Be Excellent To Each Other

Me wanting to get a new laptop/pc over the last year has finally come to the point when I have to spend some money and get one since my laptop has finally croaked. Refuses to turn on or chargewhen plugged in, battery or not.

Anyway I was thinking of getting a desktop PC and using my hd telly as the monitor, I've been using the same method since my laptop screen broke and have somehow gotten used to it. I was thinking of hooking them up with an hdmi would that give a proper monitor looking picture on my telly or am I dreaming there.
I was looking for something that could do a bit gaming and recording and my attempts of searching has brought up this PC which I was wondering if it was good value, over-priced, or just good in general.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/239775

I'd imagine £500 would be around the max I'd pay.

I purchased a similar Zoostorm model for my parents last week. Just had a slightly better processor and a slightly lesser graphics card and it was very well built and performs superbly.

I am sure JC will be along to tell you to get an Alienware shortly or you could get a 360 or some very good chef knives with that budget.

Any pre built is over priced. Unless you absolutely don't want to build one avoid them.

If, however, you have no choice then yeah go ahead and get one

I'll do some poking and see what I can find but if gaming isn't ness then I would go with Dell every time as they're cheaper and more solid.

Try this link

http://outlet.euro.dell.com/Online/Seco ... l=en&s=dfh

* Studio XPS 7100
* Studio XPS 7100 : AMD Phenom II X6 1035T (2.60GHz, 512kx6)
* Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)
* MOD,HD,1TB,S2,#1,SMSNG,F3
* 6144MB (2x2GB) (2x1GB)1067MHz DDR3 Dual Channel
* MOD,DVD+/-RW,HH,16X,INSP,TSST

Price........ £424.43
Price Incl. VAT and excl. delivery... £498.71

Review of it here. Very nice system. Great to see it has a PCIE slot too.

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1 ... ction.html

I've heard that these guys are really good

This system for £500 looks (to me) slightly better spec than that one from ebuyer, and you can chop and change any components if you want. Although I didn't check shipping costs.

The link doesn't work but I went on dell to check it out and Im sure its a fair bit more than the £500 you've said when you change the specs to what you've got.
How does it compare to the zoostorm one spec-wise?
Also I need an hdmi port and I can't tell if them dell ons have got one.

firstly that *is* the spec. See pic. If not then it's false adding.

Sorry I didnt have time to break it down earlier..

OK. Firstly the Thuban X6 (hex cored phenom 2) will take a flying shite on that core 2 quad. The C2Q is old hat mate and has been replaced with the I3 I5 and I7. The Thuban is the new six cored tech from AMD and the latest.

The Samsung F3 1TB is the fastest moving parts hard drive money can buy.

It has 6gb of ram as opposed to 4 in the one you specced.

The GTS 450 card in the one you specced? well, putting it bluntly I could wank faster than that. It's basically a 460 GTX cut in half that costs £20 less than the 460. Another stupid card from Nvidia then !

The Dell is better built, better specced in every department (has a built in card reader too) and will be far more solid. It also has a PCIE slot so you can throw in, say, a 460 GTX or something similar down the line and turn it into a good gaming system.

For £500 it's a steal. Nothing you will find for that will come close IMO. RRP was £600 and the components are all still very current.

If you do a search on HotUKDeals for Dell computers you can find a working link. Takes you through to the business deals so you can get a cheaper spec. That's how I did mine.

The one I linked to is refurb, so far far cheaper than any special on a new one. It also has a full warranty.

And the link works fine for me

Excellent thanks alot.

Also does anyone know if what the compatibilty of the xbox 360 pad for windows is like. I heard it could only work with certain games.

Wired works with all games that use GFWL. Infact it works with pretty much all now and is the standard.

Wireless? well you either need to hack apart a reciever or buy the horrendously priced PC version. Just use a wired

Whilst we're in a computer-related thread, what's the generally-accepted minimum spec processor these days? Core 2 Duo? i3? Other?

For gaming? usually a 2.2ghz core 2 duo for minimum.

not just GFWL, but "Games for Windows".

Edit: Yeah, I'd have though a mega graphics card is way more important than a high end processor for gaming.

Runcle. Please take the time to read through the review on Hardware heaven. It contains important info.

Firstly I dug up..

The ram is Kingston (a good thing, I knew the Dell would excel in the quality depot)

Starting price with an Athlon 2 (parp) was £479. Looking around I can not find a system based around the 1035T (the CPU) for less than £600 and they're all crappy brands like Fujitsu

The review system on the site (HWH) comes with a Radeon 5670 which if included in the one on Dell's site will beat the 450.

I will try and find out exactly what card comes in it

For general use really (only computer-based game I've played since 1996 was/is Minecraft). I guess with 2.8Ghz C2D I'm in the clear for both types of uses.

With macs less is more. So yes, a 2.8ghz c2d would be heaps. Infact even in PC terms that would be heaps.

Some reason you cant see all the details on the refurb part. But in the new section the default graphics card seems to be the 5450.

Fucking hell. I just realised just how cheap those refurbs are

I went to the configurator and specced it up. £749

Base price is £699 with the 1035T and that's before you add 6gb ram instead of 4gb.

If it comes with the 5670 in (and it should, that's the base card) then it's an absolute fucking bargain. It has no onboard, so I can assume it definitely carries a 5670.

Looking through the review on HWH it can easily bash out Dirt 2 and Starcraft 2 at respectable frames @ 1920x1080.

Runc just noticed your post. I specced one up using the 1035T £699 min and the base card was deffo the 5670.

Even if it isn't it's so cheap you could throw in a 460 and have a pretty serious gaming machine on your hands.

Here mate, these pics. Chances are you're looking at the 4 cored Phenom 2 model starts at £599

*smug mode*
I was banging on about refurbs a few months back. I usually build my own desktops, but for laptops & if you cant be arsed, always check out refurbs. Awesome value, full warranty - what's not to like?

Yeah, they seemed to have really good prices when I was looking at netbooks there, just didn't have any of the models that I was after.

I'll defo check them out whenever I'm getting a new PC.

Yeah a mate of mine showed me it a few months ago. Deffo Dell refurb FTW. Time you were done faffing around getting your hands dirty you can just buy one. I know the 1055T cpu from AMD is £150. The 1035 is not very far behind (200mhz) but isn't available to any one other than OEMs (boooo lol)

I like Dell. I know every one gives them a hard time but all you need to do is reinstall and you get a nice solid well put together PC. Bit shit if you're into overclocking but that's definitely a niche market.

Lewie. Not sure what spec you are after on a notie mate but check out Argos' clearance Ebay thingermebub. They have piss cheap Acers all the time mate.

Oh I already got one now thanks, I just meant when I was looking, Dell Outlet had some good offers on ones that weren't quite what I was after.

Don't you have to be a business?

BTW if you are confident enough to put a PC together...



FTW. Only replace the Pentium with a I3 as the I3 has dropped to £73. It's basically the Pentium but it has Hyper Threading. And also replace the 5770 with a 768mb 460 GTX and you have a wee powerhouse on your mitts.

Your Xbox is a wee powerhouse.

Got my dell refurb today. Its quite handsome.

Graphics Card is an ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series, Coffey.
Although I'm not savy enough to figure out which model it is.

Erm.. It has to be the 5750 we thought it was mate. Wait. We thought it was a 5670.

Install this and fire it up and it'll tell you

Either way you have had a result there. Lovely spec, lovely CPU and a looker too

See pic. Your card ID should come up at the top.

EDIT. After looking back over the configurator the next card up is the 5770. That adds £110 to the price meaning you could have just bagged an £860 PC for £498. Haha, doesn't get much better than that

My Mum's old desktop has just exploded (not really, but the mobo is bust, and it's like 5/6 years old).

JC, or anyone else, could you keep an eye out for a good deal on a desktop for sub-£500. That Studio XPS 7100 would have been ideal, but looks like they haven't got any more available.

She already has a nice screen, and wants to play lots of games on it.

Edit: No hurry mind, I'd guess that the deals will be better post-Christmas?

My last two PCs have come from e-bay sellers. This one is med range duel core , 4gb ram, windows 7 and I shoehorned my decent card into it. It runs fallout NV on max settings and came to £350.

For £500 you can get something like this + an OS http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Intel-Core-i3-Gam ... 19c0dc3e19

Every PC I've ever bought was a refurb. I've never been ahead of the curb, or even with it, but for £100 I got a PC in late 2007 that I'm still using, having since added a second hard drive, a drop of RAM, and a graphics card that comfortably runs Fallout 3. Altogether it's been about £240, and I can happily play far more games than I have time to even install.

This PC will give you an extra 3% on your grass rendering benchmarks, for only an additional £5000. It will work without breaking 3% of the time, too!

So uh, if dell outlet have a Studio XPS 7100 in stock, with 6gb of RAM, does that mean it definitely has a 5770 gfx card? They don't seem to list spec for gpu on the outlet page.

BELATED HIJACK

I am toying with the crazy notion of buying a new pc. It will be primarily for games, but I don't particularly care how shiny the graphics are - I would rather that things ran better than look 2% glossier, and having hyooge battles in Mount and Blade matters more to me than having tiny battles but more detailed grass. I will want maximum backwards compability as well.

I'll probably go for a complete system because it's less faffing about. Bankroll is 400 - 500 quid. What should I look out for?

Have been coveting some of the deals on here recently. Few years ago they were rubbish deals but right now I think they are the best pre-built prices on the internet, plus they have a warrenty. You should invest in a external HD to keep al your stuff on because if it has to go back to PC world for any reason they wipe the machine - in the past that stopped me from even thinking about them but the technology has evolved to the point that 2TB externals that I can run world of warcraft from actually exist.

Fortunately I have a pretty decent-sized external hard drive from last year, used to keep stuff safe from the twattos I was living with. It's about 160Gb, which I've not come close to filling up since. It is a little strange that they wipe the thing no matter what, though.

Ta for the link!

I'm currently looking at http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk , which was recommended earlier. I like the layout of the ordering page - having everything laid out so you can customise it, with its associated cost, is a very nice idea. The downside is that I have absolutely no idea what 90% of the options actually mean.

This is from about 5 years ago with the 'rents but I doubt it has changed: When they replace hardware they test it by plugging your pc into their own machine/network so as a precaution against any virus they format and re-install the os/PC world disks on your machine before touching it. To be fair I know my machine is going to be fine but I wouldn't want my PC near the same usb that's been plugged into some 14 year old's virus infested porn box.

My Alienware.

Yes, "look out for" as in "avoid".

Wow, there's so many options there, you may as well pick the bits yourself from Scan or eBuyer and build the bloody thing yourself! Still, I suppose at least through these guys you'll get a warranty. I notice they seem to be really pushing liquid-cooled systems too. I've never built one myself, so that alone puts me off them, but I definitely don't think you want a liquid-cooled PC. You don't seem to be someone after extreme overclocking and all that bobbins, so an air-cooled system will be just fine for you.

To help you pick a PC, take a look at these links:
- This is a hierarchical list of CPUs in terms of gaming performance.
- This is a hierarchical list of graphics cards, listed by performance.

When you find a deal that looks interesting, check where the CPU and graphics card come on that list to see if it'll be worthwhile. For reference, my old PC had a Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 CPU (4th section down in the CPU list) and a Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT graphics card (9th section down in that list) and I reckon it would've given you the kind of performance you're after, so it's not like you need to be aiming especially high.

I'd aim for something that had a minimum of 4GB RAM and a 64-bit version of Windows 7 to accommodate it. Of course, this could fuck up your backwards compatibility hopes, but I think you're going to have problems running older games on modern hardware whatever you do, unless you buy your games from http://www.gog.com.

If that's not acceptable, go for something with between 2GB and 4GB RAM (absolute maximum) and acquire your own 32-bit copy of Windows XP from somewhere.

Hopefully this helps get you started!

Those are good lists. Are they up to date? My graphics card(s) is(are) sixth on the list

Yeah, both December 2010. Tom's Hardware do a new list for both CPUs and GPUs every month, both pretty useful if you're looking to buy or build something for gaming.

Edit: My current CPU is in the top section and my GPU is 6th down. That CPU was a proper bargain, really good, even running it at stock speed as I'm currently doing. To tell the truth, every single game I own can be run at my monitor's full resolution (1680x1050) with everything on highest settings (with AA between 4x and 8x) with absolutely cracking performance - normally 60 FPS with vsync on.

Most PC games these days are console ports anyway, and it's no trouble for a modern PC to outperform a PS3 or Xbox 360.

Same as me!
I've got an i7 930 and a strapped pair of GTS 250s.

Oh wait, the GPU is seventh down, I skipped the blank box.

You've got a far better CPU than me in real-world terms though: mine is a Core i5-750. I think it's just one of those CPUs where the bang-for-buck ratio in gaming terms is pretty much spot on. My graphics card is the GTX 280, which is a particular bargain when you consider that it can also be used as a small radiator for convenient under desk heating. My feet are nice and toasty whenever I'm using my PC now.

5xx series Geforce GPUs only released about a month ago.

My CPU is at 2 and my GPU at 3. Which isn't bad considering I have spent £750 (I've inced the cost of parts carried over too).

Looked at a machine similar to mine recently and Yoyo wanted £1050. Which would be cool if mine wasn't better across the board (better cooling, same case, I have a better GPU, SSD etc etc).

Really? because looking down that list a stock clocked Phenom 2 940 is at number four and a 400mhz overclock takes it to number two. 4gb Dominator ram in there means nothing needs touching and I want £300 for it. Add in a GTX 570 and you come in just shy of £600 and it will take a flying shit on anything costing around that much.

How does the saying go? never judge a book by its cover, it's not what's on the outside ETC ETC.

Edit. £600 powerhouse. Two of my mates ordered these last night on the 10% down pay in 9 months. Easy OC to 4ghz, sick GPU, gaming monster for not much cash.

Yeah, cheers. I've no major problem with building my own one - all my pcs so far have been somewhat Frankenstein-y - but that it's a lot of hassle I'd rather avoid, and I don't have the faintest idea what most technical things mean, so don't want to end up paying £100 for a card or fan or whatever that I can't use with the other bits. Plus the warranty thing, aye.



Thank you for that. I did wonder, as I suspected the whole fancypants cooling stuff was only really necessary for people who like their PC to be able to shoot lasers at passing aircraft, but I wasn't really sure.



Brilliant! Thanks very much, this is exactly the kind of advice I need - ballpark figures and standards, like.