Looking to buy a new PC.

[hazo.ps]

Some of you may know that the laptop I'm using to do everything on the moment isn't very good at playing games. Now with Guild Wars 2 approaching, I really want to get an upgrade before the release.

I know it's quite a small budget, but I'm trying to get a good gaming desktop for around £400.
I've tried to get the specs around the Battlefield 3 recommended specs, as from what I've seen and heard it's a pretty high req game. I'm not looking to get every game looking highly detailed. Just a good 50-60 fps, and average graphics. I'm just looking for the desktop, no mouse or monitor etc.

The best I've seen so far:
http://www.dinopc.com/shop/pc/Gallan...00-94p1213.htm

Would be great to hear any suggestions . Thanks in advance.

[Xearo]

When I was looking around at having my new PC custom-built, dinopc was the single cheapest website of all time ever ever, so I reckon that's your best bet unless you want to build it yourself.

Might be worth upgrading the RAM to 1600mhz for the extra £5, mind you.

[Spudd]

The best I've seen so far:
http://www.dinopc.com/shop/pc/Gallan...00-94p1213.htm

O.o That's a beast for that price. That's ridiculous

[Apoc.ps]

O.o That's a beast for that price. That's ridiculous

It's AMD...euw

Have they built something good recently?

[grom.ps]

Have AMD done anything bad? I've bought and used thousands (literally) of pcs and servers and have no complaints with AMD.

[Apoc.ps]

Well, I don't use server equipment in my personal computers...


Intel has been king of the home pc market for a while, was just wondering if anything changed?
I know before xmas when i built a new rig, AMD was just an uneconomical/poor choice.


Seems the situation hasnt changed?

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

4th 'best' processor: Intel Core i7-3930K @ 3.20GHz
$569.99

12th 'best' processor: AMD (highest ranked AMD chip)
$649.99



EDIT:
Had a better look through the list, there are a few tasty AMD options in there here and there.
The one in hazo's original post being one of them, seems like its the best performance in its price range

[grom.ps]

I was talking pcs and servers. Intel is the king and has the price to match but other than not being the biggest seller I'm not aware of anything that should stop someone buying AMD - technically there's nothing wrong with them, some cost a lot of money, some cost less, it just depends what you want. Personally, I seem to end up alternating between Intel and AMD purely on cost and availability when I upgrade but in my house at the moment I can think of 2 Intel boxes and 4 AMD boxes - the best and the worst ones are AMD but the middling ones are Intel.
Just saying not to discount them on technical grounds. Cost grounds - fair enough.

[hazo.ps]

Ok, I can't quite get hold of a print out of the specs quite yet, so I'm gonna just type it out manually for now.
The rig has been ordered, and this is what I've got. (Dad added some stuff so I might remember it all correctly)

MOBO - Gigabyte M68MT-S2 OR Asus M5A78L-M LX V2 (can't remember which)
RAM - 8GB DDR3 1333mhz (2x 4GB)
Graphics card - ADM Radeon HD 7750 1GB OR AMD Radeon HD 7770 1GB (can't remember again)
Case - Zalman Z9 plus
PSU - 500W Xigmatek

Anything that I didn't mention is the same as the first post.

Also, I've had to leave the RAM at 1333 because of the motherboard specs.

[hazo.ps]

It's arrived .
One thing that would be really useful, does anyone know if I can transfer stuff from my laptops harddrive to the new PC? Because it will cost a lot to download all my games again. I was thinking I could use a memory pen, but I don't have one that holds enough memory. I'm not sure if it would work for steam games.

[Krazko]

It's arrived .
One thing that would be really useful, does anyone know if I can transfer stuff from my laptops harddrive to the new PC? Because it will cost a lot to download all my games again. I was thinking I could use a memory pen, but I don't have one that holds enough memory. I'm not sure if it would work for steam games.

the way I've done it with my laptop and desktop is to hook both up to the network, open my laptopt completely to the network (remember to set it to not share again when you're done).
then pull all stuff from the laptop, it can take a while yes, but leave it on during night or when you go somewhere.

I don't know if you can pull stuff that's in C: on the laptop (i've not found a way but not looked a lot either tbh) but you could just solve that by moving the stuff you want from your laptop to dekstop or something which you can easily find

[Xearo]

The way I did it was to steal the ethernet cable that came with my old router and hook the laptop to the desktop and transfer it over that way. Much, much faster than any other way. Grats on the new PC, btw

[hazo.ps]

Awesome, wasn't sure if ethernet would work, but either of those are fine by me . Thanks guys

[Boylee.ps]

The way I did it was to steal the ethernet cable that came with my old router and hook the laptop to the desktop and transfer it over that way. Much, much faster than any other way. Grats on the new PC, btw

Wait, what? That's a thing you can do?

[Xearo]

Haha, yeah. You create a new network with the connection between the two and set it to your homegroup on 7, so that you can access the public folders and then move the stuff you want to transfer into those. Takes next to no time.

[MacNetron.ps]

this grandpa thought you do need a cross cable for that?

[grazr]

I was talking pcs and servers. Intel is the king and has the price to match but other than not being the biggest seller I'm not aware of anything that should stop someone buying AMD - technically there's nothing wrong with them, some cost a lot of money, some cost less, it just depends what you want. Personally, I seem to end up alternating between Intel and AMD purely on cost and availability when I upgrade but in my house at the moment I can think of 2 Intel boxes and 4 AMD boxes - the best and the worst ones are AMD but the middling ones are Intel.
Just saying not to discount them on technical grounds. Cost grounds - fair enough.

Same here, of my 4 machines over the years i've gone Intel>AMD>AMD>Intel and although my i7 i'm using now was pricey, i justified it as an investmant because i needed the hyper threading i couldn't get with an i5 or alternate for my work.

I know a lot of people used to buy AMD out of brand loyalty because as with many things people like to go for the up-coming underdog, but now AMD aren't so little people don't see much of an issue choosing between either. Both have good options, but it's like the Mac vs PC of CPU's now.

If you want a powerful GPU then a powerful PSU is a must. 2 years ago the Nvidia GTX 460 was the best bang for your buck, but then 2 years is millenia in the technology age so my suggestion is a little outdated (well, you have your machine already so), but what i will say is my GTX 460 is still going like the day i purchased it and every game that comes out runs on ultra settings and is all i have to do is up some of the RPM's on the card's fan for DX11 games.

You'll have to let us know how the Radeon performs.

[grom.ps]

this grandpa thought you do need a cross cable for that?

Ah, not always these days - quite often the sockets have autosensing and can do it either way. Failing that, just go into router and back out,

[MacNetron.ps]

Ah, not always these days - quite often the sockets have autosensing and can do it either way. Failing that, just go into router and back out,

Autosensing ports?

Where are the times that we connected our square 2 button mouse at com1 and the line printer on lpt1?

[Boylee.ps]

Today I learned...

[grom.ps]

I still want a serial port on all my pcs and laptops just for hacking/robotics - you can use usb these days but serial is so basic and just works.