In need of a new PC

[FRUMTARN]

Basically my laptop is useless, minecraft lags on it (especially with the new texture pack I added) and it won't even run Amnesia: The Dark Decent, even though it meets the system requirements.
So fellow forum goers, what PC/laptop would you recommend to me? Nothing too expenisive though, I am but a poor student after all.

EDIT: I'd prefer a desktop, and it would be used for university *hopefully* and gaming, but not games like Black ops or anything.

 

[MaxP779]

Well you need to decide, what do you want? A PC or a laptop? Also what are you planning to run on it, if its just minecraft or amnesia then pretty much any modern pc/laptop should be up to the job. Avoid built integrated graphics but tbh modern integrated graphics should actually be able to handle those games very easily.

What is it you currently have that minecraft lags on just out of interest?

 

[FRUMTARN]

Its an acer aspire laptop, about 2 1/2 years old. However it does have the crappy integrated graphics card. Steam told me it didn't recognise it the other day.

 

[SomeLameStuff]

Depends what you want. Desktop or Laptop? Mainly for games or for work? Price range?

 

[Wolfram23]

Well any half decent gaming laptop is going to be 900-1000, which you can put towards a far better desktop PC. I'd say if your current laptop is fine for normal usage stuff - internet, MS Word or whatever you need it for that isn't gaming, consider building a desktop PC for gaming.

If you have a budget I can help. A few pointers to keep costs down would be:
-AMD Phenom II X4 CPUs. Whatever fits the budget.

-If you have a 1080p monitor, don't go for less than a GTX460 or AMD 5830 (460 is a better deal). I'd say look at a 6850, 6870, GTX470, GTX560 something in that area

-Get a good PSU. There's a few good brand names out there - Corsair, Antec, Thermaltake, Coolmaster isn't bad. I'd say for any single card solution look at ~500W, it's more than necessary but gives you headroom and won't blow up lol.

So, yeah, a budget is where you need to start. And what sort of peripherals will you need? Monitor, keyboard, mouse? That sort of stuff.

 

[DeadlyYellow]

I'm still of the belief that a laptop is not suitable for gaming. Anything with a limited battery life will do relatively poor with heavy processing.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

-If you have a 1080p monitor, don't go for less than a GTX460 or AMD 5830 (460 is a better deal). I'd say look at a 6850, 6870, GTX470, GTX560 something in that area

Nonsense. Sorry, I mean I respectfully disagree. I have a single GTX 260 (the cheaper 192 core version) and it runs all my console ports maxed out at 1920x1080 at a constant 60fps. There's really no need for a GTX460 unless you want to play resource-hungry PC exclusives like the Total War games.

 

[Wolfram23]

-If you have a 1080p monitor, don't go for less than a GTX460 or AMD 5830 (460 is a better deal). I'd say look at a 6850, 6870, GTX470, GTX560 something in that area

Nonsense. Sorry, I mean I respectfully disagree. I have a single GTX 260 (the cheaper 192 core version) and it runs all my console ports maxed out at 1920x1080 at a constant 60fps. There's really no need for a GTX460 unless you want to play resource-hungry PC exclusives like the Total War games.

Well I was going to initially put a 450 and 5770, and the GTX 260 is almost identical to a 5770 for performance... but if it fits in the budget a 460 will be way better. Really depends on the games too. Not that a lot of them are super demanding, but some are. It's always important to check benchmarks for games that you're going to play, whenever possible.

 

[MaxP779]

-If you have a 1080p monitor, don't go for less than a GTX460 or AMD 5830 (460 is a better deal). I'd say look at a 6850, 6870, GTX470, GTX560 something in that area

Nonsense. Sorry, I mean I respectfully disagree. I have a single GTX 260 (the cheaper 192 core version) and it runs all my console ports maxed out at 1920x1080 at a constant 60fps. There's really no need for a GTX460 unless you want to play resource-hungry PC exclusives like the Total War games.

Its never a good idea to put money into old tech. GTX260 was excellent, but the 460 is now what the 260 was a year and a half ago, the 460 itself has been replaced recently by the 560 so the prices on it will plummet, no need to go back 2 generations for a cheap powerful card.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

-If you have a 1080p monitor, don't go for less than a GTX460 or AMD 5830 (460 is a better deal). I'd say look at a 6850, 6870, GTX470, GTX560 something in that area

Nonsense. Sorry, I mean I respectfully disagree. I have a single GTX 260 (the cheaper 192 core version) and it runs all my console ports maxed out at 1920x1080 at a constant 60fps. There's really no need for a GTX460 unless you want to play resource-hungry PC exclusives like the Total War games.

Its never a good idea to put money into old tech. GTX260 was excellent, but the 460 is now what the 260 was a year and a half ago, the 460 itself has been replaced recently by the 560 so the prices on it will plummet, no need to go back 2 generations for a cheap powerful card.

He said he was on a budget and I thought it would be cheaper, but I just googled some prices and the 260 actually costs almost as much as the 460, so my bad.