll gladly look into it for you.

Tom

 

[Rob Carver]

Thanks for the reply Tom! In terms of what i am looking for mate i honestly have no idea- maybe a spec high enough to run the latest racing sims

I could maybe stretch to £600. I wont need a moniter as i will use the tv. Keyboards you can pick up cheap enough and i already have the seat, steering wheel and pedals etc so the 600 would be just for the base itself

 

[Justin Swan]

I just priced up a build for my brother in law using an i5 CPU and GTX660 oc. 8gb ram, 1tb HDD, case, PSU and operating system, he was looking at around £750. You could cut some corners and maybe get it just before £600 but obviously you're cutting performance too but it would still run the next gen of racing sims. If you like, I can show you the 2 sperate shopping baskets to compare?

 

[Tom]

Hm, a 770 would be best of course but...at 600 pounds that's hardly possible.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

I bought 2GB 770 last year for less than 230 I believe.

 

[Tom]

Yeah, it really depends on the model. 2GB should be sufficient for most games - I think the ASUS one is around ~260-280€ and very good.

 

[PaulH]

That ebay system does looks decent enough for the price, although I would never buy from anyone with zero feedback, especially a PC

First off, are you confident in building your own PC? It is easy, but some people are not confident to try.
If you are, I'm sure we could source the parts(all brand new) to bulid it yourself.
If you want to buy from ebay heres a decent spec, although no Windows installed

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Intel-I5-...t=UK_Computing_DesktopPCs&hash=item1c3751ed80

With windows http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Intel-I5-...t=UK_Computing_DesktopPCs&hash=item1c3d5adebf

 

[Tom]

I'd like to check a well known / cheap UK hardware website but have no clue which ones are good these days. Guys?

 

[Rob Carver]

Thanks for all the speedy responses! I think i would be fairly confident building one although it would be my first time (after looking on youtube it just seems like building lego lol )

I would HUGELY appreciate all of your thoughts on a parts list as i would hate to compile a list myself to find there was compatability issues with the hardware i had bought

 

[Justin Swan]

I'd like to check a well known / cheap UK hardware website but have no clue which ones are good these days. Guys?

Dabs.com. scan.co.uk

 

[PaulH]

The ones I use are -
ebuyer http://www.ebuyer.com/ this one I go to to price first
CCL http://www.cclonline.com/
Dabs http://www.dabs.com/
Scan http://www.scan.co.uk/

 

[PaulH]

Just priced up a system with your £600 budget, total comes to £564.55 delivered with ebuyer, although it could be tinkered with, perhaps the other guys could advise too

Intel Core i5 4440 3.10GHz Socket 1150 6MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor (Good CPU)

Seagate 1TB Barracuda 3.5" SATA-III Hard Drive - 7200RPM 64MB Cache ( Could upgrade to a 2GB HDD)

Corsair 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz XMS3 Memory Kit CL9 1.65V (Enough memory for todays games)

LiteOn iHAS124 24X Internal DVD Writer with SATA - OEM (standard DVD drive)

Windows 7 Home Premium w/SP1 64bit (Windows7 or 8 its up to you, similar price)

Gigabyte GA-H81M-DS2 Socket 1150 7.1-Channel Audio Micro ATX Motherboard (Motherboard with HD 7.1 audio)

CIT Vantage Type-R Midi Mesh Gaming Case Black Interior 4 Fans (3 Red LED) Card Reader No PSU (Cases are personal taste so its up to you)

CIT Gold 750W Fully Wired Efficient Power Supply (decent budget PSU)

EVGA GTX 660 FTW ACX 2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card (one of the fastest 660's still available)

Hope that helps, any questions just let us know

 

[Daniel Smissen]

reading this has been helpful, I'm like rob, have no idea what would be doing but really want to get into iracing and A/C. going to use alot of these sites

 

[Tom]

I didn't have time to look into it but what Paul said is pretty good indeed. I'd not buy a Seagate drive tho, they always died quickly (or were dead on arrival) and the replacement (well, one of them) turned out to be better - I'd go with Western Digital these days.

Apart from that it'd be worth a try to find a 770 instead of the 660, if possible with your budget! Oh and for a good chuckle, always keep in mind: we are the master race! Coming from a German that sounds weird, admittedly...but don't worry.

 

[Justin Swan]

I agree, I only use WD or Samsung spinpoint drives.

 

[PaulH]

I agree, I only use WD or Samsung spinpoint drives.

Good point, I have a WD & Samsung spinpoint in my system. I think the WD HDD was only an extra £1

And like Tom said, if you can stretch your budget get the GTX 770

 

[Calum McLure]

 

[Tom]

 

[Rob Carver]

Sorry to reopen an old thread but i thought it would be better than starting a new one. The situation is : still no gaming pc haha the fear of still not knowing what to buy has put me off for sooo long now. Budget has gone up slightly and i am ,100%, getting myself one for xmas.

Just wondering can have a look at this for me and let me know if its suitable for rfactor etc. Please feel free to tinker with the parts if its going to save money or improve performance
http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/view/Team-VVV-Mid/