Apologies, I really did mean Frame rate issues with games on higher graphics/busier area's.
I wasn't aware that lag referred to latency only, sorry.
People use the term "lag" to refer to anything which causes a brief interruption or delay in their gaming experience. The term is not very descriptive and other terms can more accurately describe the issue you are having.
Lag could refer to hitching, which is a brief freezing of the picture on your monitor. This is most often caused by programs attempting to load data from the hard drive. Using a SSD as your primary OS and gaming drive often remedies this, assuming you don't have something else causing the hitching.
Lag could also refer to a sudden, but short increase in your latency. This is sometimes referred to as a "lag spike" and can be caused by your network hardware, interference if you are on wireless, your ISP, the server, or anything in between you and the server.
Lag is sometimes used to describe a sudden decrease in the framerate, usually when certain graphics are attempted to be displayed, or in crowded areas in MMOs. This is usually caused by an overtasked CPU or GPU. Only a hardware upgrade can solve this "lag" problem.
Lag is also used to describe a constant, but high latency. If your "ping" is over 250, you will easily notice a delay in activating abilities in MMOs. Troubleshooting this type of "lag" is harder, because there is rarely a fix you can implement to resolve this.
The computer you're looking at buying is garbage. The video card is decent, but the rest of the system is probably parts they are just trying to get rid of. What they are doing is similar to putting racing tires on a 1980's Geo Metro. It doesn't fix the performance problem and you still won't have a race car.
If you want a gaming system, state your budget and someone might be nice enough to look up parts for you.
Think the "Build your pc" section on this is decent for me to use for now? Just to see what parts and compatible with each other and so on, I'd then look the parts up elsewhere to find them cheaper.
You get what you pay for when it comes to computer performance. At your budget range, you probably shouldn't be looking for something and you should probably be trying to save up for something decent.
This system is halfway decent for gaming, and it is on sale for 633 pounds.
You should evaluate what you need and what you want so you can make better decisions on what to buy.
Processor: As a bare minimum, the AMD FX-6300 is going the be the cheapest processor you should buy for a gaming system. Anything less than that won't be good enough for modern games on high settings. The AMD APUs are mediocre for gaming and won't be likely to be upgradeable to a decent performance level, so avoid those. A higher budget would aim for the Intel processors for better single-threaded performance.
RAM: You can get by with 4GB, but future-proofing and avoiding page file usage will demand 8GB or at least planning to upgrade to it in the near-future. The speed should be DDR3 1600MHz. Faster is better, but won't make as significant of a difference in framerate as spending the money on a better GPU or CPU.
GPU: Anything more than two generations behind the latest is likely to be cheap, but not offer great performance at higher detail settings. If you aim for two generations behind the latest, plan to upgrade in the future. It is one of the easiest upgrades to perform, with RAM being the only thing easier.
Cooling: Liquid cooling kits are becoming more popular, easy to install, and relatively cheap. You can get by with a cheap air cooler if you find the right one, though. The Hyper 212 Evo is a good cheap one, but I'm sure there are others. Many aftermarket coolers require removing and replacing the motherboard brackets on the back, so it is a better idea to buy and install the cooler when you build the system rather than later.
Power Supply: Don't go cheap. You don't have to get top-of-the-line. You also don't need 750W for a single-GPU system unless you plan to push the overclock to the limits on both the CPU and GPU. A decent gaming power supply should have about 600W Bronze rating.
Storage: Do you need 1TB of hard drive space? If you download movies or lots of music, you might want a large mechanical drive. In my opinion, a solid-state drive is a must-have for gaming systems. At 120GB, you can load your OS and a few games. A ~240GB SSD lets you dump more stuff on it before you have to manage the space you have by uninstalling games and deleting downloaded things you don't need.
Case: This is more about aesthetics than anything. Most cases have plenty of ventilation, or you can simply leave the side open. Just make sure your motherboard fits. Don't buy an ITX case and an ATX motherboard. A microATX motherboard will fit in an ATX case, but not the other way around.
Motherboard: MicroATX should be fine. ATX motherboards tend to offer more PCIe slots, which you may or may not need. ITX should be avoided unless you know what you are doing. More expensive motherboards tend to offer a few more features, but rarely anything substantial for performance. Don't go super-cheap, though. Some brands (ASRock) are notorious for low reliability on their super-cheap motherboards.
Think the "Build your pc" section on this is decent for me to use for now? Just to see what parts and compatible with each other and so on, I'd then look the parts up elsewhere to find them cheaper.
If you really have to use that site, I've took the liberty to make you one good combo for 602£:
1 x 1TB (1000GB) Sata III Hard Drive
Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3 Motherboard
1 x 150MBs USB Wireless Network WiFi Adaptor
Raijintek Aidos CPU Cooler
Corsair CX600 80+ 600W PSU
1 x 24x DVD-RW Optical Drive
Galaxy Bubble Gaming Case
8GB Corsair Vengeance 1866MHz Gaming RAM
AMD Radeon HD 7850 2GB Graphics Card
3.5GHz AMD FX-6300 6-Core CPU
No Operating System Needed
£60 PC Build Charge, FREE UK Delivery, FREE Shockproof Packaging + FREE 1 Year Standard Warranty Package
You can go cheaper (557£) if you take AMD 7770 graphics card or AMD 7790 (for 571£ total) instead of AMD 7850, but I wouldn't go cheaper than that if you plan to use this PC for gaming more than a year or two.
Nah I wasn't having to use that website, I was just enjoying using the pc builder to get an idea of what pieces go together well, I've been writing down the names of the components and then looking them up on amazon and such so I could buy them all seperataly and build it myself. (Capable of building a computer)
The only reason to buy a computer for which the seller won't tell you what's in it is if you're clueless. Which you shouldn't be after getting advice here. And I don't mean listing a few parts while ignoring the others. If they don't tell you the exact brand name and model of the power supply and motherboard, they're not giving you enough specs to make an informed purchase. Usually if they won't tell you what's in a computer, it's because it's junk and they don't want you to know.
I take it you're in Britain and can buy from any site that ships to Britain?
The only reason to buy a computer for which the seller won't tell you what's in it is if you're clueless. Which you shouldn't be after getting advice here. And I don't mean listing a few parts while ignoring the others. If they don't tell you the exact brand name and model of the power supply and motherboard, they're not giving you enough specs to make an informed purchase. Usually if they won't tell you what's in a computer, it's because it's junk and they don't want you to know.
I take it you're in Britain and can buy from any site that ships to Britain?
Yep, I'm in Scotland, so anything that ships here is perfect
Above, I linked a 240 GB SSD. If that's enough capacity for you in the near future, great. If you need more capacity than that now, then we'll have to change your storage configuration.
Just wanted to echo what others have said: that power supply is not going to do the job. I wouldn't get that system, even if you were to get 500W, and especially if you plan to overclock that power-hungry AMD CPU.
I'm not sure if this place will ship to Scotland, and some of their stuff is a little overpriced anyway, but ibuypower.com has a nice configurator that will actually give you helpful little prompts about your components, literally stuff like "This power supply would not meet your system's requirements" and "Motherboard does not support the selected memory."
Above, I linked a 240 GB SSD. If that's enough capacity for you in the near future, great. If you need more capacity than that now, then we'll have to change your storage configuration.
Brilliant, thank you so much Quizz c: I think I'll go with this when/if I get paid next month
One question though, would I be able to possibly try a different case or would I be best sticking with that one? again though, thank you c: really helped me out.
You'll be fine choosing another case if you don't like that one. The Antec 300 is just a solid all around case is all, ye old faithful sort of thing. At one point it was the best in it's price range but the market has filled out considerably over the past couple of years and there are plenty of other cheap but decent ones at it's price now.
Be aware what Quiz linked today will most likely not be the same parts he would recommend to you in a months time. It's really best to ask for specifics when you have the money to spend right away because the cost of any given part can change at a moments notice, usually due to a competitor releasing something new and/or dropping prices.
not sure what kind of fps your rig will give you, however, now that you are buying a decent computer, you should at least understand the difference between low fps and lag. lag has nothing to do with your computer... lag is also known as latency.. which is caused by a bad internet connection.
Originally posted by Sarariel Heard good things about the gtx 660, hopefully it lives up to what I've heard c:
if your after a gtx 660, then personally i'd go with the msi twin frozr, i upgraded to one from a 260 gtx, the improvements were fairly astounding tbh.
I read the title as "Considering buying this computer, will I be able to run modem games(and mmo's) with minimum lag."
and thought "Holy crap, that's one hell of a necro'd thread!"
On topic, it seems like a decent budget PC, but when it comes to gaming, at that price range, you get what you pay for.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Would it be wise to try and return it and get another board? or will I not really be needing to overlock? worried about frying it
Where are the bad reviews?
If the worst that they have to say about the motherboard is that it doesn't overclock very well, then that's pretty good. On your budget, you're not going to overclock much, anyway.
Originally posted by Sarariel Heard good things about the gtx 660, hopefully it lives up to what I've heard c:
as your in the UK it's also free delivery afaik, and for only 147 quid
I wouldn't buy one right now, 7850's which have pretty much the same performance have been on sale for the past few days for £90 and come with 2 free games... a ridiculous price. There will be plenty of deals over the Xmas period so buy cheap or don't buy at all tbh.
I've bought all the parts you recommended quizz c: Going to build it today, looks pretty amazing. Can't imagine myself having many issues with games with it
Comments
People use the term "lag" to refer to anything which causes a brief interruption or delay in their gaming experience. The term is not very descriptive and other terms can more accurately describe the issue you are having.
Lag could refer to hitching, which is a brief freezing of the picture on your monitor. This is most often caused by programs attempting to load data from the hard drive. Using a SSD as your primary OS and gaming drive often remedies this, assuming you don't have something else causing the hitching.
Lag could also refer to a sudden, but short increase in your latency. This is sometimes referred to as a "lag spike" and can be caused by your network hardware, interference if you are on wireless, your ISP, the server, or anything in between you and the server.
Lag is sometimes used to describe a sudden decrease in the framerate, usually when certain graphics are attempted to be displayed, or in crowded areas in MMOs. This is usually caused by an overtasked CPU or GPU. Only a hardware upgrade can solve this "lag" problem.
Lag is also used to describe a constant, but high latency. If your "ping" is over 250, you will easily notice a delay in activating abilities in MMOs. Troubleshooting this type of "lag" is harder, because there is rarely a fix you can implement to resolve this.
The computer you're looking at buying is garbage. The video card is decent, but the rest of the system is probably parts they are just trying to get rid of. What they are doing is similar to putting racing tires on a 1980's Geo Metro. It doesn't fix the performance problem and you still won't have a race car.
If you want a gaming system, state your budget and someone might be nice enough to look up parts for you.
I'd say my budget is around the £500-600 mark
I've been looking at the website https://www.vibox.co.uk/
Think the "Build your pc" section on this is decent for me to use for now? Just to see what parts and compatible with each other and so on, I'd then look the parts up elsewhere to find them cheaper.
You get what you pay for when it comes to computer performance. At your budget range, you probably shouldn't be looking for something and you should probably be trying to save up for something decent.
This system is halfway decent for gaming, and it is on sale for 633 pounds.
https://www.vibox.co.uk/amd/vibox-machine1-951
You should evaluate what you need and what you want so you can make better decisions on what to buy.
Processor: As a bare minimum, the AMD FX-6300 is going the be the cheapest processor you should buy for a gaming system. Anything less than that won't be good enough for modern games on high settings. The AMD APUs are mediocre for gaming and won't be likely to be upgradeable to a decent performance level, so avoid those. A higher budget would aim for the Intel processors for better single-threaded performance.
RAM: You can get by with 4GB, but future-proofing and avoiding page file usage will demand 8GB or at least planning to upgrade to it in the near-future. The speed should be DDR3 1600MHz. Faster is better, but won't make as significant of a difference in framerate as spending the money on a better GPU or CPU.
GPU: Anything more than two generations behind the latest is likely to be cheap, but not offer great performance at higher detail settings. If you aim for two generations behind the latest, plan to upgrade in the future. It is one of the easiest upgrades to perform, with RAM being the only thing easier.
Cooling: Liquid cooling kits are becoming more popular, easy to install, and relatively cheap. You can get by with a cheap air cooler if you find the right one, though. The Hyper 212 Evo is a good cheap one, but I'm sure there are others. Many aftermarket coolers require removing and replacing the motherboard brackets on the back, so it is a better idea to buy and install the cooler when you build the system rather than later.
Power Supply: Don't go cheap. You don't have to get top-of-the-line. You also don't need 750W for a single-GPU system unless you plan to push the overclock to the limits on both the CPU and GPU. A decent gaming power supply should have about 600W Bronze rating.
Storage: Do you need 1TB of hard drive space? If you download movies or lots of music, you might want a large mechanical drive. In my opinion, a solid-state drive is a must-have for gaming systems. At 120GB, you can load your OS and a few games. A ~240GB SSD lets you dump more stuff on it before you have to manage the space you have by uninstalling games and deleting downloaded things you don't need.
Case: This is more about aesthetics than anything. Most cases have plenty of ventilation, or you can simply leave the side open. Just make sure your motherboard fits. Don't buy an ITX case and an ATX motherboard. A microATX motherboard will fit in an ATX case, but not the other way around.
Motherboard: MicroATX should be fine. ATX motherboards tend to offer more PCIe slots, which you may or may not need. ITX should be avoided unless you know what you are doing. More expensive motherboards tend to offer a few more features, but rarely anything substantial for performance. Don't go super-cheap, though. Some brands (ASRock) are notorious for low reliability on their super-cheap motherboards.
If you really have to use that site, I've took the liberty to make you one good combo for 602£:
The only reason to buy a computer for which the seller won't tell you what's in it is if you're clueless. Which you shouldn't be after getting advice here. And I don't mean listing a few parts while ignoring the others. If they don't tell you the exact brand name and model of the power supply and motherboard, they're not giving you enough specs to make an informed purchase. Usually if they won't tell you what's in a computer, it's because it's junk and they don't want you to know.
I take it you're in Britain and can buy from any site that ships to Britain?
Yep, I'm in Scotland, so anything that ships here is perfect
Here you go:
http://www.ebuyer.com/503899-amd-piledriver-fx-6-six-core-6350-black-edition-3-90ghz-socket-am3-processor-fd6350frhkbox
http://www.ebuyer.com/343475-msi-970a-g46-socket-am3-8-channel-audio-atx-motherboard-970a-g46
http://www.ebuyer.com/342444-crucial-8gb-ddr3-1600mhz-ballistic-elite-memory-kit-ble2cp4g3d1608de1tx0ceu
http://www.ebuyer.com/391870-antec-all-black-300-case-0-761345-15321-8
http://www.ebuyer.com/413805-xfx-proseries-550w-power-supply-unit-core-edition-p1-550s-xxb9
http://www.ebuyer.com/154832-liteon-ihas122-22x-sata-dvd-rw-dl-black-bare-drive-oem-ihas122
http://www.ebuyer.com/497430-crucial-240gb-m500-ssd-ct240m500ssd1
http://www.ebuyer.com/523035-powercolor-hd7870-ghz-edition-graphics-card-radeon-hd7870-2gb-pcie-dvi-hdmi-mini-displayport-ax7870-2gbd5-2dhe-oc
http://www.ebuyer.com/581064-oem-microsoft-windows-8-1-64-bit-english-international-1-pack-dvd-wn7-00614
Total: £ 668.25
If you happen to prefer Nvidia to AMD on video cards, then you could try this instead for the video card:
http://www.ebuyer.com/487041-msi-nvidia-gtx-660-1072mhz-6008mhz-2048mb-192-bit-ddr5-fan-dl-dvi-i-hdmi-n660-2gd5-oc
Above, I linked a 240 GB SSD. If that's enough capacity for you in the near future, great. If you need more capacity than that now, then we'll have to change your storage configuration.
Just wanted to echo what others have said: that power supply is not going to do the job. I wouldn't get that system, even if you were to get 500W, and especially if you plan to overclock that power-hungry AMD CPU.
I'm not sure if this place will ship to Scotland, and some of their stuff is a little overpriced anyway, but ibuypower.com has a nice configurator that will actually give you helpful little prompts about your components, literally stuff like "This power supply would not meet your system's requirements" and "Motherboard does not support the selected memory."
If nothing else, it's a nice tool.
Brilliant, thank you so much Quizz c: I think I'll go with this when/if I get paid next month
One question though, would I be able to possibly try a different case or would I be best sticking with that one? again though, thank you c: really helped me out.
-Nevermind, bought the Antec c:
Thank you so much~
http://puu.sh/5vSL7.jpg
I'm reading some pretty bad reviews for the http://www.ebuyer.com/343475-msi-970a-g46-socket-am3-8-channel-audio-atx-motherboard-970a-g46 motherboard, especially concerning overclocking..
Would it be wise to try and return it and get another board? or will I not really be needing to overlock? worried about frying it
if your after a gtx 660, then personally i'd go with the msi twin frozr, i upgraded to one from a 260 gtx, the improvements were fairly astounding tbh.
http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/nvidiageforcegraphicscards/nvidiagtx660series/n660gaming2gd5oc.html
as your in the UK it's also free delivery afaik, and for only 147 quid
I read the title as "Considering buying this computer, will I be able to run modem games(and mmo's) with minimum lag."
and thought "Holy crap, that's one hell of a necro'd thread!"
On topic, it seems like a decent budget PC, but when it comes to gaming, at that price range, you get what you pay for.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Where are the bad reviews?
If the worst that they have to say about the motherboard is that it doesn't overclock very well, then that's pretty good. On your budget, you're not going to overclock much, anyway.
I wouldn't buy one right now, 7850's which have pretty much the same performance have been on sale for the past few days for £90 and come with 2 free games... a ridiculous price. There will be plenty of deals over the Xmas period so buy cheap or don't buy at all tbh.
Going to build it today, looks pretty amazing. Can't imagine myself having many issues with games with it