Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - New PC for gaming

andrewtayloruk · 10-18-2004, 02:14 AM

Hi,

I've tried searching the web for some good articles on PC gaming hardware but everything seems either really hardcore expensive or trying to sell me something. I though i'd get some propper advice.

I've been involved with the IT industry for 10 years, I started building 386's and early 486's, I was really into stuff back then. I then got my BSc in computing and started focussing more on IT management. I kept my hand in and the last computer I built was around 1999. I blew a good deal of money on the original cartridge (slot A?) Athlon 1Ghz, an Abit KA7, 1GB of ram, 2 IBM deskstar 40GB UDMA133 hard-drives to run RAID0 and a GeForce2 with 64MB. I had horrendus problems with it (as did everyone else) USB was flaky, the RAID controller was flaky, everything was less than impressive. I struggled on at the bleeding ege for about 6 months then cashed in my chips (quite literally!) and sold the lot, monitor et al.

I bought a notebook and whilst I couldn't play any games I worked happily in stability heaven. I graduated from a Sony Vaio to an Apple powerbook and I've been switched since early 2003.

Seeing some of the latest and greatest games to come out, Doom3, Sims2, Half-Life 2 etc I'm itching to build a new PC for playing games.

The first thing I've noticed is how expensive everything is! I remeber paying around £180/£200 for my Geforce2 when it was the bees knees, now all the new graphics cards seem to cost the best part of £350! What happened to innovation? Sure, they're much faster and capable than my original but jeeez there must be something that doesn't cost the earth?

I figure I'm going to go Intel, probably a P4 3.0Ghz, I'll pickup a motheboard from MSI and some crucial RAM, a case with a 450W PSU will be easy enough. A couple of serial ATA drives will be fine but what graphics and sound? Do I go PCI-X or AGP?

Is it really worth building my own anymore? Dell are doing a Dimension 8400 3.0Ghz, 1GB of RAM with a 128MB Radeon 9600Pro and 320GB of RAID for around £700.

I've always been happy with 2K, do I need XP to run the latest and greatest games? IS PC Gaming still really hard to get reliable? I remember having to install the latest Nvidia reference drivers every other week to get them stable with a the VIA4in1 then that would stop the soundcard working etc etc etc.

Should I just stick with an XBOX

What do you all think?

Cheers

Andrew

10-18-2004, 02:14 AM	#1 (permalink)
andrewtayloruk Upright	New PC for gaming - Advice needed :) Hi, I've tried searching the web for some good articles on PC gaming hardware but everything seems either really hardcore expensive or trying to sell me something. I though i'd get some propper advice. I've been involved with the IT industry for 10 years, I started building 386's and early 486's, I was really into stuff back then. I then got my BSc in computing and started focussing more on IT management. I kept my hand in and the last computer I built was around 1999. I blew a good deal of money on the original cartridge (slot A?) Athlon 1Ghz, an Abit KA7, 1GB of ram, 2 IBM deskstar 40GB UDMA133 hard-drives to run RAID0 and a GeForce2 with 64MB. I had horrendus problems with it (as did everyone else) USB was flaky, the RAID controller was flaky, everything was less than impressive. I struggled on at the bleeding ege for about 6 months then cashed in my chips (quite literally!) and sold the lot, monitor et al. I bought a notebook and whilst I couldn't play any games I worked happily in stability heaven. I graduated from a Sony Vaio to an Apple powerbook and I've been switched since early 2003. Seeing some of the latest and greatest games to come out, Doom3, Sims2, Half-Life 2 etc I'm itching to build a new PC for playing games. The first thing I've noticed is how expensive everything is! I remeber paying around £180/£200 for my Geforce2 when it was the bees knees, now all the new graphics cards seem to cost the best part of £350! What happened to innovation? Sure, they're much faster and capable than my original but jeeez there must be something that doesn't cost the earth? I figure I'm going to go Intel, probably a P4 3.0Ghz, I'll pickup a motheboard from MSI and some crucial RAM, a case with a 450W PSU will be easy enough. A couple of serial ATA drives will be fine but what graphics and sound? Do I go PCI-X or AGP? Is it really worth building my own anymore? Dell are doing a Dimension 8400 3.0Ghz, 1GB of RAM with a 128MB Radeon 9600Pro and 320GB of RAID for around £700. I've always been happy with 2K, do I need XP to run the latest and greatest games? IS PC Gaming still really hard to get reliable? I remember having to install the latest Nvidia reference drivers every other week to get them stable with a the VIA4in1 then that would stop the soundcard working etc etc etc. Should I just stick with an XBOX What do you all think? Cheers Andrew