Be Excellent To Each Other

I've been asked my opinion on a couple of gaming PCs but my knowledge of PCs for gaming stops at Diablo II, I thought I'd ask you lot.

Quad Core thingy £799
Dual Core thingy £749

Seems like you get a fair bit for your cash but is there anything wrong with these deals like the price or a weakness on any of the spec?

Personally, I'd much rather have a PC, a console and still have money left over.

I scrolled down far enough to see that one of them has an AMD chipset. No contest at the moment, sadly - Intel are far and away the best at the moment.

Perhaps you should have looked at the other one, which has a Core 2 Duo?

Heh, maybe I should. Yeah, an AMD quad will be better than an Intel C2D, natch.

In normal use when you're probably not using more than 1 core, maybe not. I don't think any games can use more than 2 for example.

Still, assuming the graphics card is up to snuff, I don't know my ATIs, that dual core is pretty good.

i think both are quite expensive. You should build one yourself. Even if you don't know how to do it, usually component stores (at least in my country) have people who can build it for you for something like 40-50 euros. Those computers are full of questionable add-ons. For starters all the logitech stuff. Yes, they're pretty and all, but i prefer a plain samsung keyboard (about 7€) and a gaming a4tech mouse (12€).

I also question the use of expensive memories. Yes, i don't doubt Corsair memories are good with great timings and all, but i don't think they ever justify the price difference. You're good to go with some plain Team Elite memories. The Gfx card also doesn't justify the price of the machine. If you're going to buy something new, at least go with a 4870.

Tomshardware has some recent guides to build your own pc within a certain price range. Although if you aren't going to overclock, there's no need for the expensive coolers and PSU they recommend.

And what myoptika said: don't choose AMD.

I disagree these days, it's not worth the hassle when you can go somewhere like http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/ and have them build to the exact parts.

Overclockers will build you a decent spec these days as well. They're usually pretty good.

I've had it with building my own PCs when you can have it done for you for the same price more or less.

I built my PC because I'm an extremely sad person who gets pleasure out of doing that sort of thing. But I have to agree with the sentiments here - even buying the parts through places like eBuyer, I could probably have bought a similar specced pre-built machine for less sponds.

I do enjoy building them myself, right down to the mini-cable ties to tidy up the wiring, but a proper PC builder with all the tools is always going to do a better job. Unless you've got a little PC workshop in your garage, certain parts can be very fiddly.

I'm looking at YOU that part on the motherboard with all the tiny little molex-type plugs bits. Right pain in the arse that bit.

at least you don't have to wire all the usb ports one tiny wire at a time anymore. That was not fun. No.

That was the best bit.

URGH. I'd removed that task from memory.

Mate of mine got that wrong once, it cooked the USB header on the motherboard.

no the best bit is always getting everything wired up and checked, you reach for the power switch with a trembling finger and press..... nothing, not a beep whirr or buzz. You spend 3 hours tearing everthing to bit and putting back together, checking connections and IDE cables, reading tiny print on the motherboard until you are about to give up in despair... then... you see the power switch on the PSU is flipped to O.

Angry? Oh yes.

The above is a true story. I'd never had a PSU with a switch before. I was very ashamed.

Another mate of mine had his PSU set to 120v. In his defense, he'd just brought the machine back from the US, and forgotten to check the switch before plugging it in to good old 240v. This adventure et the magic smoke out, of course.

My current PC is an Intel Core 2 Duo (E6750, if memory serves), which I bought because that particular CPU has a reputation for being very overclockable (and indeed it is, at stock it's 2.66 GHz, mine runs very comfortably at 3.4 GHz). For this purpose, I bought a massive aftermarket fan. It was such a bastard to fit to the motherboard, I was worried I was going to snap the bloody thing in half at one point.

Bah. At least the chip itself is quite robust. Hands up everyone who has chipped corners off the exposed core of a Socket-A CPU whilst fitting doublehardbastard aftermarket heatsinks. Now, put your hand back down if you have never slipped with the screwdriver whilst applying the 30kg of pressure needed to get the clip in, thus gouging a couple of new tracks into the motherboard.

Right, now we just have the hardcore left.

*still has his hand up* I loved my nforce2

http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/syste ... nfinity_gt

Is my new rig, I've 32bit Vista on it and will probably get 64 bit Windows 7 when that comes out. At present I'm getting brilliant performance, everyhting happens instantly. Games tried are STALKER, Sins of a Solar Empire and FM2009. So a diverse three, and all make the machine seem utterly ninja.

Also Cyberpower do a good job building them.

New motherboards have a little plastic riser for that so you can plug them all in out of the case then just plug one thing into the board.

Weirdly I didn't build my home PC, the late lamented Komplett did.

I DID build the PC I use at work. and the one it replaced.

I've never seen that, but it sounds very useful.

The rig I built myself features the aforementioned 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo overclocked to 3.40 GHz
- 2GB PC-6400 800MHz RAM (4GB from tomorrow)
- Nvidia GeForce 8800GT 512MB
and a 20@ Samsung Widescreen LCD and it cost me the best part of £900. That was about a year ago though, to be fair, and I went out of my way to get good quality bits, such as Corsair PSU and RAM chips, Gigabyte motherboard, etc. In fact, the only bit I was disappointed with was the graphics card. Made by Asus, but an earlier version of the card where the fan speed can't be changed. I got round that by fitting an aftermarket VGA cooler, but to be honest it can't be overclocked much without becoming unstable anyway.

Someone I work with flicked that thinking it was a very awkward power switch!, same ending mind.

Malc

I'm a PC.

Petulent Cock?





I kid!

Thinking about it the only modern boards I've used are ASUS, so maybe it's just them.



They look like this, you plug the stuff in the top with it nicely clearly marked then just put the whole thing into the plugs on the board.

So many of the internal parts of a PC are such incredibly good design, it's ludicrous how crappy the chipset fan clips always are.

Hello!

I bought a lovely new Barton processor upgrade from ebuyer a few years back, and in putting the huge fan on slipped with the screwdriver, chipped the motherboard, scratched the heatsink across the top of the fan and took a chunk out of the corner of the core. Suprisingly, it still booted, but when running Aquamark certain parts of the 3D wobbled and shimmered and then crashed. The mobo survived and the processor got sent back as DOA.

Ahahaha.

Every motherboard I've bought ended up needed a new Northbridge fan at some point due to it squealing. Oil only stops it for so long. It's not a coincidence all of mine now have passive heatsinks on them.

Not true, I am reliably informed that oiling it will keep it running forever -- if you oil it in time, where "in time" is "before the bearing starts squealing from being fucked". If you wait until it's making noises it's already too late. Who has the time for that though? Not me, that's for sure.

Quite. Which is why I'm currently running silently. Considering how old that motherboard is it's coping with everything thrown it at admirably.

Comical has a PC for sale. He wants 120 for it, so he should be good for 70 about now.

Mine whips that in to the ground