PC for a modest gamer ..

Piliger

Hi all, I hope this is an ok Q for this forum...

I'm a Mac user but have to buy a PC for my son who is a modest gamer.

He is a gamer but I am sceptical if he really needs a specifically 'gaming'
PC, such as the Alienware that Dell sells for quite a bit of cash.

I lost track of the PC chip names waaaaay back

Can someone make it simple for me and tell me what chip names/speeds I need to look out for and what graphics card model names I should target as part of a PC I buy ? I am looking to stay sub €1k if possible.

Tks !

Opinicus

Depends if you want to build it yourself or not. Even if you don't then if you order from hardwareversand they will assemble most of it for €20. I'm just embarking on my own first build, I will be ordering this week. This forum is a wealth of info. Browse other threads to get an idea on what's good or not and see what the tech is.

My thread is here

Pretty much most of the gaming builds that people are putting together around the €1000 mark lately include the following:

CPU: Intel i5-2500K
GPU: GTX 560Ti or Radeon HD6950
PSU: Super Flower Amazon

HDD: Very expensive at the mo due to flood damage in manufacturing plants in Thailand. I'm not even bothering with one. I'm going to convert an old 500GB external to an internal HDD and also use the one from my current PC.

SSD: Solid State Drive. This drive has no mechanical parts, essentially like the RAM in your PC. Very fast but very expensive. 64GB cost ~€90. Great drive to put the OS on as it boots in seconds.

RAM: You can get 8GB of RAM for about €40. Very cheap now.

Case/Monitor: Whatever takes your fancy.

Motherboards: You can get a decent Mobo which is pretty well futureproofed for about €100.

I'm sure one of the lads will spec a machine for you if you fill out this and paste it in the thread

Or if you have a particular machine in mind that you want to buy then link it for feedback. As regards Alienware, etc. a lot of what you pay is for the style and name.

ShadowHearth

1k will biuld you a monster pc these days. Your son is lucky, can you adopt me too?

Anyway, there are good few biulds out here in a range from 900-1000eu.

If you want to give it a go yourself then you should look in to these items:

Z68 mobo gen 3
I5 2500k
8gb ram 1333/1600
Ati 6950 or if you have crossfire mobo: 6870x2
650w psu
Ssd if you got left some money.
1080p monitor.


Stay away from Alienware or dell xps. They are decent, but waaaaaaaay overpriced for what they are.

ShadowHearth

saggansingh wrote: »

Resident evil 5: directx 10 on xp 64-bit?

?!

Piliger

Opinicus - thanks a lot for that info. I think that is exactly what I wanted to know.

Tks all !

Serephucus

I'd suggest posting the specs you're planning on buying up when you decide on them, just so we can give them a once over. Always good to have a second set of eyes on this sort of thing.

Piliger

Opinicus wrote: »

Pretty much most of the gaming builds that people are putting together around the €1000 mark lately include the following:

CPU: Intel i5-2500K
GPU: GTX 560Ti or Radeon HD6950
PSU: Super Flower Amazon

Many thanks for that advice.

I have given the rough specs to Marx Computers in North Dublin and they will give me a quote later. I would like to give them business if the price is reasonable as they do really good customer service and have good prices a lot of the time.

Sean^DCT4

Wouldn't recommend the Intel i5 for a gaming PC. I would go with an Intel i7 2600 or i7 2600K. It's about €70 more expensive so I think it's a small price to pay since you're gonna be spending ~€1000

I have Battlefield3 with all graphics set at maximum and I've seen my CPU jump to ~80-85% while in game.

My specs are:

• CPU: i7 2600k running at 4.4GHZ
• Motherboard: Gigabyte P67A UD7-B3
• RAM: 16GB GSkill RipJawsZ
• Hard Disks: 240GB OCZ Vertex3 SSD, 2000GB Western Digital Green
• Graphics Cards: 2x ATI HD6970's
• Monitor: Asus V236HE
• Case: NZXT Phantom (white)
• Power Supply: NZXT HALE90 850Watt Modular (not in photo)
• CPU Fan: Noctua NH14

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/47142750@N04/sets/72157625871414664/show/

ShadowHearth

Sean^DCT4 wrote: »

Wouldn't recommend the Intel i5 for a gaming PC. I would go with an Intel i7 2600 or i7 2600K. It's about €70 more expensive so I think it's a small price to pay since you're gonna be spending ~€1000

I have Battlefield3 with all graphics set at maximum and I've seen my CPU jump to ~80-85% while in game.

My specs are:

• CPU: i7 2600k running at 4.4GHZ
• Motherboard: Gigabyte P67A UD7-B3
• RAM: 16GB GSkill RipJawsZ
• Hard Disks: 240GB OCZ Vertex3 SSD, 2000GB Western Digital Green
• Graphics Cards: 2x ATI HD6970's
• Monitor: Asus V236HE
• Case: NZXT Phantom (white)
• Power Supply: NZXT HALE90 850Watt Modular (not in photo)
• CPU Fan: Noctua NH14

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/47142750@N04/sets/72157625871414664/show/

2600k is prety much useless if you are gaming.

all it has over the i5 2500k - hyperthreading, which does jack **** for gaming.

you can overclock 2500k to same levels as 2600k.

save that 70eu OP and get SSD instead.

Serephucus

Piliger wrote: »

Many thanks for that advice.

I have given the rough specs to Marx Computers in North Dublin and they will give me a quote later. I would like to give them business if the price is reasonable as they do really good customer service and have good prices a lot of the time.

Do us a favour and throw the quote up when you get it? Hopefully it's not outrageous (wouldn't hold my breath).

Also, as Shadowhearth has pointed out already, the 2600K is pointless for games. Stick with the i5.

Sean^DCT4

Can't say I agree with the i7 being a waste for gaming. I suppose it's relative to the graphics card you have and the quality of graphics you want. I would have thought the i5 would be a bottleneck with a decent graphics card.

Just saying my CPU is pushing out at 80-85% with all setting maxed out in BF3. Obviously if you lower your graphics quality/settings there isn't going to be such a load on the CPU.

@Serephucus, @ShadowHearth
Just out of curiosity, have either of you BF3 running on full graphics settings at 1920x1080? And if so, what are your specs and performance i.e. frames per second, CPU load etc?

Tij da feen

Sean^DCT4 wrote: »

Can't say I agree with the i7 being a waste for gaming. I suppose it's relative to the graphics card you have and the quality of graphics you want. I would have thought the i5 would be a bottleneck with a decent graphics card.

Just saying my CPU is pushing out at 80-85% with all setting maxed out in BF3. Obviously if you lower your graphics quality/settings there isn't going to be such a load on the CPU.

@Serephucus, @ShadowHearth
Just out of curiosity, have either of you BF3 running on full graphics settings at 1920x1080? And if so, what are your specs and performance i.e. frames per second, CPU load etc?

In most benchmarks of the i5 and i7 in the same systems the average increase is 1-5 fps, and is some cases the i5 performs. For and extra 70 quid it doesn't seem worth it on a Gaming PC. If you're doing something like encoding videos than that's where the i7 shines because that makes use of the Hyperthreading. Games don't utilise Hyperthreading, and for the forseeable future, they won't

marco_polo

Sean^DCT4 wrote: »

Can't say I agree with the i7 being a waste for gaming. I suppose it's relative to the graphics card you have and the quality of graphics you want. I would have thought the i5 would be a bottleneck with a decent graphics card.

GPUs are most often the bottleneck and in any case all the 2600K really offers is hyperthreading which gives nothing extra in terms of gaming performance. Take that away and it is essentially the same chip with a very small increase in clock speeds and slighly bigger L3 cache (and the lower cache size doesn't seem to hinder the 2500K in games), given that the i5-2500K just loves overclocking the minor speedbump of the 2600K isn't an issue either.

NTMK

Sean^DCT4 wrote: »

Can't say I agree with the i7 being a waste for gaming. I suppose it's relative to the graphics card you have and the quality of graphics you want. I would have thought the i5 would be a bottleneck with a decent graphics card.

Just saying my CPU is pushing out at 80-85% with all setting maxed out in BF3. Obviously if you lower your graphics quality/settings there isn't going to be such a load on the CPU.

@Serephucus, @ShadowHearth
Just out of curiosity, have either of you BF3 running on full graphics settings at 1920x1080? And if so, what are your specs and performance i.e. frames per second, CPU load etc?

I get 90-100 FPS running maxed out settings at 1920x1080

My specs are
CPU: i5 2500k at 3.3GHz
Motherboard: Asrock Z68 Extreme 4
RAM: 8GB g.skill ripjawsX
Graphics Cards: Crossfire HD6970's

My cpu usage is ~80%

In gaming the i5 and i7 perform pretty much the same
The i7 only out performs the i5 in programs that use HT

Serephucus

Sean^DCT4 wrote: »

@Serephucus, @ShadowHearth
Just out of curiosity, have either of you BF3 running on full graphics settings at 1920x1080? And if so, what are your specs and performance i.e. frames per second, CPU load etc?

I don't have Battlefield 3 installed. Not bothered enough with it to install Origin.

kfish2oo2

Sean^DCT4 wrote: »

Can't say I agree with the i7 being a waste for gaming. I suppose it's relative to the graphics card you have and the quality of graphics you want. I would have thought the i5 would be a bottleneck with a decent graphics card.

Just saying my CPU is pushing out at 80-85% with all setting maxed out in BF3. Obviously if you lower your graphics quality/settings there isn't going to be such a load on the CPU.

@Serephucus, @ShadowHearth
Just out of curiosity, have either of you BF3 running on full graphics settings at 1920x1080? And if so, what are your specs and performance i.e. frames per second, CPU load etc?

Benchmarks don't lie. The advantage of a i7 2600K over an i5 2500K is about 1% in gaming (in some cases, that 1% advantage actually goes to the i5 chip!). BF3 has excellent CPU scaling (which, I have to point out, is extremely rare for PC games nowadays), but it still doesn't add up to anything close to €70 worth. The only justification for going for an the i7 over the i5 in a gaming machine is if you intend to use it for multimedia production, which some production packages can make use of hyper threading.

tuxy

Sean^DCT4 wrote: »

Just out of curiosity, have either of you BF3 running on full graphics settings at 1920x1080? And if so, what are your specs and performance i.e. frames per second, CPU load etc?

What you should be asking them is have they played bf3 on extremely low resolution because that's where your i7 should score higher.

Check out this CPU comparison
http://www.techspot.com/review/458-battlefield-3-performance/page7.html
€70 for 1 fps?

ShadowHearth

tuxy wrote: »

What you should be asking them is have they played bf3 on extremely low resolution because that's where your i7 should score higher.

Check out this CPU comparison
http://www.techspot.com/review/458-battlefield-3-performance/page7.html
€70 for 1 fps?

i really doubt anyone playing BF3 or any other game on lower then 1650x1050.


bottom line is: 2600k is useless for PC gamers

Monotype

ShadowHearth wrote: »

i really doubt anyone playing BF3 or any other game on lower then 1650x1050.

Are you serious? While I agree that the marginal cost of a 2600K is usually best spent elsewhere, not everyone around is sitting next to sparkling new systems. The last steam survey (while not a direct measure of origin users) puts more than half the systems with single monitors at 1650x1050 and below. Many people are likely to be casual gamers not playing every latest game but that's a huge assumption to make that everyone is at HD+.

Serephucus

Indeed. I only upgraded from 16x10 to 19x12 around October last year. I'd probably still be using the same one if I hadn't got such a good deal on my current monitor.

Also, as far as I remember, about half of my friends that do any sort of serious gaming are 16x10 or below.

ShadowHearth

i did not say everyone play at 1080p, but most who play BF3 on pc will play it atleast on 1650x1050

god, my 5 years old dell was on 1650x1050 since i got it first time. its hard even get a monitor which is not 16x10++

Sean^DCT4

NTMK wrote: »

I get 90-100 FPS running maxed out settings at 1920x1080

My specs are
CPU: i5 2500k at 3.3GHz
Motherboard: Asrock Z68 Extreme 4
RAM: 8GB g.skill ripjawsX
Graphics Cards: Crossfire HD6970's

My cpu usage is ~80%

In gaming the i5 and i7 perform pretty much the same
The i7 only out performs the i5 in programs that use HT

Surprised at how well this performs. Learn something new...

kfish2oo2 wrote: »

Benchmarks don't lie. The advantage of a i7 2600K over an i5 2500K is about 1% in gaming (in some cases, that 1% advantage actually goes to the i5 chip!). BF3 has excellent CPU scaling (which, I have to point out, is extremely rare for PC games nowadays), but it still doesn't add up to anything close to €70 worth. The only justification for going for an the i7 over the i5 in a gaming machine is if you intend to use it for multimedia production, which some production packages can make use of hyper threading.

Yeah definitely couldn't recommend a chip that costs ~30% more for only a ~2% improvement when the OP stated he wanted it for gaming. The money would be better spent on something else alright.

ShadowHearth wrote: »

i really doubt anyone playing BF3 or any other game on lower then 1650x1050.


bottom line is: 2600k is useless for PC gamers

Well it's far from useless now in fairness, although I can't argue with the fact there's practically no difference between a 2600K and 2500K for gaming.


Just noticed that the i7-2700K is out.. 3.5GHz, around €5-10 cheaper than the 2600K.. Would still seem that the 2500K is the one to go for in this case though.

Piliger

Serephucus wrote: »

I'd suggest posting the specs you're planning on buying up when you decide on them, just so we can give them a once over. Always good to have a second set of eyes on this sort of thing.

Absolutely. I'll check with Marx if they are happy about including the prices in the morning. You may wonder why .. the reason is they are very much a local PC equipment/part seller in North Dublin and have been very good to me and friends who have also used them. So I don't want them to suffer any negatives. The price of this system (ex monitor) is similar to the budget mentioned earlier in the thread.

Intel Core i5 2500K / 3.3 GHz - LGA1155 Socket - L3 6 MB
Intel MicroATX with GB LAN USB3
CoolerMaster Elite RC-430 Case
Super Flower 800W Amazon Bronze 80+
HIS HD6950 IceQ X 2048MB PCI-E 2xDVI/ HDMI/ 2xMiniDP DDR5 Graphics
8GB DDR3
Cardreader
500GB SATA II
No DVD-Writer SATA
Logitech Ultra-Flat Keyboard
Windows 7 Home Premium

Since I got this quote this afternoon I checked out the keyboard and to be honest it looks crap.. I was looking for an 'apple-like' keyboard ... slim and responsive and plenty of finger room.

Also they suggested a 24" LCD screen:
23.6" Wide screen LCD VGA/DVI
HannsG HK241DPB 24" Class Widescreen LCD Monitor
1080p, 1920 x 1080, 16:9
80000:1 Dynamic, 5ms, DVI, VGA
1920x1080 VGA/DVI

I am a little concerned whether this is screen is too 'cheap'. No idea how to evaluate it.

Also I think I will have to get a CD/DVD drive. I thought not at first but was reminded that games come on discs still

Serephucus

Unless you're planning on adding a second graphics card, that PSU is muchos overkill. You'd be perfectly fine with the 450W model.

I take it all that was around the €1,000 mark? Just for comparison's sake: (it's a fair chunk of change)

Item|Price
Total build cost: €748.33 + €30 shipping
BitFenix Merc Beta|€31.61
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W|€40.89
ASRock P67 Pro3 (B3), Sockel 1155, ATX|€82.61
8GB-Kit GeIL Enhance Corsa PC3-10667U CL9-9-9-24 (DDR3-1333)|€30.58
XFX RADEON HD 6950 800M 1GB DDR5 DUAL MINIDP HDMI DUAL DVI|€208.18
Intel Core i5-2500K Box, LGA1155|€195.78
Hitachi DESKSTAR 7K1000.C 500GB, 16MB, SATA II, 8,9cm (3,5")|€79.00
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit (SB-Version)|€79.68

ShadowHearth

Serephucus wrote: »

Unless you're planning on adding a second graphics card, that PSU is muchos overkill. You'd be perfectly fine with the 450W model.

I take it all that was around the €1,000 mark? Just for comparison's sake: (it's a fair chunk of change)

Item|Price
Total build cost: €748.33 + €30 shipping
BitFenix Merc Beta|€31.61
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W|€40.89
ASRock P67 Pro3 (B3), Sockel 1155, ATX|€82.61
8GB-Kit GeIL Enhance Corsa PC3-10667U CL9-9-9-24 (DDR3-1333)|€30.58
XFX RADEON HD 6950 800M 1GB DDR5 DUAL MINIDP HDMI DUAL DVI|€208.18
Intel Core i5-2500K Box, LGA1155|€195.78
Hitachi DESKSTAR 7K1000.C 500GB, 16MB, SATA II, 8,9cm (3,5")|€79.00
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit (SB-Version)|€79.68

450w psu in there looks like an insult.... just saying

why nottake some 600w just for peace of mind.

OP, did you specificly asked microATX board? any more info on board?

Serephucus

ShadowHearth wrote: »

450w psu in there looks like an insult.... just saying

why nottake some 600w just for peace of mind.

Because it's not needed. Even a 580, which is far more power hungry, would be fine on a 550W.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-6950-6970-review/11

312W under full load, for a 6970. 800W is utterly ridiculous, 600W is also overkill.

Piliger

ShadowHearth wrote: »

OP, did you specificly asked microATX board? any more info on board?

No. No idea about boards :rolleyes:

Piliger

Serephucus wrote: »

Just for comparison's sake: (it's a fair chunk of change)

Total build cost: €748.33 + €30 shipping

Is that parts only or ready built ? from that German place ? I do accept that people need to earn a living and there has to be some cost to get them (Marx to build it for me)

Serephucus

Piliger wrote: »

Is that parts only or ready built ? from that German place ? I do accept that people need to earn a living and there has to be some cost to get them (Marx to build it for me)

Hardwareversand charge €20 for building, which can be added if you want. I'd happily build it for you for free (as would plenty here) if that helps you. For most of us, it's a hobby, and fun.

-( i )- Wicker

Piliger wrote: »

Also I think I will have to get a CD/DVD drive. I thought not at first but was reminded that games come on discs still

I buy pretty much all my games on steam now, no disks to change every time you want to play a game. Plus everything's saved to your account so you dont need to worry about losing disks.

Anyways, you can pick up a dvd drive for about €20 these days, so its worth picking one up just to have it.

Piliger

By the way thanks for all the advice and help you guys... appreciate it a lot:p