Games PC Upgrade - suggestions wanted

"Brian" wrote in message
m...
I use my computer mainly for games and the internet, but recently it
clearly isn't fast enough for the newer games (it's also been crashing
a lot and I've spent so many hours trying to trace the problem I've
given up!)

I've no problem building a PC or buying a pre-built base unit from
somewhere, but I'm a bit behind (about 12 months!) on what's good and
what's not for PC hardware.

I've £700 to spend. What would your suggestions be on how to spend the
money to get a good (preferably great) machine?

I already have some perfectly good pieces of hardware which don't
really need replacing:
17" monitor, Ricoh DVD/CDRom-RW Combo drive, network card, keyboard,
mouse, speakers, floppy, modem

so I'll need to get:

Case (+PSU) (Who makes good mini/midi cases with reliable power
supplies and good cooling?) Coolermaster fans and their ally case

CPU (+Heatsink/Fan) (AMD Athlons seem to me the best bet, but what
heatsink/fan should I get?) Yep stick to what you love.

Mainboard (Which make/model of mainboards are good for Athlons? and I
assume AGP8X is now a near requirement for games?) Gigabyte boards

Graphics card (I presume this is a toss up between the Radeon and
GEForceFX? But which versions are the best without spending silly
money?) Radeon, bit pricey, GEforceFX better for games.

RAM (Any suggestions on good makes? And which speed(s) should be used
with the latest Athlons/mainboards? Is PC3200 only for intel?)

Soundcard (I'm not too fussy on sound, but what's cheap and pretty
good?) Creative Soundblaster OEM, cheap and nice sound.

Hard drive (What bus speeds are now sensible without breaking the
bank? And who makes good reliable, fast (and quiet) drives?)

OS - I've got Win98 at the moment. Is WinXP worth the £100 or so for
games? STAY WITH Win98, I'm on ME which is okay for my games
but they also worked on Win98second edition.

Any suggestions are much appreciated. And any rough ideas on prices of
components would be great.

Brian wrote:


so I'll need to get:

Case (+PSU) (Who makes good mini/midi cases with reliable power
supplies and good cooling?)

Aopen.


CPU (+Heatsink/Fan) (AMD Athlons seem to me the best bet, but what
heatsink/fan should I get?)

The bartons are the good ones, maybe a 2800+ would be a good price point?
I'd buy a retail chip and try the stock HSF.


Mainboard (Which make/model of mainboards are good for Athlons? and I
assume AGP8X is now a near requirement for games?)

AGP8X isn't likely to change things much over AGP4X. I wouldn't make any
decisions based on that. The asus Nforce2 400's seem to be good boards.


Graphics card (I presume this is a toss up between the Radeon and
GEForceFX? But which versions are the best without spending silly
money?)

ATI is on top right now.


RAM (Any suggestions on good makes? And which speed(s) should be used
with the latest Athlons/mainboards? Is PC3200 only for intel?)

Corsair XMS



OS - I've got Win98 at the moment. Is WinXP worth the £100 or so for
games?

Nope. Probably have lower FPS using XP but it =might= be more stable. I'd
spend that money on a better video card!


--

Stacey

In article ,
says...
I use my computer mainly for games and the internet, but recently it
clearly isn't fast enough for the newer games (it's also been crashing
a lot and I've spent so many hours trying to trace the problem I've
given up!)


Any suggestions are much appreciated. And any rough ideas on prices of
components would be great.

I'm running a XP2000+ on an nforce2 motherboard with a Geforce 4 ti4200
and 512MB of PC2700.

It runs everything at 32bit 1280x1024 including Unreal Tournament 2003
etc.


--
________________________
Conor Turton

ICQ:31909763
________________________

On 25 Jul 2003 13:11:51 -0700, (Brian) wrote:

I use my computer mainly for games and the internet, but recently it
clearly isn't fast enough for the newer games (it's also been crashing
a lot and I've spent so many hours trying to trace the problem I've
given up!)

I've no problem building a PC or buying a pre-built base unit from
somewhere, but I'm a bit behind (about 12 months!) on what's good and
what's not for PC hardware.

I've £700 to spend. What would your suggestions be on how to spend the
money to get a good (preferably great) machine?

I already have some perfectly good pieces of hardware which don't
really need replacing:
17" monitor, Ricoh DVD/CDRom-RW Combo drive, network card, keyboard,
mouse, speakers, floppy, modem

so I'll need to get:

Case (+PSU) (Who makes good mini/midi cases with reliable power
supplies and good cooling?)

Lian Li are the dogs ******** for cases, pricey but well made and made
of aluminium so they get rid of head quicker. You can get them with
and without a PSU, the choice is yours, but for PSU seperately Id go
for either Emermax or Zalman, and if you sys is all usb Id got for at
least 400 watts.

CPU (+Heatsink/Fan) (AMD Athlons seem to me the best bet, but what
heatsink/fan should I get?)

Thermalright SLK-900 coupled with a Papst 92mm fan.

Mainboard (Which make/model of mainboards are good for Athlons? and I
assume AGP8X is now a near requirement for games?)

Asus A7N8X Delux

Graphics card (I presume this is a toss up between the Radeon and
GEForceFX? But which versions are the best without spending silly
money?)

GeForce 5600 256mg is pretty good, and with the onset of the 5900
model their price is coming down.

RAM (Any suggestions on good makes? And which speed(s) should be used
with the latest Athlons/mainboards? Is PC3200 only for intel?)

Buy at crucial.com for sdram ram and go for the 2700 series as its
quicker.

Soundcard (I'm not too fussy on sound, but what's cheap and pretty
good?)

With the above mother board you dont need a sound card as the sound
chips are in the board and they are 6 channel and the sound is superb.

Hard drive (What bus speeds are now sensible without breaking the
bank? And who makes good reliable, fast (and quiet) drives?)

Ive never had any trouble with maxtor diamond max plus 9, IBM hd's are
now ok as they are now made by hatichispelling but the are only 2mb
buffered compaird to 8mb for the maxtor.

OS - I've got Win98 at the moment. Is WinXP worth the £100 or so for
games?

No, but buy xp if you must as the games of next year and the one after
are slanting that way.

Any suggestions are much appreciated. And any rough ideas on prices of
components would be great.

Shop around on the web as the prices vary.



Christopher
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
"There's a light at the end
of the tunnel" says the optimist.
"It's probably a train coming
stright at us" responds the pessimist.

On 25 Jul 2003 13:11:51 -0700, (Brian) wrote:

snip


Graphics card (I presume this is a toss up between the Radeon and
GEForceFX? But which versions are the best without spending silly
money?)

GeForce 5600 256mg is pretty good, and with the onset of the 5900
model their price is coming down.

£180 at your local Game Zone. But aria.co.uk has them for £146.88
with vat, best get a Computer Shopper mag to check on prices, and use
the url's for the various companies to check on delivery charges

chillblast.com is a good shop though for quality stuff,and it has
links to review sites concerning the selected item(s).

snip
Christopher
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
"There's a light at the end
of the tunnel" says the optimist.
"It's probably a train coming
stright at us" responds the pessimist.