Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Need some opinions from you big brains on this pc build.:)
Hello Mmorpg.com Community.
I have recently come into some money due to a sweet tax rebate. I am self employed and work hard but this is the first money I have had in years that I can really spend on myself. It's not much but I am looking to upgrade my p.c. Am in the process of looking around the infrawebs for good deals. What I have at the moment is not bad but it is a an Acer with a very small tower and crapy power supply so upgrading it is kind of impossible. Have a budget that could possibly stretch to around £650 at most. Have been virtually building pc's all morning but then found this on ebay, bit more money that I wanted to spend but looks pretty decent parts wise to my noobish computer buying eye and is much better than my current rig.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VIBOX-GT-Z14-AMD-PHENOM-QUAD-CORE-GTX-560-8GB-RAM-1TB-WINDOWS-GAMING-COMPUTER-PC-/190588253044?pt=UK_Computing_DesktopPCs&hash=item2c5ff1f374 <<<<<< please click.
As I have only bought pc's from high street retailers before that seem so expensive for what they are and I really don't much about what I am doing I would really appreciate any thoughts or opinions from you guys as you are good at this kind of thing, I know because I read these kind of threads all the time. Really need a pc for work as well as I totaly reliy on it for all my income, but as I can keep the one I am using at the moment then that isn't much of a problem I guess but would idealy like to sell this to make some money back. What I am looking for is something cheap, half decent that I can upgrade in the future and will play most games without to much problems out of the box, with some kind of warrenty. Am I asking for the Moon on a stick? Thanks for reading.:)
Comments
Well, personally I have bad experience with AMD CPU's so I wouldn't advise you to get one just based on my experience. (not saying they are bad)
Anyhow, I just checked Overclockers UK and made a decent machine with the configurator (better then the one you linked) for 660 quid. might wanna have a look at overclockers UK
"I am not a robot. I am a unicorn."
You come from the UK so i suggest this site and it's forums,i built my PC from this site,it's the best.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/
Head to the forums. http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/
The OCUK service is second to none,they will answer any question you have and make sure you get the best bang for buck set up.
Nice one guys, Overclockers come very highly recomended from my mates as well. Already built a cheaper one than my o.p. Thanks for the sugestion
One question though, would a 550 w power supply be enough to upgrade the graphics card at a later date. The build I am looking at has a geforce 430, which is still better than what I have (Intel HD onboard) Have had no problem running things on it, it just doesn't look very pretty is all 
Would have to look at the other components and see how much they consuming.
If it serves you as any reference I got a 700W Power Supply, got 3 hard drives, 1 CD/DVD Drive, sound drive, GTX 280 1GB, and 5 fans, and I still don't know what my limit is, I could prolly throw another gfx card in there.
Also, see if u can get a X40-60 card in there instead of a X30
"I am not a robot. I am a unicorn."
Just been on the forums, Can upgrade the power supply to 600w and graphics card and still comes in at around £500 if I don't get a ssd now and pick one up later. That's pretty much what I wanted to spend. Would be very happy with that. Thank you so much for the help, this has made my day. can't wait for my cheque to clear now:)
Want to buy a pig in a poke? One problem with prebuilt computers is that they don't tell you what you're getting. So you can buy it and hope it's good, but you'll probably be disappointed. Look carefully at the specs. They only actually tell you two pieces of hardware: the processor and the case. The processor is appropriate to your budget, but the case is, well, it's not completely awful, but it's definitely at the low end of what works for a gaming system, at least if you don't add more fans yourself.
But for everything else, they probably use the cheapest parts that technically meet their claimed specs and aren't bad enough that someone who is clueless about computers would be able to tell something is wrong. For example, what power supply do they use? The page doesn't even explicitly state that is has a power supply. And getting a good quality power supply is really important.
What motherboard is it? Gigabyte is a good brand, but they do make low end motherboards, too. There's a pretty good chance that it's either a GA-M68MT-S2 or a GA-78LMT-S2P, simply because those are the cheapest. That's all right if you're looking for corners to cut on a budget £200 less than your own. But it's not what you want otherwise.
What hard drive is it? The page says it's 1 TB. But that could be a glacially slow 5400 RPM hard drive. That's fine for bulk data storage, but you don't want to run real programs off of it, let alone an operating system.
What video card is it? It says it's a GeForce GTX 560. But it doesn't say the specs, and a GeForce GTX 560 doesn't even have official stock specs. Think they got you a premium cooler on the card? Or think they just picked the cheapest one, and never mind if it's clocked low, with poor build quality, and comes with a "lifetime warranty" that means the lifetime of the SKU (i.e., when the card is discontinued, the warranty expires; as absurd as that sounds, Sparkle actually does exactly that).
What memory is it? Is it two 4 GB modules or four 2 GB modules? What is the stock voltage? What are the latency timings? The memory can't really be that bad, but my point is that they don't tell you. Okay, so the memory won't be that bad.
It also doesn't say the optical drive, but that's fine, as there aren't bad optical drives.
The ideal solution is to build your own computer. If the problem is picking parts, then I could pick them for you. You'll need to know how to read directions and use a screwdriver to actually assemble the computer, but if you haven't done it before, it's a lot easier than you probably think.
If you can't or won't build your own computer, then the next best thing is to get one built to order, from a site that will let you pick the exact parts. Lots of sites try to create the illusion that they're giving you a lot of choices, without actually giving you a lot of choices. If you find a site that lets you pick the exact power supply, then you might be onto something. And by the exact power supply, I mean something like "Seasonic S12II 520 W", not merely "500 W". "500 W" isn't a power supply any more than "1 GB" is a video card or "3 GHz" is a processor.
Uh oh. Better cancel that order quick if you can.
The nominal wattage on a power supply has more to do with marketing than engineering. Some "600 W" power supplies can safely and reliably deliver 600 W in the real world. Others will explode if you try to pull 400 W from them, and start causing problems at far lower wattages than that. If you're shopping only based on wattage and price, you're nearly guaranteed to end up with the latter sort of power supply. You need to find the exact brand name and model to see if it's any good.
At least in the US, the only Nvidia card that makes any sense to buy new is a GeForce GTX 560 Ti. Other than that, AMD will give you better performance at every price point. The lowest end that you could plausibly call a gaming card is a Radeon HD 6670. A Radeon HD 7750 or 6770 would likely be the thing to get on your budget.
Also, list the exact build before buying it. And I mean all of the parts, not just what you think are a few main specs.
Get a i5
Or if your good with messing about with bioses and stuff and want a bit cheaper get a phenom 2 or the fx4 core (not the 6 or 8 the 4 is faster for games and cheaper)
Personally I would go the otherway round Intel processor / AMD video something like a 6870 is great bang for buck and also you save on power supply as you can run it with an i5 with a 450w supply and it only uses 1 power rail
intel is much better but amd is much cheaper
It's not just the brand name. You need the brand name and model. And Cooler Master isn't a good power supply brand, either.
Oooops sorry Quiz. Didn't make myself clear there. Have not spent anything yet, ment waiting for my tax rebate to clear in the bank. Also there is no way I am now buying the p.c in the original post. Will not be spending anything either untill I am sure I have the best deal. But I like this Overclockers site, they have been really helpful and the forums really impartial, awsome reviews on the whole as well around the internet. Will post what build I'm thinking when I have a better idea. Thanks a lot for everything you have posted so far. I am learning a lot today.