http://www.comet.co.uk/shopcom ... 640-3GB/tab/specification

Im not looking for a gaming system tbh, but i would just like something which would give me a good 50fps in LFS. Would the above system provide me with that?

Processor Intel Quad Core
Processor model number Q6600
Processor speed 2.4 GHz
Processor bus 1066 MHz
Processor cache 8 MB
Memory (RAM) 3072 MB
Storage (hard drive) 640 GB
Shared graphics No
Dedicated graphics 256 MB

Many Thanks!

Ash

It says TBC for the graphics card, I'd wait to see what it is before getting it.

As for the rest, it's almost exactly the same as my new system, and I get 30FPS at the back of 20 FBM AIs at SO, with everything (including AA/AF maxed) up full. It's quite nice

What should the graphics card part be, so i know before i get it.

30fps at back of grid with 20 FBM's is good i take it?

What do you get with like no aa/af and no cars on the track, just wondering

Many Thanks!

Deal is nice but the gfx card specs are..well.. not there. Playing at the fps you said is worse trust me. playing at 180+fps (i know Humans cant seee past 60) with 16x AA and 16x AF is WAY better than playing at less than 30 with no eye candy. It's like comparing chocolate with s***.

Im running about 15fps at the moment on my laptop, so really anything will be better.

http://www.johnlewis.com/230479190/Product.aspx

Graphics card - ATI Radeon HD 3450
Graphics card video RAM - 256MB

Would that be any better?

I'm running a 9800GTX, the 3450 is a little bit less powerful. The CPU on the second one is (argueably) not as good as the first one either...I'd contact Comet and see if they can tell you the card's specs. Altough it is 256MB, so for the money there's a good chance it's only a 3450 also.

On my own with everything maxed I go over 200FPS, and during normal regular driving (between 5-10 cars on screen) I won't go below 150FPS.

Ewwewwewweww.

If you can't self-build (and seem to want to go to a high-street store) then PCW might be a good option - today we sold a Q6600 PC off clearance and the manager chucked a 9800GT in (installed etc) for £150 which wasn't that bad.

Still, self-build ftw.

Plus - if it doesn't mention the GFX cards, it's rubish - trust me!

As i said in my first post, im not after top of the market gaming PC. I just need it for school work, and regular use of LFS, with occasional racing. So if it can do about 50fps, it would suit me fine.

Do Dell do self build though?

EDIT: I also forgot to say i have about a £500 budget.

Dell sell pre-built PC's - the PC there is a rip-off as your paying a lot for a fast CPU that will always be bottlenecked in games by the rubbish graphics card.

Why can't you build your own? The Dell XPS' aren't that bad tbh...

£500 budget. You really think i could get a decent setup for that?

Yes - do you need a monitor with that?

Once again - can you build it yourself? Are you comfortable buying off the interweb?

Yes i need a monitor with it. Ive only had a laptop, so im not experienced with building pc's.

I have no problem with buying off the internet

You don't need experience to build a PC This was my first ever build, and the most I've done before was a new HDD and RAM...

I havent even done that lol. You cant really do much to a laptop... so i have like 0% experience atall. Actually, tell a lie, i replaced a graphics card on work experience at Sim Racing.

But, i have no idea where to start.

Really, it is far easier than you can imagine. My biggest cock up was putting a case header on backwards, so the HDD light was stuck on. Apart from that, nothing went wrong at all. Oh, I also dropped the CPU after taking it out of the package. It still works though!

...everyone makes mistakes - i've forgotten to plug the following in:

Fans,
Pumps (for my Reserator - 114 degree idle temp!),
Power Buttons (TURN ON YOUR ******* THING!!!!!!!.... oh wait ),
HDD's,
etc.

Ah yes, I forgot the PSU had it's own power switch also. Very frustrating, thought I'd shorted something out

No I mean the actual switch on the PC - i've forgotten to plug it in waaaaay to many times now

Done the other one too though.

At my PC I have 2 reserators, which means water goes from Reserator 1 -> PC -> Reserator 2 -> Reserator 1 - I plugged it all back in and turned on number 1, water goes through my PC to number one, but can't get through the off pump quick enough, so the water starts to rise up and over the top... oooops.

[OT] How much value is water cooling? I know absolutely nothing about water cooling a PC, apart from that water is pumped from a reserator around various tubes and back again. Is the gain worth the price (and risk)? [/OT]

Reserator = Name of Zalman's ultra quiet all-in-one solution, NOT the name of any other water cooling systme.

Usually it goes from a Reservoir, through a Pump, into the computer via a tube through water blocks (basically a thing that goes on the thing you want to cool and the water goes through it) and then back out into a Radiator (where the water is cooled) and into the Reservoir.

A decent CPU-only system will set you back at least £150, but will give you very good load temps (which means you can use more voltage safely and get higher OC's, but on newer chips electromigration is becoming more of an issue and less about temperature).

It's not really "worth" the gain tbh, but then if you have a Q6600 at 3.6 GHz temperature limited the idea of trying something new to hit 3.8 maybe even 4 GHz is exciting.

I have 2 Reserators because they were gifts, and because in a single loop the pumps almost make up for their inadequacy and the water has enough time to properly cool. Still no match for a "proper" setup, though, but a lot quieter!

Hmm, don't think I will so...I'm on 3.2Ghz now, it's very stable at this (haven't seen any core above 40 degrees no matter what I do), and I'm happy to leave it where it is. Spending £150 minimum to get a little bit more isn't really worth it for me anyway...Thanks for the info

Quote from Jakg :

but on newer chips electromigration is becoming more of an issue and less about temperature).

i thought overclocks failed (and generaly, cpus at the 4-5GHz mark) either because the heat generated on the actual die can't be transfered quickly enough to the heatspreader (outer shell) or because clock signals can't be propagated properly and in coordination with the gates in the chip. if electron migration was an issue at 4GHz then that finn couldn't have gone at 6GHz. what am i missing?

I mean that as you raise the voltage the chips die sooner and sooner, and 45nm chips are even more susceptible to this while making less heat than ever, meaning that back in the 90nm days you could just crank up the voltage if you had the cooling now with water you can have fine temps and still kill your CPU awfully soon.

you mean that due to higher density of transistors in the circuit, a higher voltage may have more profound effects in the workings of the cpu?

well yeah, i agree, but it's not like these new CPUs have the same voltage as the older ones. sizes dropped and voltages dropped. in the 'early days' you went from 1.6V to 2V for a barton and you didn't think twice about it. that's a 25% increase in voltage. a similar percentage in newer CPUs should have the same increased risk...

i dunno... sometimes i think that an overclock will fail because the chip has a sliiiight defect that doesn't make any effect until you push the CPU. after all, overclocking is going out-of-spec so... meh