How to spec a... Low end gaming machine. (£500)

[Dr. kitteny berk]

**Disclaimer, this spec is off the top of my head, and this really needs re-writing to make sense**


Right, seeing as some people here probably don't have much of a clue about this, we might as well start at the start, with a nice basic machine and mutterings about how to choose a spec.

Considerations.

First you need to think about what you want, and don't want your machine to do - This'll help you decide what to spec (more memory, less HD space, etc)

Given this is 5punk, i'm gonna spec a machine capable of playing BEEF reasonably well, with some space for floorware.

Also, we'll assume you have a monitor, and a "spare" copy of windows about.

Also, given this is gonna be a low-end machine, we should over-spec some things - While you *could* run this machine on a nice 350w PSU - if you

upgrade, you'll have to replace your PSU. which is bad.

So, from this, we know we need 2gb of ram, and a 250gb HD - this is currently about the best £/GB you'll get.

We also want a pretty competent (current socket - am2 or 775) cpu, and acceptable PCI-E graphics card (more future-proofing)

Motherboard, think cheap, but decent chipset and decent maker.

Case wise, we want something that looks alright, and is cheap.


*CPU - Athlon 64, AM2, 3500+
*Mobo - Asus M2N-E
*Ram - Crucial 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-5300C5
*GPU - any old PCI-E 7600
*PSU - OCZ ModStream 520w
*HDD - Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 NCQ 250GB
*DVD - NEC ND3550
*Case - Asus TA-210 (has a crappy psu, but we can keep that for repairs)

This will run you £500 from ocuk (not inc. postage)

*optional
Soundcard - Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 4 7.1 (another £35)

[Dog Pants]

Nicely done there Doc

[ProfHawking]

meh.

you'd be fine with a 400w antec psu

[Dr. kitteny berk]

meh.

you'd be fine with a 400w antec psu

you might be.

but i know better.

and that really is not the point, a better PSU to start with saves you spending an extra £70 later.

[deject]

If you can spend the money, getting a better PSU should ALWAYS be done. yeah it's not going to improve performance at all, but you can put more things in your PC, such as a Pentium D and SLI and 13 hard drives without breaking a sweat if you have a good enough PSU. In fact, an underpowered PSU can cause a huge amount of instability and can eve damage your hardware.

[FatherJack]

Soundcard - Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE 7.1 (another £20)

That's the card I had, which shares the mic port with the digital out, hence the nasty bursts of static when CPU load was high. I've since replaced it with a External SB-Live for teamspeak use at around the same price.

I still use the Audigy for music stuff (no MIDI on the live) and SP games with higher EAX requirements, having an external device just makes it easier for me to reconnect speakers when swapping over.

Friz's Ventrillo instructions first clued me in to the problem, although I think it referred to an internal SB live with the same pinout. Any soundcard with a dedicated mic socket should get around the problem - using the onboard sound wasn't an option for me, and having two soundcards enabled in a machine usually leads to trouble.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

That's the card I had, which shares the mic port with the digital out, hence the nasty bursts of static when CPU load was high. I've since replaced it with a External SB-Live for teamspeak use at around the same price.

I still use the Audigy for music stuff (no MIDI on the live) and SP games with higher EAX requirements, having an external device just makes it easier for me to reconnect speakers when swapping over.

Friz's Ventrillo instructions first clued me in to the problem, although I think it referred to an internal SB live with the same pinout. Any soundcard with a dedicated mic socket should get around the problem - using the onboard sound wasn't an option for me, and having two soundcards enabled in a machine usually leads to trouble.

ahh, weird.

personally i use an extigy (can be had cheap on ebay) (used to be for mic, now just as a digital stuff box)

Audigy 2 for gaming/mic use.

And i leave the onboard stuff enabled, just in case.

[Woo Elephant Yeah]

Nice post, I'm holding off my upgrade/replacement till next year though, so things would have changed by then.

Still, it's given me a lot to think about though, as I never would of thought of future proofing a PSU and so on...

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Still, it's given me a lot to think about though, as I never would of thought of future proofing a PSU and so on...

it's a funny one, IMO the PSU is the *only* bit of harware you should try to futureproof, as a £200 graphics card upgrade can become a £130 graphics card and a replacement PSU very easily (or a £200 card and another £70 on PSU)

[deject]

yep, a quality PSU is like your monitor. Buy the best quality you can afford. You should feel no qualms spending a hundred quid for a good PSU. Your computer will thank you by not throwing BSODs and bad hard drives at you. Also, getting a UPS to go along with it is a very good idea.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Thanks to fatherjack, i've fixed the spec for a proper soundcard

big fuckup on my part there.

[FatherJack]

Can this be sticky'd or wiki'd please, and added to if anyone can think of anything that's updated?

I know at least four friends who are going to be needing this exact spec in the next few months, and I have offered to build them setups to avoid them spending 300 notes on a Smelleron from PC World with Integrated Everything and then ringing me up to ask why their games won't work.

My Dad's also looking to upgrade, but since my Mum has seen a PC that is £500 in Tesco this is now the de facto price for all PCs, regardless of specification

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Will run through the specs and wikify later.

[Dog Pants]

My Dad's also looking to upgrade, but since my Mum has seen a PC that is £500 in Tesco this is now the de facto price for all PCs, regardless of specification

Pffffft. Somitimes I wish I knew fuck all about PCs so I didn't have to put up with the inane questions from family members.

"So how do I connect my camera to the computer then?"
"Probably plug it into the USB port"
"Where's that then?"
"I've never seen your computer, I'm 180 miles away. How the fuck should I know?"
"So what do all the settings on my new camera do then?"

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Pffffft. Somitimes I wish I knew fuck all about PCs so I didn't have to put up with the inane questions from family members.

roffle. that


In other news, that spec at the top should still be pretty valid, only possible option would be a 775 mobo and (to allow for future core 2 compatibility)

I'll do more work on it at some point.

[FatherJack]

In other news, that spec at the top should still be pretty valid, only possible option would be a 775 mobo and (to allow for future core 2 compatibility)

I'll do more work on it at some point.

Top notch. Thanks.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Basic re-spec for core2 etc.

*CPU - Intel Celeron D 351 3.20GHz
*Mobo - Asus P5NSLI nForce 570
*Ram - Crucial 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-5300C5
*GPU - any old PCI-E 7600
*PSU - OCZ ModStream 520w
*HDD - Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 NCQ 250GB
*DVD - NEC ND4570
*Case - Asus TA-210 (has a crappy psu, but we can keep that for repairs)


This one comes out at about £540 + postage, if you wanna save money, drop one stick of ram, will land you well under £500.