Hey guy's.

Im thinking about buying myself a new budget gaming pc for around £550/£600.

Here's what i have come up with:

Gigabyte GZ-X3 - Black Case
https://www.aria.co.uk/Product ... +-+Black+?productId=28082

Samsung SH-S203 20X DVDRW - SATA - Black
https://www.aria.co.uk/Product ... +-+Black+?productId=29919

Intel Pentium Dual Core E2180 2.0GHz (Retail 775)
https://www.aria.co.uk/Product ... l+775%29+?productId=29175

Patriot 2GB PC2-6400 C4 Extreme Performance (2x1GB) (I will get 2x this so i will actually have 4GB as Vista is a bit memory heavy :P)
https://www.aria.co.uk/Product ... 2x1GB%29+?productId=26802

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products ... o.asp?WebProductID=661326

Zalman CNPS9500-AT Intel LGA775 Aero Flower Cooler (To overclock CPU)
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products ... o.asp?WebProductID=369638

512MB HiS (HighTech)HD 3870
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products ... o.asp?WebProductID=719123

650W Coolermaster eXtreme PSU
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products ... o.asp?WebProductID=603573

Windows Vista Home Premium 64 OEM
https://www.aria.co.uk/Product ... m+64+OEM+?productId=25906

Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0 OEM 1yr
https://www.aria.co.uk/Product ... 0+OEM+1yr?productId=28025

Already have basic's like TFT etc.

Im hoping to get decent online FPS with LFS, rFactor etc and also to run newer DX10 game's like Crysis, Call Of Duty 4 etc at medium(ish) setting's.

What you think, any idea's?

Im not even certain i will get this yet but i thought i would ask what you think if it.

Cheer's,

Mclarenmatt.

Edit: Sorry for post being so long! :P

Edit 2: I just realised i forgot the HDD!
250 Gb Western Digital
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products ... o.asp?WebProductID=567857

Ditch Kapersky for AVG or NOD32. Ditch the Zalman cooler, unless your overclocking massively get something like an Arctic Freezer 7 Pro.

Apart from that it's ok.

What screen do you have ATM?

Quote from Jakg :

Ditch Kapersky for AVG or NOD32. Ditch the Zalman cooler, unless your overclocking massively get something like an Arctic Freezer 7 Pro.

Apart from that it's ok.

What screen do you have ATM?

At the moment i have a Hanns G 17" TFT running at 1280x1024 @75hz, so shouldn't have to many problem's FPS wise there?!?

swap the ati for a 8800GT...and thats good

I thought these 512 mb graphics cards were for if you're using high screen resolutions? Is there really a need for it when you're running 1280x1024?

Feel free to tell me that I'm wrong here.

Quote from UncleBenny :

I thought these 512 mb graphics cards were for if you're using high screen resolutions? Is there really a need for it when you're running 1280x1024?

Feel free to tell me that I'm wrong here.

well, it always improves graphics + speed(fps) when displayed on higher resolution screense...however, i feel a 1gb Graphics card is not necessary....but projectors' true displays are only 1280X1024 or something...so it doesn't matter even if it's displaying a few hundred inches

Quote from UncleBenny :

I thought these 512 mb graphics cards were for if you're using high screen resolutions? Is there really a need for it when you're running 1280x1024?

Feel free to tell me that I'm wrong here.

Pretty much, yeah. The higher memory really helps with higher resolutions because the card needs to store more graphics and textures. However, if you can, it's always good to go for the higher one anyway, as it will help. 1 Gb is overkill though.

Pretty much what Harjun said... :jawdrop:

For today's games on 1280x1024 (LFS is an exception, as it's relatively low graphical demands seperate it from 'today's games'
) I'd say less than 512 isn't enough. Especially if you are intending to use the card for the next few years.

i dunno...depends what you expect from something...of course like...for example if you had an 8800Ultra with only 128mb of RAM...it would still be reasonably fast...so for the faster processor graphics cards, 512 is more than enough....

Quote from Stang70Fastback :

Pretty much what Harjun said... :jawdrop:

The end is near...

Quote from harjun :

i dunno...depends what you expect from something...of course like...for example if you had an 8800Ultra with only 128mb of RAM...it would still be reasonably fast...so for the faster processor graphics cards, 512 is more than enough....

But in two years it won't be. I imagine the 'average' game in two years or so will be about as demanding as Crysis is now, on full detail.

Quote from Crashgate3 :

But in two years it won't be. I imagine the 'average' game in two years or so will be about as demanding as Crysis is now, on full detail.

Thats what they said..If your PC can handle Crysis GOOD your set for 2 years...Its kinda good to have a game that's like that.

But atleast a 512 is good but 1GB...way to much really..even the 768mb GeForce 8800GTX unless you plan on doing loads of stuff with it...the 8000 series is made for vista really..but i guess people use it more for XP also....

Yeah, for normal games now, at normal resolutions, 512 is fairly overkill, I will agree.

I run a 22" screen at 1680x1050 atm, so I like my 512. In the next few months I intend to eventually run 3 screens at 1280x1050, so the next card(s) I get will need all the RAM they can get

The thing is, sure games will be more demanding, but the texture resolutions for games are not going to be getting much higher in the near future, unless the whole world moves towards super-monster high res screens. They're already as detailed as you need. It's going to be more on the side of effects and RENDERING where things get tough, so 512 shouldn't be that bad in a few years anyway - you'll just need a card with more processing POWER.

I remember reading in PCZone magazine about 10 years ago an interview with Dave Thingy (can't remember his second name), boss of Shiny Entertainment saying that a few years from then developers were going to reach a wall with 3D modelling in games where it doesn't matter how much more detail you add, things won't look any better. A 1 million polygon model looks pretty much the same as a 10 or 100 million polygon model, and the same with textures. Unless you plan on getting up really, really close there's not much difference between a 4096x4096 and a 8192x8192 texture and so on.

We're starting to see this effect now in games - its more the level of photorealism and texture blending than the sheer resolution that makes games look believeable nowadays. Its *slightly* different to the problem as they thought then - with different shaders, normal maps and post-processing adding so much to a scene these days, which no-one really thought of at the time outside the cutting edge of proper, professional rendering - but still, as you said I don't think more that 1GB on a card will be needed unless we start moving up to ridiculous resolutions. That isn't out of the question though with OLED screens - I read in a PC magazine the other month they can already make 20" or so screens 16000 pixels across.

Haha, I still remember getting a 1MB 3Dfx Voodoo 1 card to play Quake 2 on my old Pentium 133...

Change the motherboard. The board on your list only supports 1333 FSB chips, while the E2180 is an 800 FSB chip.

Quote from h3adbang3r :

Change the motherboard. The board on your list only supports 1333 FSB chips, while the E2180 is an 800 FSB chip.

Up to 1333
But still I wouldn't trust Gigabyte that much I know some people have em an love em but I have also seen too many of die quite fast
So I would suggest an Asus P5k/P5B which is a nice decent board and it's also OC friendly

Ati card is more than you'd need, board is also cool.

Please, dear fanboys, just because you have a GeForce card it does NOT mean EVERYONE has to get one. And for the board, I have taken a msi p35 neo2-fr (about 70€, 45-40 pounds), just because it had the same specs than a gigabyte one but was cheaper.
My cooler of choice was a thermaltake bigtyp 120, that one is HUGE but without overclocking my e6550 my idle/load temps are at 27/35°C.
For your virus/firewall programs I'd say there are quite good freeware solutions around. That way you can save a bit and invest in other hardware. :-)
Vista is not my kind of thing, but i'm too biased to say something here :-) see 2nd sentence.

greetz

der butz

Quote from der butz :

Please, dear fanboys, just because you have a gf card it does NOT mean EVERYONE has to get one.

I don't get your point here...

Edited :-)
I just think people want to make others buy the same products they have...

greetz

der butz

Yeah, the nVidia fanboys tend to try and persuade others to get nVidia cards and the same with ATI fanboys. Similarly, the high-end GTX crowd often try and get others to get similarly powered cards, sometimes unneccesarily.

Me? I'm a fanboy of whatever's the best at any given time

NOTE: This isn't neccesarily descriptive of anthing that's going on in the threads here, before eveyone starts with the :bananadea I mean just generally on teh internets.

I just don't understand why you think any "fanboyism" is going on here. The 8800GT is acknowledged by most everyone as the best card on the market at current. That's just a fact. I read a comparo of the 3870, and it completely owned the 8800 for video encoding, but I do believe the 8800 was better at most everything else. Unless I've got that backwards.

Nope that's about spot on.

At the moment as far as I can tell, its:

Want the absolute fastest and no expense spared: Wait a month for the nVidia 9xxx series
Want the best: 8800GT
Want something that's just simply able to display 3D games, max detail isn't a neccesity, and don't want to spend too much money: Radeon 3850

With the 3870 bridging the gap between the last two.

Sorry for hijacking this thread, maybe Matt can learn something by this discussion too...

8800GT the best? I'm not completely against you for no reason, but it ALWAYS depends on how much you want to spend, what kind of games and how much you're playing. Also different manufacturers build "the same" cards with totally different specs!!! THE BEST card you can get is mostly some overkill thingie with a gig of ram or two, I just found a card for 5699€!

PNY Quadro FX4600SDI

Do you need that? Do you want to display big Models of car interiors with a few million polygons and all the wiring on 30 monitors or in 3d-caves? I'm pretty sure not. :-)
But it might be the best card you know.

Just an example here: I have sensible ears, also I have to pay for the electricity I use. I mostly play lfs, so I've watched some reviews and found my card. It's very quiet, it can handle dx10 (screw vista!!! I'm still on xp) and it can bring up to 300 fps onto my 22' flat screen with high res and aa, af whatever. Plus it cost me 130€, and I never any problems with it. So if the threadstarter HAS the money I'd tell him to get the

XFX GeForce 8800Ultra Extreme

and can play everything maxed and be happy! I personally wouldn't ever want to spend that much on a cardboard with silicone on it :-)

Notice again, this is no rant against anything, just stating my opinion once more :-)

greetz

der amd-fanboy-but-intel-user-butz

1280x1024 and a 8800 ultra...

That´s a total wast of money!