[Pfrancis]

I'm after a powerful (ish) desktop pc.Now I dont want to spend a fortune but I was looking at something like THIS
What do you think?
I want something to play decent games and run multiple tasks.
PS I don't know much about processors etc

[fmradiotuner1]

I would go for something like this

http://www.amazon.co.uk/GAMING-INTEL...5223617&sr=8-4

However it cost quite a bit more.
I think the one you link to might be a week card so won't run games to well unless you know how to upgrade the card.
But then might also need a better power supply which ups the price even more.
Also you would need to buy Windows 7 or 8 for the ebay PC.
Them ebay links should not really be aloud as they lie.

[Stig]

Originally Posted by Pfrancis

I'm after a powerful (ish) desktop pc.Now I dont want to spend a fortune but I was looking at something like THIS
What do you think?
I want something to play decent games and run multiple tasks.
PS I don't know much about processors etc

I'm not sure if you can call a £320 PC with a Radeon HD 6450 graphics card 'powerful' or even a 'gaming PC'.

[noise747]

Originally Posted by Stig

I'm not sure if you can call a £320 PC with a Radeon HD 6450 graphics card 'powerful' or even a 'gaming PC'.

Yeah, the 6450 is a budget card, a very budget card. Not really hot on graphics cards myself, but even I know that this card is not suitable for most modern games.

it should be a pretty powerful machine with the CPU and memory, but the video card would certainly let it down for games.

The lack of a OS would bump the price up again.

[dontpannic]

The video on the eBay auction boasts a 30fps average frame rate at below average resolutions on lowest settings.

£319 is way too cheap for a decent gaming rig. My PSU alone cost £90!

[Pfrancis]

Thanks for the replies.
What would you suggest.
I've actually got an imac MC813 which I love but it frustrates me that there aren't many top games for it.
I want to spend £500 max on the pc WITH OS.I'm not a serious gamer I just want something which will comfortably play titles such as crysis etc

[anniebrion]

Originally Posted by dontpannic

The video on the eBay auction boasts a 30fps average frame rate at below average resolutions on lowest settings.

£319 is way too cheap for a decent gaming rig. My PSU alone cost £90!

A decent graphics card alone will cost more than £319

[mred2000]

Originally Posted by Pfrancis

I've actually got an imac MC813 which I love but it frustrates me that there aren't many top games for it....

Why don't you dual boot it to Windows, that way you can play PC games (admittedly, I think your graphics card might still be limited but it'll be cheaper than buying another PC just for games...)

[Pfrancis]

Originally Posted by mred2000

Why don't you dual boot it to Windows, that way you can play PC games (admittedly, I think your graphics card might still be limited but it'll be cheaper than buying another PC just for games...)

I thought of that but like you said the graphics card wouldn't be that good.
From the example i gave in my original post would THAT graphics card be better than the one in my imac? i.e. "AMD Radeon HD 6770M graphics processor with 512MB of GDDR5 memory"

[John259]

There are some gaming PC's listed here:
http://www.dell.com/uk/p/gaming-system-deals
As you'll see, prices start at around £1,000 but for anything suitable for modern 3D gaming and simulations £2,000 is a more realistic figure - and those prices exclude the monitor.

An X-Box might be a better alternative, maybe.

[mred2000]

Originally Posted by Pfrancis

I thought of that but like you said the graphics card wouldn't be that good.

But it would still be better than throwing hundreds of pounds at a cheap option after spending over a grand on an iMac...

See: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1393358

[noise747]

Originally Posted by anniebrion

A decent graphics card alone will cost more than £319

No that is silly money for a graphics card unless you are a read hard core gamer or do a lot of CGI.

i think my mate paid about £200 for his video card, ok that was a couple of years back and he is a gamer. He is thinking of getting a new card and I may buy his off him, it will still be better than anything i will buy new at the price I will pay.

Certainly better than my Geforce 9400GT, needs updating I know, mainly because my video editor can use the GPU for rendering instead or as well as the CPU;

[flagpole]

the rig in the OP looks ok, it's just the graphics card that is a bit of a shocker. you could spend £70 on a say an HD7750 and have a good gamer.

[John259]

Tom's Hardware's "Best Graphics Cards For The Money" article is always useful if you're looking for a new one. They update it once a month. The chart on the last page lists numerous cards in order of processing power so you can compare.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming...iew-32571.html

[captainkremmen]

For serious gamers you're looking at the Intel processors, such as the Core i5 or Core i7, paired with a top end graphics card, but then you are looking at serious money.

However, on a budget the AMD Trinity processors are well worth considering, and paired with again a midrange or top end graphics card, will play pretty much all modern games although not at the same very high resolutions and frame rates as the much more expensive I5 and i7.

If you can afford it, and money is not the major concern, just the sheer gaming experience, then go for a machine with an i5 or i7 processor and a top end graphics card such as Nvidia GTX680/690 or a Radeon HD7970, paired with a top end monitor, gaming keyboard and mouse. But you'll pay handsomely for them.

I recently built a system for a friend based on the following:
AMD Trinity A8 5600K (Overclocked to 4.4Ghz)
16Gb Ram
ATI Radeon 7770

Total cost, including gaming case, gaming keyboard and mouse and 1.5Tb Hdd was around £450 but he already had a decent 24inch LCD monitor. It plays everything he has thrown at it, at decent frame rates too. It doesn't have the huge performance of a top end system, but it's good enough for decent gaming at good frame rates.

[evil c]

OP, you might not know much about processors etc., but you could easily empower yourself. Open the ebay seller's page and scroll down to the PC specs. The first one is the CPU which says AMD Bulldozer FX-4100 4.0GHz Quad Core CPU. But click on the link. It's actually the 3.6ghz cpu that’s been overclocked to 4ghz. Open up Google and type 'amd fx-4100 3.6 ghz overclocked to 4 ghz'. The top link (when I typed this) is 'fx 4100 3.6 overvlocked to 4ghz a big difference', and you'll see other links as well.

Read through the links and give yourself an idea. There were 2 versions of the fx 4100, a 3.6 and a 4 ghz. Both can be overclocked but you need to know what you are doing and it depends on the other components.

Now go back to the ebay page. The next spec says 16gb 1333 ddr3 ram. That seems pretty good to me, maybe too much, but OK, so don't bother with that. Next is the hard drive. Click on the link to find it is a SATA II 7200rpm but who has made it and which model is it...we don’t know.

Next is the graphics card which is an ati hd 6450 1ghz. Google this and you will see that it is an entry level DirectX 11 gaming card that came out in 2011, not highly rated by serious gamers.

Next on the ebay page is the motherboard, which it says is a gigabyte usb3, but not which model. So click on the motherboard link, and this then tells you that the board is the 78-lmt. Now Google 'gigabyte 78lmt usb3 mb'. The results will tell you that the board is OK. Now try 'gigabyte 78lmt usb3 & fx-4100 3.6ghz'. This will tell that this combination is a popular bundle, so at least you know that the board and the cpu are compatible.

Back to the ebay page and let's check out the case. Click on the link to find out that it's a galaxy mars blue with the standard 450w psu. If you Google 'galaxy mars blue 450w psu' you won't find out an awful lot about the case except that this is a basic gaming case with a lowish power fan, perhaps too low for a quad core cpu.

Finally the DVD ReWriter. Click on the link to find it’s a Samsung 24x. Seems OK.

So the result is that you have an entry level gaming pc, with a 2011 graphics card. It will play games and it will play crysis, but the performance won’t be earth shattering.

You could scroll down the ebay page and decide to upgrade the graphics card to the 6670. This will theoretically give you a better performance than the 6450, but you're still at entry level gaming.

[John259]

Originally Posted by evil c

OP, you might not know much about processors etc., but you could easily empower yourself.

Excellent advice IMHO. It's always a good idea to spend a bit of time gaining knowledge before a significant purchase of any kind, not just computers.

[fmradiotuner1]

After adding some better parts there is this one for £623.95

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VIBOX-BURN...item53efaecbb3

They must be a PC shop that build custom PCs.
But the one I liked to on amazon has an I7 and Windows 7 OS for just £35 more.

[neo_wales]

Get the best processor PC you can then add a better graphics card later when you can afford it. My boy spent four or five hundred on his graphics card but he is a very serious gamer, most gamers get by spending less, I've a GT8800 which does for me at the moment...but I'm not a gamer.

[Stig]

Just buy an Xbox and 'make do' with 1080p

[Pfrancis]

Originally Posted by evil c

OP, you might not know much about processors etc., but you could easily empower yourself. Open the ebay seller's page and scroll down to the PC specs. The first one is the CPU which says AMD Bulldozer FX-4100 4.0GHz Quad Core CPU. But click on the link. It's actually the 3.6ghz cpu that’s been overclocked to 4ghz. Open up Google and type 'amd fx-4100 3.6 ghz overclocked to 4 ghz'. The top link (when I typed this) is 'fx 4100 3.6 overvlocked to 4ghz a big difference', and you'll see other links as well.

Read through the links and give yourself an idea. There were 2 versions of the fx 4100, a 3.6 and a 4 ghz. Both can be overclocked but you need to know what you are doing and it depends on the other components.

Now go back to the ebay page. The next spec says 16gb 1333 ddr3 ram. That seems pretty good to me, maybe too much, but OK, so don't bother with that. Next is the hard drive. Click on the link to find it is a SATA II 7200rpm but who has made it and which model is it...we don’t know.

Next is the graphics card which is an ati hd 6450 1ghz. Google this and you will see that it is an entry level DirectX 11 gaming card that came out in 2011, not highly rated by serious gamers.

Next on the ebay page is the motherboard, which it says is a gigabyte usb3, but not which model. So click on the motherboard link, and this then tells you that the board is the 78-lmt. Now Google 'gigabyte 78lmt usb3 mb'. The results will tell you that the board is OK. Now try 'gigabyte 78lmt usb3 & fx-4100 3.6ghz'. This will tell that this combination is a popular bundle, so at least you know that the board and the cpu are compatible.

Back to the ebay page and let's check out the case. Click on the link to find out that it's a galaxy mars blue with the standard 450w psu. If you Google 'galaxy mars blue 450w psu' you won't find out an awful lot about the case except that this is a basic gaming case with a lowish power fan, perhaps too low for a quad core cpu.

Finally the DVD ReWriter. Click on the link to find it’s a Samsung 24x. Seems OK.

So the result is that you have an entry level gaming pc, with a 2011 graphics card. It will play games and it will play crysis, but the performance won’t be earth shattering.

You could scroll down the ebay page and decide to upgrade the graphics card to the 6670. This will theoretically give you a better performance than the 6450, but you're still at entry level gaming.

Thanks for this bit of advice

[Pfrancis]

Thanks everyone.
Might be back to pick your brains again

[whoever,hey]

Have you got Steam on your Mac? There might be more games than you think.

[The_One]

Building a PC really isnt as hard as it seems, it really really isnt hard.
Choose a processor, for gaming go for an i5 its the best you can get. Take note of its socket number for when you...
Choose a motherboard, you cant go wrong with any of them.
Choose your RAM memory, get at least 8GB, at 1600Mhz speed or higher.
Choose your storage... a cheap harddrive or a speedy solidstate drive.
Choose a DVD drive, get the cheapest SATA one.
Choose your PC case.
Get a power supply unit rated at like 500 or 600 or 650watts.
Choose your graphics card based on how much money you can spend.
Get Windows 7 or 8, 64 bit.

If it wasnt for the wiring, lego really is harder to put together!
Just use the motherboards manual for reference on where to plug in the wires.
Turn PC on, open the DVD drive, insert the windows disc, then follow the on-screen instructions. These days, Windows does basically everything.

A powerful PC costs minimum £1k
A powerful gaming PC costs minimum £700. Main reasons for going more expensive is for better:
overall faster PC performence
frame rates
storage speed and capacity
better looking PC case
multi tasking
multi screen
3D

[whoever,hey]

Originally Posted by The_One

A powerful PC costs minimum £1k
A powerful gaming PC costs minimum £700.

That's a myth.