I need a new PC, But i'm clueless.

[The Ambrosian]

Right, I'm sick of my xbox, it just doesn't do it for me, and i've wanted a decent PC for a while now so i thought that's it. Im finally getting one. Im writing this on a 7 year old laptop, and have literally no knowledge about PC specs. So i've turned to you guys, and hopefully you can help me out. I have a small price range, so as small as possible preferably less than four hundred pounds (im British) I want it to run new games, (Fallout 3, for example) and maybe MMO's. I'm not sure if this is ridicously out of the question or what.
Also, when did the escapist get their first PC's for gaming? And was there any particular reason?

P.S. I obviously want it to work with like the internet, and iTunes. Also first thread

Please help me Escapist!

EDIT: Make this £500ish, sorry for mistake.

 

[DazZ.]

You're going to want to build it yourself to get it under £400, also you're going to want to be looking around for a cheap monitor or a deal of some sort. I'm sure someone will build you one if you ask nicely but if not there are forums around specifically for that.

I'll see if I can find someone else's work for a recent <£400 computer.

I've had a gaming computer since I was little, it has been what I've grown up playing and what I always shall play.
The reason was Doom and Wolfenstien were much more interesting to me than Mario and Sonic.
Plus Quake and online multiplayer was only on PC when I got into it.

 

[The Undoer]

I suggest avoiding splashing on expensive exterior parts (mouse keyboard monitor headset), and saving all the money for the innards. I'm playing on a crappy mouse and keyboard, and I'm just fine.

 

[YuheJi]

You should check out our PC Hardware thread.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.105715-PC-Hardware-Thread-Now-With-100-More-Folding?page=1

 

[The Ambrosian]

You won't get a good one for 400. I got myself a dell studio 540 for about £500 a year ago. It's a damn good pc and it's respectable for gaming. If you upgrade the graphics card it's fucking excellent for gaming. I'm doing as such when the warranty runs out.

It's good for running last gen games, I don't know if fallout 3 will run on it. It can run most games though on mid - high settings.

Actually i can get to about £540. So ill keep this in mind

 

[The Ambrosian]

I suggest avoiding splashing on expensive exterior parts (mouse keyboard monitor headset), and saving all the money for the innards. I'm playing on a crappy mouse and keyboard, and I'm just fine.

I have a really nice mouse and keyboard, and i can get a free monitor easily. So i'm sorted for them.

 

[The Ambrosian]

You won't get a good one for 400. I got myself a dell studio 540 for about £500 a year ago. It's a damn good pc and it's respectable for gaming. If you upgrade the graphics card it's fucking excellent for gaming. I'm doing as such when the warranty runs out.

It's good for running last gen games, I don't know if fallout 3 will run on it. It can run most games though on mid - high settings.

Actually i can get to about £540. So ill keep this in mind

Yeah, this would be the lazy mans option. With 540 you could probably build your own rig. It would be a lot better than this pc. I love my pc though. Probably because it took me a year to get all the money.

*Isn't stroking his pc*

As i've said, i know hardly anything about this, is building a one yourself particurlarly difficult? I dont mind putting some work into it...

 

[The Ambrosian]

Awesome,thanks for the help you guys, at least i have some idea now. Anyone have any suggestions for brand/make thats going to rip me off the least?

 

[razormint21]

British? Try Cryo...
http://www.cryopc.co.uk/custom_gaming_pc.htm

It's a bit high end, but knowing what's high end will give you what the limits of your budget really is...

 

[EBass]

Best thing to do is go to one of the PC building specialist sites, either overclockers, SCAN or the other one I can't remember. Ask on their forum section they'll probably have a forum dedicated to new "Builds" and ask whats the best you can get for your price range. As you'd expect the people there are generally far more knowledgeable than your average fare on the escapist.

You might jusssst be able to stretch to an I7 system on that budget if you don't have to buy a screen/speakers/mouse/keyboard etc.

 

[TelHybrid]

If your price range isn't including the cost of monitor and peripherals, but just the PC itself, £500 will easily get you a decent PC.

I built mine 3 years ago for £600 and it will run Crysis on medium settings. Left 4 Dead 2 runs on high settings at 1440 x 900.

(Also don't worry it will work with iTunes and all that stuff, gaming is pretty much the most demanding thing a home computer will run, anything else near enough is easy in comparison)

I recommend checking out the hardware thread:

You should check out our PC Hardware thread.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.105715-PC-Hardware-Thread-Now-With-100-More-Folding?page=1

You should fine some good tips on there. I seriously recommend going for a custom build. Pre-built PCs are usually more costly than they're worth due to all the cash spent on marketing it, and the production costs, and such. Plus they usually have fairly low end graphics cards.

If you know someone in person who can help you choose the parts (I recommend www.ebuyer.com for buying them by the way) and show you how to put it together, that would be much better for you than asking for advice over the internet on how to built it. Especially if you're like me and are apprehensive about spending money on parts with lack of certainty that you chose the right ones.

When I built my 1st setup about 5 years ago I asked a friend who did a computer engineering course to help me out. Since then it's become child's play for me to build a new PC for myself. I'd never buy a pre-built rig ever again.

 

[Horticulture]

Awesome, i know some people who know a lot about this sort of thing. Anyone have any suggestions for brand/make thats going to rip me off the least?

Though I'm tempted to say that hours of research on parts contribute to the feeling of success once everything is up and running...

CPU: Athlon II X3 2.9 gHz [http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMD-Athlon-II-X3-435-Triple-Core-Rana-S-AM3-29GHz-15MB-Cache-HT-2000MHz-95W-Retail]
Motherboard: Gigabyte/AMD 770 AM3 [http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigabyte-GA-770T-USB3-AMD-770-AM3-PCI-E-20-DDR3-1666(OC)-USB-30-SATA-3Gb-s-SATA-RAID-ATX]
GPU: XFX Radeon 5770 [http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-XFX-HD-5770-AVP-Edition-PCI-E-21-4800MHz-GDDR5-GPU-850MHz-800-Cores-DP-DVI-HDMI]
Memory:4GB Corsair DDR3-1600 [http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-(2x2GB)-Corsair-XMS3-DDR3-PC3-12800-(1600)-Non-ECC-Unbuffered-CAS-9-9-9-24-XMP-165V]
PSU: Seasonic 520W Modular [http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/520W-Seasonic-M12II-520-Bronze-Modular-87-Eff-SLI-CrossFire-EPS-12V-20-24-pin-M-B-connector]
HDD: Samsung F3 500GB [http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/500Gb-Samsung-Spinpoint-F3-HD502HJ-SATA-3Gb-s-7200rpm-16Mb-Cache-8ms-OEM]
Optical: Samsung DVD-RW [http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Samsung-SH-S223C-BEBE-22x-DVDR-12x-DVDR-DVDplusRW-x8-RW-x6-SATA-Black-OEM]
Case: Antec 200 [http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Antec-Two-Hundred-Value-Gaming-Case-HOT-SWAP-SATA-HDD-BAY-included-10-drive-bays-140mmplus120mm-fans]

~£540. If you want to use all of your budget, you could step up to this CPU [http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMD-Phenom-II-X4-955-BlackEdition-Sok-AM3-32GHz-8MB-Total-Cache-125W-Retail].

How to put it all together [http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/].

Enjoy.

 

[Oldmanwillow]

Awesome, i know some people who know a lot about this sort of thing. Anyone have any suggestions for brand/make thats going to rip me off the least?

Though I'm tempted to say that hours of research on parts contribute to the feeling of success once everything is up and running...

CPU: Athlon II X3 2.9 gHz [http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMD-Athlon-II-X3-435-Triple-Core-Rana-S-AM3-29GHz-15MB-Cache-HT-2000MHz-95W-Retail]
Motherboard: Gigabyte/AMD 770 AM3 [http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigabyte-GA-770T-USB3-AMD-770-AM3-PCI-E-20-DDR3-1666(OC)-USB-30-SATA-3Gb-s-SATA-RAID-ATX]
GPU: XFX Radeon 5770 [http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-XFX-HD-5770-AVP-Edition-PCI-E-21-4800MHz-GDDR5-GPU-850MHz-800-Cores-DP-DVI-HDMI]
Memory:4GB Corsair DDR3-1600 [http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-(2x2GB)-Corsair-XMS3-DDR3-PC3-12800-(1600)-Non-ECC-Unbuffered-CAS-9-9-9-24-XMP-165V]
PSU: Seasonic 520W Modular [http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/520W-Seasonic-M12II-520-Bronze-Modular-87-Eff-SLI-CrossFire-EPS-12V-20-24-pin-M-B-connector]
HDD: Samsung F3 500GB [http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/500Gb-Samsung-Spinpoint-F3-HD502HJ-SATA-3Gb-s-7200rpm-16Mb-Cache-8ms-OEM]
Optical: Samsung DVD-RW [http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Samsung-SH-S223C-BEBE-22x-DVDR-12x-DVDR-DVDplusRW-x8-RW-x6-SATA-Black-OEM]
Case: Antec 200 [http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Antec-Two-Hundred-Value-Gaming-Case-HOT-SWAP-SATA-HDD-BAY-included-10-drive-bays-140mmplus120mm-fans]

~£540. If you want to use all of your budget, you could step up to this CPU [http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMD-Phenom-II-X4-955-BlackEdition-Sok-AM3-32GHz-8MB-Total-Cache-125W-Retail].

How to put it all together [http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/].

Enjoy.

I was half way through typing something like this up. You would be dumb to not go with theses parts ideas. This system could probability run crysis on high settings. Building computers is really easy its like legos. See you as part of the PC gaming master race.

 

[The Ambrosian]

>TelHybrid. Yeah im just saying i need it for standard uses aswell as gaming, i got a lot of coursework coming up, D: thanks for great reply though, ill check that stuff out, sorry for no quote, on iPod.

 

[Comrade Penguin]

Building you're own is not too much of a challenge as long as you spend a little time researching things before you buy them. Once you get it, it's pretty much just an easy 3d jigsaw slotting everything in especially if you spend a few extra quid on a decent case.

This might prove useful http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/buyers-guide/2010/03/09/pc-hardware-buyers-guide-march-2010/2

Gives you a guide on whats best for around the £400-50 mark giving you a few spare pennies for a monitor if you need one. Also does you're budget include an OS? A copy of 7 Home Premium is going to set you back around £70 on its own.

 

[EBass]

You can cut a gig of RAM off that shopping list. If you're going 32 bit 4 gig won't actually give you any performance boost over 3 gig as far as I'm aware. Other than that, fine build, I'd really get an I7 processor if you can stretch to it though.

 

[The Ambrosian]

Building you're own is not too much of a challenge as long as you spend a little time researching things before you buy them. Once you get it, it's pretty much just an easy 3d jigsaw slotting everything in especially if you spend a few extra quid on a decent case.

This might prove useful http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/buyers-guide/2010/03/09/pc-hardware-buyers-guide-march-2010/2

Gives you a guide on whats best for around the £400-50 mark giving you a few spare pennies for a monitor if you need one. Also does you're budget include an OS? A copy of 7 Home Premium is going to set you back around £70 on its own.

Im sorted for OS. But if all fails, i can pull a bit extra from somewhere. EDIT: Welcome to The Escapist : D