talk to me about pcs

[sylar]

im considering getting a new desktop because mine is slowly giving up on me which i dont want to admit because its my child

but i guess i should start looking at some for when the inevitable happens and i dont wanna get scammed or anything and i know you nerds know about computers

im looking for one i can game on mostly. nothing super hefty, just stuff like tera or gw2 and some steam games. i also need it for art and generally just dicking about online.

my budget right now is about £700, which probably isnt going to get me much in terms of Good Gaming PCs but what can i say

i know this is pretty vague but ill give further deets if needed

[Del]

i'll be the first to say "build your own pc" because you'll get way more out of the money if you do that.

beyond that, i know that at least gw2 is fairly easy to run, since it runs on my 6 year old computer just fine at max settings. i dunno what kind of hardware you need to run art stuff (i assume photoshop etc) well but it's probably not all ~that~ intensive. i think the only big thing is to try and get one with a dedicated graphics card because integrated graphics is dumb.

this PC looks pretty nice, with an i7-3770 and 8GB RAM. the graphics card isn't the best but i'm pretty sure it'll be able to run most steam games fine (for comparison i run something in the AMD 68xx series, i think a 6850? which is four gpus up on that comparison chart, and it runs everything at at least high). comes with a monitor too which is always nice. right under budget at £699.

i'll admit that my hardware knowledge is a tiny bit lacking but i'm pretty sure for a pre-built this is a decent deal. again though, i'd recommend going self-built if you wanna get the most out of your money.

i'm sure someone with slightly better hardware knowledge will come in and post a better pc for the price range or something but at least i tried zzzzzzz

[Kpyna]

Again, I'll second build your own PC. I spent around what you're looking to spend (Well, I bought during a sale, so I got a slightly better deal), and I have a PC that has a Solid State Drive, and 1 Terabyte of storage space. I bought this two years ago and it still runs like I just bought it. Gaming wise, I can run any game that I've purchased thus far on ultra. I also bought like a million fans. With its current hardware, I can say it would last me throughout college. However, there's a pretty high chance I'll be popping old pieces out and putting newer ones in. I probably have one of the nicest PCs out of anyone I know. I spent a lot to ensure that this was a computer that could handle running 426246 documents in Photoshop without crashing, but could also run any game on great quality.

The only con is going forth and researching all of the bits. But, all that being said, it's not a big deal. You could go on newegg (not sure if they ship to UK), and then dig through some of the highest rated products, or otherwise look online for glowing user reviews. Well, and I guess actually building it can be a con in its own. I had a brother to make sure I was on the right track, but I don't think it took me over an hour to put it all together.

Mail in the rebates, since a lot of them will come with rebates that are from $10 to $50, which can often take quite a bit off of your order, when you think of all of the pieces you'll be ordering. Also, be on the lookout. When I ordered, a lot of my pieces ended up coming with free games. I ended up getting Bioshock Infinite, Tomb Raider, Far Cry 3 with Blood Dragon. At the time those games were pretty new, so its kind of like I received $200 off my order with those games to start me off.

If you're not opposed to building your own PC, I will send you my cart for my computer since it looks like we were trying to get around the same thing, but yours might need a little less power. If I take forever to get back to you, I primarily run AMD hardware (controversial for gaming, but everyone who's chastised me for it has a computer that runs worse than mine. thanks overclocking, thanks fans. your second and more expensive option is intel.), and my video card is an ASUS.

[Milsap]

I'm also gonna say build one. You can put a decent rig together for a lot less than buying a pre packaged one.

[sylar]

ty for answers!

ive always thought about building one, my only issue is i dont trust myself to not mess it up completely somehow. im pretty clumsy u_u;

is there any sort of things i should know about building them? like... books or sites i should read to know exactly what im doing to at least lower the risk of messing it up. i could easily google it but why do that when i can have you all ｄｏ  ｍｙ  ｂｉｄｄｉｎｇ

[Milsap]

There are plenty of books available, but a lot of it is pretty self explanatory. For the most part each bit will only go into one slot.

I built my desktop PC for around £400 which runs most newer games on medium, but I only really use it to play Flight Simulator, Fallout 3 and New Vegas and Euro Truck Simulator that don't use much graphics power.

[lets all go out for some frosty chocolate milkshakes]

re: part reccomendations i'd browse Logical Increments and do NOT skimp on a PSU, get a decent brand one so it doesn't fry your computer/wrench the bills up, use this to determine what wattage CPU you might need.

you used to be able to get windows cheap for the new computer by buying the OEM version but i dont think they do that sort of thing anymore, plus you'd probs be just transferring your windows license over from the old PC? if you're planning to decommision it that is

or you could use linux (don't use linux)

as for putting it together, its p straightforward (get out motherboard, stick everything on motherboard, stick it in the case), usually each part has instructions on how to put it in, but youtube has some good vids

i mean ive done it at least twice and im queen clown so im p sure you'll be able to do it dead easy????

[Milsap]

I bought most of my components from ebuyer as they had a smashing delivery time and the prices were prett decent.

If you're intending on doing some hardcore PC gaming it might be worth investing in some sort of cooling system. Maplin sell towers with them already built in.

[Kpyna]

Yeah, building is super easy. If you somehow manage to mess something up (which is very difficult, everything has its own little nook), then the thing just won't power on. So then just look at it, figure out what you did wrong, and then fix it. You will need some screwdrivers though. Just google "how to build your own PC", or I suppose you could read the instructions in the box, as previously mentioned. I've always found instruction booklets a bit confusing myself, though. However, I'd say that if you're capable of plugging an outlet into the wall, building a PC will only be slightly more challenging than that.

Also! When you're building your PC, it is an option to skip out on a CD drive, if you have one that can work externally. If you have an SSD, Storage, and also something like Steam, you should have little problem storing all of your games, and the CD drive will be a waste of time and money. If you don't have an external one, my brother and I opened my my old computer, ripped the CD drive out, and we just open up the casing on our PCs and manually plug it into the power supply.

For cooling system, I have a million fans and a water cooling system. Fans are awesome, because a lot of the time they come with LCDs, so when your computer is on you get a cool display. My case is red and black, and glows white from the LCDs, for example. If you hate the LCDs, well, typically its not too hard to snip the wires / remove them. Water cooling is kind of expensive, but it works really well. You just need distilled water, and then to add some additives to it.