Advice About Buying a New Computer.

Liathroidi Dana

My current computer has started to get quite dated, and I'm starting to get into PC gaming. At the moment I'v been saving up quite alot of money, and thinking of getting a new computer.

I have my eyes on this.

http://www.argos.ie/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Search?storeId=30001&catalogId=1500002451&langId=-1&searchTerms=5083730

I know... its from argos. But is Acer a good brand? Also are the specs up to running say Starcraft 2.

Or can anyone give me a few other recommendations.

And theres no point in recommending buiding my own, I really don't have the knowledge to do this.

Thanks

Icyseanfitz

honestly building a computer seems harder than it really is, i mean i started looking at building my fist pc around 3 weeks ago and between google and these forums i have learnt so much, it really is like lego where you just fit in the parts i was just like you in that i thought it would be impossible but it is actually fairly straight forward when you look at it and much better value

johndoe99

thats a damn fine PC for only €729, very nice specs too. You've got me thinking about getting a new PC too.

Liathroidi Dana

Honestly what with buying new parts from places and all I really don't think I'd be up for it maybe I'm just lazy but...

Icyseanfitz

ya i know im pretty much the same but i figure if anything goes wrong with my pc il know how to open it up and understand what is what, what im doing is just buying everything from one site (in my case it will be pixmania.ie) which will be sent in one big package as opposed to buying from different stores and websites

Liathroidi Dana

Okay, Okay! I'll look into building my own PC! Jees!

Anyway in terms of pre-mades, is this of good quality? In terms of the brand Acer?

Icyseanfitz

well i really have no idea if the nvidia 315 is any good i doubt it though, but everything else seems good although a amd phenom II would be better than the Athlon, it has a good screen and plenty of ram so it would do all the normal stuff you would want out of a pc as long as you dont want to be doing any serious gaming etc.

Monotype

Liathroidi Dana wrote: »

Anyway in terms of pre-mades, is this of good quality? In terms of the brand Acer?

Last I heard, acer is the third biggest desktop assembler behind dell and hp, and the second biggest in the laptop field (behind hp).
Quality might be ok, but you might as well go for the adventure of putting together your own and I don't like argos, so any business away from them makes me feel good.

RobTheLad

just seen similar acer to this one in the click store but it has an intel quad core and a 1tb hard drive on it instead for the same price

Liathroidi Dana

Well is the computer good enough to run Half-life 2 say at around 30fps?

massy086

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-270-OK&groupid=43&catid=1078&subcat= and then just buy a monitor much better pc

Liathroidi Dana

massy086 wrote: »

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-270-OK&groupid=43&catid=1078&subcat= and then just buy a monitor much better pc

That looks like good bloody computer! Damn I have about 10 tabs open with different site open all with different computers!

massy086

its everything you need and more

zappb

Liathroidi, what will you do with the computer, and what sort of life span do you want?

Any chance you'll play newer games than HL2? Do any encoding?

The i3 530 linked is a fantastic little machine, or get a cheaper AM3 tri core or quad core machine, much better than the argos, and if i can be so bold as to recommend a 23inch IPS monitor from elara, http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfull.asp?productcode=MMEB921112

the colour on this is a beauty,

Anyway, I felt sick and very sad when i saw compute and argos in the same sentence, cheers!

Monotype

The GT315 in the first acer is pretty much a rebranded GT220, slightly better than the 9500gt and 4650. So it's about mid range for the last generation.
It will unquestionably play half-life 2 fairly well and some other games, but it will struggle with many and won't provide that much future proofing.

zappb

you linked an Acer X3400

Anandtech just reviewed the Acer M3400 - looks like a better spec, but it could give you an idea about the build quality of the acers http://www.anandtech.com/show/3823/acer-aspire-m3400-budget-desktop

Liathroidi Dana

zappb wrote: »

Liathroidi, what will you do with the computer, and what sort of life span do you want?

Any chance you'll play newer games than HL2? Do any encoding?

The i3 530 linked is a fantastic little machine, or get a cheaper AM3 tri core or quad core machine, much better than the argos, and if i can be so bold as to recommend a 23inch IPS monitor from elara, http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfull.asp?productcode=MMEB921112

the colour on this is a beauty,

Anyway, I felt sick and very sad when i saw compute and argos in the same sentence, cheers!

I'll definately going to be wanting to play newer games. Although the highest performence wouldn't be nessacary.

I will be using the computer for games, music and other general browsing.

Well I won't be deciding for another week, so I can leave it for a bit.

Thanks everyone for all the advice, I'll let you know what I end up getting.

Jonny7

Yup, if you make up your mind, try to check with us first


the problem with 99% of 'highstreet'/argos/pcworld/dell/whatever PCs - they have nice ram/hdd/processor, but they scrimp on every other part as much as possible especially the graphics card - hence these type of PCs are usually crap for games

Its pricey, but you should strongly consider overclockers.co.uk - at least if you get a PC from there it will be nice and silky smooth for nearly all games instead of watching a slideshow

e.g. this one
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-274-OK

or this
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-210-OK
and add the GTX 460 graphics card

seraphimvc

if you fancy some pics of step by step how to build a desktop i have one here in my picassa folder(made for a friend):http://picasaweb.google.com/seraphimvc/StepByStepBuildPC#

i found that if you are buying a whole bunch of components Pixmania is a nice website to use. averagely they have nice price and items arrive very soon