Gaming PC/Laptop - All Advice Appreciated

Mister-M5

Hey Guys,

Looking into buying a gaming computer. Was leaning towards a laptop because there's a good chance of me moving in the next couple of months but that's not set in stone. Don't need a crazy high spec system by the way. Decent framerate, graphics card and cooling are the main things. Anyway, here's the template from the stickies, all advice appreciated.

Cheers

1. What is your budget? Up to €750

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? Gaming - WOW - Framerate and Graphics

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? No

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? No - Case maybe

5. Do you need a monitor? Yes if desktop

5a. If yes, what size do you need. I'd like a large, 22'' maybe

5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future? 1920x1080

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? All if building desktop, again laptop suggestions are appreciated

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? Yes

8. How can you pay? Any method

9. When are you purchasing? Within a month

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? Wouldn't need help thank you

***Can be second hand***

Thanks again

Procrastastudy

€750 on a desktop = gaming happyness. €750 on a lappy = pile of pooh.

Do you want to look at a smaller form factor PC or are you gonna man up and deal with a proper sized PC? (I'm only kidding are you moving far?)

Also I'm not sure how portable any machine with a 22 foot screen would be.

IrishMetalhead

I vote small form factor PC, I specced up one there real quick including the monitor, mouse and speakers but buy your keyboard locally or on a uk or irish site as you need it to be in uk/irish qwerty layout:

Item|Price
Intel Core i3-2120 Box, LGA1155|€112.03
ASRock H61M-ITX, Sockel 1155, ITX|€65.03
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€35.68
HIS HD 7850 GDDR5 1024MB DVI/HDMI/2xMini DP|€202.47
Samsung SH-222BB schwarz|€16.54
Seagate Barracuda 7200 500GB SATA 6GB's|€60.99
Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced, Mini-ITX, ohne Netzteil|€44.67
Thermaltake Smart Power 530W|€42.99
ASUS VE228T|€113.35
Sharkoon FireGlider - Maus - Laser - 7 Taste(n)|€20.66
Hercules XPS 2.0 10 Gloss|€11.52
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€744.92

altho if you are to keen on a gaming laptop best place to look would be pcspecialist.co.uk where you can configure your own custom laptop and it's alot cheaper then most pre-build laptops

Mister-M5

Procrastastudy wrote: »

Also I'm not sure how portable any machine with a 22 foot screen would be.

Haha gave it the old Edit - Don't tell anyone:D

Procrastastudy

Did you have a think re Small form factor v ATX (full sized PC) v Laptop?

Mister-M5

IrishMetalhead wrote: »

I vote small form factor PC, I specced up one there real quick including the monitor, mouse and speakers but buy your keyboard locally or on a uk or irish site as you need it to be in uk/irish qwerty layout:

Item|Price
Intel Core i3-2120 Box, LGA1155|€112.03
ASRock H61M-ITX, Sockel 1155, ITX|€65.03
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€35.68
HIS HD 7850 GDDR5 1024MB DVI/HDMI/2xMini DP|€202.47
Samsung SH-222BB schwarz|€16.54
Seagate Barracuda 7200 500GB SATA 6GB's|€60.99
Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced, Mini-ITX, ohne Netzteil|€44.67
Thermaltake Smart Power 530W|€42.99
ASUS VE228T|€113.35
Sharkoon FireGlider - Maus - Laser - 7 Taste(n)|€20.66
Hercules XPS 2.0 10 Gloss|€11.52
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€744.92

altho if you are to keen on a gaming laptop best place to look would be pcspecialist.co.uk where you can configure your own custom laptop and it's alot cheaper then most pre-build laptops

Thanks very much for putting the time into this, will have a look into all of these.

Would a system like this be capable of running games like WOW on maybe 75% max ability settings do you know?

Cheers again

IrishMetalhead

Well WOW isn't a very demanding game to be fair so it would just plow through the game on maximum settings, that graphics card is capable of playing BF3 on high settings at 1920x1080 and games like skyrim on maximum again on 1920x1080 with a good frame rate it's a beast of a system but if you were to get a laptop in the same price range you'll probably looking at 75% if your lucky

edit: heres some benchmarks, altho the 7850 in that chart is a 2GB model it's going to be near the exact same as the 1GB model on 1920x1080 and lower because the extra GB of memory is only used for gaming on ultra high resolutions:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7870-review-benchmark,3148-16.html

Mister-M5

Cheers for all the info guys.

Had a chat with one of my mates there who reckons if it's just good graphics and a high framrate for WOW I'm after, I could probably get away with a lot less than €750?

Has anyone got any knowledge on those VIBOX computers? Or would I be best off building piece by piece on a budget?

You'll have to excuse my ignorance by the way, I was just made aware of these factor form PCs from this thread.

IrishMetalhead

vibox? never heard of them tbh, but if your looking for the best peformance for your euro you can't beat custom buidling your own tbh, you could maybe get aqay with lowering you budget to 700 if you cut down the graphics card but i wouldn't go lower then that since your looking for a full set-up rather then just the desktop

edit: managed to get it down to €640 but i wouldn't recommend it since i had to sacrifice a sandybridge i3 for an old amd phenom ii and the case is slightly larger but stil lfairly small but i don't see anyway of cutting thid down further unless you replace the 6870 with a 7750 which i don't particularly recommend either as it would barely be classfied as a gaming pc with that altho it's a amazing budget card:

Item|Price
AMD Phenom II X4 945 Box, 95W, Sockel AM3|€78.90
ASRock 960GM/U3S3 FX, Sockel AM3+, mATX|€51.37
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€35.68
Sapphire HD6870 1G GDDR5 PCI-E DL-DVI-I+SL-DVI-D / HDMI / DP|€154.12
Samsung SH-222BB schwarz|€16.54
Seagate Barracuda 7200 500GB SATA 6GB's|€60.99
FRACTAL DESIGN Gehäuse Core 1000 black|€35.08
Thermaltake Smart Power 530W|€42.99
ASUS VE228T|€113.35
Sharkoon FireGlider - Maus - Laser - 7 Taste(n)|€20.66
Hercules XPS 2.0 10 Gloss|€11.52
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€640.19

IrishMetalhead

and this would be the very lowest you could possibly go:

Item|Price
Intel Pentium G630 Box, LGA1155|€56.90
ASRock H61M-HVS (B3), Sockel 1155, mATX|€40.94
MSI R7750-PMD1GD5/OC, 1024MB DDR5, PCI-Express|€100.33
Samsung SH-222BB schwarz|€16.54
Seagate Barracuda 7200 500GB SATA 6GB's|€60.99
FRACTAL DESIGN Gehäuse Core 1000 black|€35.08
Thermaltake Smart Power 530W|€42.99
ASUS VE228T|€113.35
Hercules XPS 2.0 10 Gloss|€11.52
4GB Corsair Valueselect DDR3-1333 CL9|€18.68
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€516.31

few changes like the dual-core processor and the 7750 and going down to 4gb of ram, also got rid of the speakers since the monitor has built in ones which i would ordinarally recommend but it's a good option if your on a tight budget

ScumLord

I've moved house twice with a full desktop PC, it's not that hard to pack up a PC and move it, especially considering you'll be moving the entire contents of a house at the same time. The possibility of moving shouldn't stop you from buying the best tool for the job.

I wouldn't set a low demand game as your benchmark for building the PC either. Try to future proof as much as you can.