Be Excellent To Each Other

Am sure there was a post in this thread about Cheap gaming PCs for around £250 not so long back, can't find the link now.

Hive mind please help me, my better half is looking to get a new PC as hers is very old now, we don't need a HDD (although am tempted to get a SSD for the OS) or OS (or monitor keyboard etc) but need all the other gubbins including the case powers supply etc...

I have no idea when it comes to the current range of PC bits and bobs, have been out of the game for too long.

Anyone kind enough to help and point me in the right direction?


Many Thanks Beex

What will the PC be used for?

If games are in the mix, what size (resolution) screen will you be playing on, how much do you like the pretties, and are you talking about older games or new games?

With that information it's pretty easy to target a specification.

Also, will you be building yourself or buying off the shelf?

PC will mainly be used for games, mainly older games but would be nice to be able to run the new games with half decent graphics. She's not into first person shooters, more of the Warcraft, Rift etc

She likes the pretties but the graphics don't have to be uber

It will also be used for Jabber VCing

Will be on a 20 inch monitor for now but may upgrade to a nice widescreen job in the future.

Cheers AE

Self-build, off the shelf, or either?

If you can do a self-build then the can use one of the new AMD APUs, which makes them amazingly cheap. (In fact, if you want under £300 it'll have to use an APU.)

Self build is what I am thinking of, built a few PCs back in the day and it is supposed to be easier now isn't it? Although if the right PC was on the shelf at the right price then I wouldn't complain.

Right, here's the 'expensive' one.

This is using a decent branded case (recent winner of a Custom PC Budget Case Labs Test) and a quality branded PSU. I've also bunged 8GB of RAM in there.

There's also a good 64GB SSD for OS, apps, and you'll get a game or two on there as well.

This'll run you £315 and you'll need to add a hard drive for data storage.

Will run a modern game like Skyrim on high detail at 1080p (way beyond XBox 360 graphical levels, for reference).



And here's it really done on the cheap, using a no-name case with a built-in power supply and a cheap hard drive. Only 4GB of RAM in this one.

Knock £34 off if you're reusing a hard drive.

Obviously there is middle ground between the two options



Do you need to buy an OS? Windows 7 Premium 64-bit will set you back £74.

Finally, I really would try to get an SSD in there, the difference it makes to the overall PC experience is incredible.

If you can stretch to a 128GB, you can use it for games too.

EDIT - The motherboard doesn't have HDMI on it by the way, you'll need a more expensive one for that.

Actually, the on-board GPU benefits from faster RAM, 8GB of 2133MHz DDR3 is reasonable at £39.

http://www.ebuyer.com/394939-kingston-8 ... c11t2k2-8x

I would stretch to that as the GPU will get a tangible boost from it.

Here's the current Custom PC budget build, for reference.

Knock £50 off this as they're including a full-price Win 7 licence.

Cheers AE, will have a good look at it tomorrow Much appreciated though.

Just out of curiosity what do you think of Tomshardware.co.uk? The better half has been looking at it and it seems to be recommending the Pentium G860, how does that compaire to the AMD A10?

I'll just briefly chip in here and express my amazement at the kind of PC £300-odd buys these days. Incredible stuff; I might even be tempted myself for that kind of dough. Probably handles CAD and the like pretty well, too, as well as games.

It will give the AMD chip a bit of a kicking in raw processing power terms (usually referred to as '2D work'), but the integrated GPU isn't even vaguely capable of any sort of gaming duties, so you need to add a wedge of cash onto the build price for a discrete graphics card.

(Plus, just about any 'proper' CPU is plenty fast enough these days when it comes to 2D duties.)

You can buy a half-decent graphics card for about £100, so the £45 or so you save on the CPU is immediately wiped out and £55 is added onto the overall build price.

A discrete graphics card also puts extra strain on the PSU (making the super-budget PSUs less of a viable choice) and adds an extra fan (more noise) to the system, as well as more heat output.

I know, the idea that you can buy a fully featured PC for less than £300, let alone one that will wipe the floor with a 360/PS3 when it comes to games, is pretty incredible.

Especially since games are a lot cheaper on the PC as well.

I was going to buy another XBox360 the other day for AE Jnr since she likes Sonic Racing so much, and was amazed to find that a basic console pack with no extras still costs £155!

Sainsburys were selling the 4GB 360 'S' for £99 in their sales so if your serious about this then have a look around (4GB is fine for basic stuff and if you really wanted to install games then i'd just pick up a USB memory stick instead of a HDD)

(and I apologise for talking about Xbox stuff in your PC thread :-)

The standard price even on the cheapy 4GB model seems to be £140, which I think is too damn much for a seven year old console that can't even run a Sonic racing game properly.

Even if I could snag it cheaper in a sale, it'll be redundant within 12 months as I'll almost certainly grab a 720 when that comes out.

I've just admitted defeat and moved my 360 over to the big telly, so AE Jnr can play Sonic and I at least get back the use of my PC

The one thing I recall about tons hardware was when they sold out and started recommending one brand ( I think nvidia) because they had an advertising deal with them.

Malc

Latest budget graphics card round-up at Eurogamer.

The ATI 7850, at a very reasonable £120, can run fucking anything, maxed out, at 60FPS + 1080p

Quite an achievement.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/df-ha ... rade-guide

This is as good a thread as any. I was just wondering if there are many games that actually support dual monitors? I doubt there are any that require them, but for those that have one, it'd be handy for showing a map screen or inventory screen for example.

Off the top of my head you can't get a second/third screen to do 'extra' stuff for the main game, you basically just span/stretch the game window itself across however many screens you have, with an extended FOV.

A couple of the chaps I play with online have a dual monitor setup, and they use one monitor for the game, and the other monitor for the Teamspeak client, wowhead (back when we were playing WoW, it's like a GameFAQs dedicated to WoW), and so on.

I think part of the problem might be that it could be considered cheaty if people were using extra screens to 'see more stuff' or 'be able to do stuff more easily', if you get my drift.

Fair point. It could be done in single-player games though I suppose?

Driving, flight and train sims come to mind. It's pretty common to be able to run 3 monitors and have the side monitors show side windows. Also, smartglass on forza gives you a map on your iPad screen.

I think in World In Conflict, or another game, the minimap/map thingy would take up your extra screen.

Supreme Commander is a RTS that uses two monitors. I tended to leave one over my base and have the other for hunting things.

man, i forgot about that game!

Bit of a random hardware purchase today, a wireless keyboard and mouse from the Shoprite in Douglas.

(Shoprite is the most bizarre supermarket ever, they stock loads of Iceland stuff at one end of the spectrum, and loads of Waitrose stuff at the other, alongside all the usual brands you'd expect to see. They also have a half-hearted electronics section, and kitchen section, and they have a Peacocks in there selling clothes, and so on. Up until about four years ago I kid you not, they had 10 packs of floppy discs on the shelves in the 'tech' section.)

Anyway, they're for the media centre PC, as I've stuck with the wired keyboard and mouse it came with up until now, but that's not ideal.

For £17 they certainly seem to do the job. Needless to say it's not the best keyboard and mouse you'll ever see, but they work fine and there was no installation whatsoever, (there wasn't even a driver disc in the box), just put the batteries in the keyboard, put the batteries in the mouse, plugged the USB wireless dongle in, it went off for the drivers by itself and it all just worked.

I can well imagine going down the mini-ITX PC route instead of buying a next-gen console. With a wireless keyboard and mouse, along with a wireless gamepad - it'll tick all the boxes.

"How to build the perfect gaming PC for 2013 – and beyond" says the Gruaniad.

*listens for AE running to his keyboard*

That's a pretty good article in all fairness, very little I'd take issue with.

Surprisingly in-depth and accurate for a mainstream newspaper.

Blimey.

No mini map for the PC!

LOLZ OMFG WTF

The next-gen won't look like that, BTW.

Budget gaming PC build in Custom PC this month.

£389 if you go down the AMD APU route, £520 if you go down the Intel route.

The Intel variant gets a discrete graphics card and quite a bit more horsepower in both 2D and 3D work, but even the AMD variant can basically get the job done at 1080p.

Not much money for a gaming PC that will last you years, and will also perform media PC duties and suchlike too. Looking at the way the wind is blowing for the next-gen of consoles, maybe worth a think?

They also had a couple of pages on modding the case but I didn't bother with those....

Any ideas for a backlit keyboard that doesn't cost a fortune or feel like shit to use?

I've been spoilt by my laptop

I had a Microsoft Reclusa that was really nice, until it just stopped working the other day. HTH

Thanks. Seems to be discontinued but there's another MS backlit one that looks ok.

PCs are shit!!

But seriously, backlit? I rarely even look at my keyboard. Spend the money you save not buying pointless lights on a mechanical keyboard!

Oh hark at Mavis Beacon!

yu[umh od rsdu"

Meh!

I prefer to be able to type without putting the lights on too brightly.

If you can still get the Saitek Cyborg then I'd recommend that, I've been using one for years and despite looking a bit like a teenager's tacky wet dream, it's a really good keyboard.

Hmmmm yes they are still out there, is £80 too much? I know it's not a trivial amount of money but it's like a set of speakers or a monitor, a good one will last for years and years so worth spending a bit more on upfront?

http://www.flightstore.co.uk/flight-sim ... 20ads#2803

Or £71 off eBay - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SAITEK-CYBORG ... 2ec49f12b3

I can't remember how much I paid for mine, it wasn't cheap, but it's done me proud for years. Actually, just dug out my Overclockers order history (this is before I stopped buying from them forever due to racism), mine is now nearly four years old, and it still feels like a brand new keyboard.

On the downside, it now appears to be nearly twice as expensive as it used to be......

Saitek Cyborg?! I'm never taking you seriously again!

This is a proper keyboard: http://www.keyboardco.com/keyboard_deta ... RODUCT=646

Yes, pricier still, but will last literally FOREVER. I regularly spunk on mine.

(BTW: There are like 10 iterations of the Saitek Cyborg keyboard. You probably have an older model, the current one being more expensive.)

Son of a bitch! You can get a camo one now! http://www.keyboardco.com/keyboard_deta ... RODUCT=897

Literally forever? Impressive!

Yes I'm sure a cherry switch keyboard would be nice and when my Cyborg finally gives up the ghost I'll probably get one, but in the meantime I'm four years in with my Cyborg and it's still doing fine, plus it's backlit which I like.

I can make different parts of the keyboard different colours, it's fun. I have literally bedded fifty girls as a result of them swooning over this keyboard.

Your keyboard may be coated in spunk, mine is dripping with fanny juice. Literally.

Fucking hell! It looks like something out of Flight of the Navigator.

edit: At least you made the right choice with your mouse.

Now that you're aware that I've spent more than you on a PC peripheral, will you stop bugging me about PCs?

Needs more LEDs

A HUNDRED POUNDS for a fucking keyboard?

Madness.

Buy cheap, buy twice!