Buying a pre-built system - advice please

[rsherhod]

Hi All,

Anyone have advice on buying a complete gaming system (in the UK)?

My budget is less than £800. Much less would be better.

At the moment I'm thinking along the lines of the "Titan 8700i Pulse" Intel Core i5 3570K 3.40GHz @ 4.40GHz DDR3 Ivybridge Gaming PC from overclockers.co.uk - probably with a better graphics card and OS included.

Or there's a £750 Acer gaming PC on ebuyer that I can't link to right now because their website appears to be down.

Does anyone know any other good websites for full systems?
Also, am I being silly sticking to Intel machines? Is AMD up to snuff these days?

Edit: Wrong link.
Edit: The link keeps going to the wrong one :/

[rsherhod]

Never mind, I bought the one on Overclockers.co.uk.

I don't quite know what came over me. It's more money than I've spent on myself in years and is going to be the first purpose built gaming rig I've had in nearly a decade.

...It's also the first time I've been accepted for credit in ages :D

[TheIronSky]

What did you end up getting?

And yeah, an i5 should be fine, unless you need some serious computing power (which you really don't if this is strictly a gaming PC).

Hopefully you put most of that money towards the GPU.

[trjp]

Someone will be along in 2 mins to tell you, you should have built your own.

Ignore them and enjoy-the-hell out of it ;)

[Sakkura]

If you went for that Titan 8700i Pulse, it's a good system as long as you at least picked a HD 7850 graphics card.

[rsherhod]

Yeah I went with the Titan 8700i Pulse. Only got a HD 7770 in it though. While I certainly wasn't going to settle for the stock HD 6450, I thought the HD 7770 would be sufficient. My logic was that a graphics card is one of the easier components to replace in a year or two.

I hope that wasn't a mistake :S

[Feldspar]

If you've just had a massive upgrade, then you probably won't miss the HD7850, you'll be happy with the HD7770, and as you said you can easily shove something swishier in the slot in a couple of years time.

Reminds me, really should replace the 460Ti in my system.

[Jams O'Donnell]

The 7770 should be ample for a couple of years or so. My 6770 handles everything I throw at it just fine with the exception of crazy tricked-out GTA4 with mods.

[rsherhod]

Excellent. Can't wait!

[The Tupper]

Enjoy your new system - especially if you haven't treated yourself in a while. Although self-build has much to be recommended, there are few pleasures to compare with unpacking a box with a shiny PC ready-to-go inside. It's a heady, damn-near sensual experience, what with all those chemically-bonded packing materials.

[Feldspar]

It's a heady, damn-near sensual experience, what with all those chemically-bonded packing materials.

Breathe those long chain carbon compounds deeply, they're only mildly carcinogenic.

[rsherhod]

Enjoy your new system - especially if you haven't treated yourself in a while. Although self-build has much to be recommended, there are few pleasures to compare with unpacking a box with a shiny PC ready-to-go inside. It's a heady, damn-near sensual experience, what with all those chemically-bonded packing materials.

Last time I did a self-build. Didn't really know what I was doing back then, so I ended up with a machine that couldn't be overclocked. Plus I had no idea that after 9 months or so AGP would become obsolete.

[TheIronSky]

Plus I had no idea that after 9 months or so AGP would become obsolete.

There is no such thing as future-proofing. Everything becomes obsolete eventually.

But then you can just do this!: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/how...n_commodore_64

Although I guess that's not possible with more modern computers seeing as they're simply not as... iconic.

Best of luck with your new hardware, though!

[rsherhod]

There is no such thing as future-proofing. Everything becomes obsolete eventually.

That's certainly true. AGP to PCIe was a pretty big change though. Also the machine couldn't multiple core CPUs.

[Sakkura]

That's certainly true. AGP to PCIe was a pretty big change though. Also the machine couldn't multiple core CPUs.

Well the motherboard in your new computer can't use the CPUs Intel will launch in June. So there's really not much difference there.

[rsherhod]

New question:
Here are the specs. of the machine I went for:


- CPU: Intel Core i5 3570K 3.40GHz overclocked to 4.40GHz
- RAM: 8GB DDR3 1600MHz Dual Channel
- Graphics Card: Asus HD 7770 GHz TOP 1024MB GDDR5


Bearing that in mind, will it be worth getting the High Resolution Texture Pack for Skyrim? How well can I expect it to run and at what settings?
For that matter, how well can I expect Skyrim to run, and at what settings, with the normal textures?
Haven't played Skyrim yet, since I've been waiting for a machine that would do those wide open spaces justice.
My screen is 1920×1080, so that's what I want to run it at. These rubbish eyes of mine will tolerate playing without FSAA, unless there isn't a significant speed penalty.

I could just wait to see how well it will run using the normal textures, but the high res. ones are apparently very difficult to get rid of once they're on your Steam list. Also I'm too damn excited.

[Sakkura]

It should run okay with the official high resolution texture pack at ultra settings. Better texture packs will be a problem though, because the 7770 only has 1 GB VRAM.

[rsherhod]

It should run okay with the official high resolution texture pack at ultra settings.

Excellent.

Better texture packs will be a problem though, because the 7770 only has 1 GB VRAM.

That just gives me a reason to revisit Skyrim in two or so years when I upgrade the graphics card.

Any games around at the moment that would be beyond its abilities? Or perhaps just ones that I'll have to turn things down on?

[Sakkura]

I don't think any games would be beyond it, but quite a few would require lowered settings. Crysis 2 & 3 for example.