Tony Turbo

What's your spec?

The time has come for a new CPU, Mother Board and maybe Graphics Cards. Just want some ideas of what you gamers are using?

I want to play C&C Generals and Battlefield 2.

Paul_RS

iTrader: (4)

Something like an AMD 64 3500+ with a decent PCI express motherboard and graphics card and your sorted

Tony Turbo

Hmmmmmmmmmmm.... AMD or Intel?

I prefer Intel personally, what makes AMD so good?

Paul_RS

iTrader: (4)

Its down to personal preference really, but i'm sure there are differences! Will take someone a lot more into computers to explain them though

nigel b

what ive just ordered
amd 3500+
1 gb corsair ram
gigabyte motherboard
pci express ati 8500xt
hiper 580w power supply
thermalite 120mm fan

Andreas

AMD is better at most games, encoding video and audio while Intel usally is miles better at office related stuff.

Im more concerned getting nice gameplay than starting Word a bit quicker.

Will finally upgrade my old AMD system to a AMD 64 3500+ or 3800+ next week.

Zetec Andy

AMD Athlon 3.2ghz
Nvidea GForce FX5200
512MB Ram
160GB HDD
DVD/CD writer
DVD drive
TV Card

Its a compaq presario, had it twelve months and never had a meither.

Im running Battlefeild 2 awsome game but my PC is actually below the spec it recommends! still runs ok, just have to turn everything off

adamS2RST

AMD all the way

SS1

iTrader: (3)

battlefield 2 screenshot of my pc on its highest settings
detail is unreal ..water even splashes as the tank goes through it















never a glitch on highest settings...plays like a film ..FLAWLESS

but you talking high end the specs are

6800 verto 256mb ddr3
pentium 4
duel bios mother board
multi threading so 1 gig of ram becomes 2
fookers got five fans on the boards

and a fast connection online 2meg adls

I THINK IF YOUR GONNA GET IT ..DO IT PROPERLY THE FIRST TIME

PLEASE NOTE photo bucket has lowered the res of the pics ..but still looks

Dan B

AMD Athlon XP2600+ (2.1GHz)
2GB DDR333 RAM
Gainward 256MB GeForce 6800GT
370GB hard-drive-space (1x250GB & 1x120GB)
DVD-RW
DVD-Rom
Enermax 600W PSU in a CoolerMaster aluminium case with window
Raptor Mystify Mamba SE 5-button translucent optical mouse (wired)
iiyama Vision Master Pro 454 19" CRT monitor
SoundBlaster Audigy 2 soundcard, linked into stereo (and usually a set of Sony MDR-V300 stereo headphones)
Labtec "el-cheapo" microphone, fixed to side of monitor

Basically, get the best you can afford, and be prepared to watch it become obsolete in 6 months...

philc

Intel Pentium 4 Processor 650

3.4GHz

800MHz Front Side BUS

2048 mb RAM Memory

400 Gb Hard Drive

M-Format Dual Layer DVDRW & DVD ROMDrive

256 Mb ATI RADEON 9550 Graphics

15-in-1 Media Card Reader

SS1

iTrader: (3)

any user here got gta san andreas yet .got it last week but wont play it till
the ps2 usb turns up ordered

looks awesome on the pc

but not as good as battlefield 2 the attention to detail in the game is AWESOME

Ish

This is my basic spec and I have no problem running any game at full graphics levels. I use 1024x768 as I have a 17" TFT monitor

AMD Athlon 64 3000 Processor
1024Mb PC3200 DDR400 Corsair Ram
Asus Motherboard
500W Power Supply
Geforce 6600GT Graphics Card
200Gb SATA Hard Drive

Just waiting for the final release of Windows x64 now so I can use my 64 bit processor to it's full potential

adamS2RST

Some nice spec's going up here

Ish

Gotta be AMD
http://www.amdboard.com/pintospecial.html

http://www.amdboard.com/amd_082305.html

Cossiebros

www.tomshardware.com is a very usefull site when building a new pc.

as to CPU's: AMD is faster in gaming, Intel is faster in video editing.

My current spec:

Intel PIV-630 (3.0 GHZ, 2MB L2)
2048MB RAM
ASUS PCI-Express MB
ASUS X700 PRO 256MB

Not the top of the line for gaming, but my main interest was video editing. Still, all games run perfect at hi-res.

Ish

forgot to add www.ebuyer.com is where I buy all my hardware from.

Dan B

Scan Computers in Bolton is where I get all of my hardware from, as it's a 5-minute drive up the road...

Doctay

Best thing to get is a bare bundles PC (case, motherboard etc) and add your own hardware, works out cheaper, easier than building your own and you can add whatever you want.
I use www.novatech.co.uk
A decent grafix card and 1 gig + of ram is essential for BF2.

Ive got
P4 3ghz, 1gig ram
Radeon 9800pro 256meg grafix
Runs all new games fine and didnt cost the earth.

Joris_FRST

i've got a dell dimension XPS

P4 650 (3.4ghz, 2mb L2)
2Gigs of Ram
2x250Gb hard disk in striping (=500gb)
Ati Radeon X850XT Platinum
Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS
on a 20" widescreen LCD,

plays anything you throw at it.

(I didn't pay retail price though )

Joris_FRST

Oh yeah,

you can't really go wrong if you buy your own components or buy a branded pc.

Like they say, everybody can make good pc's now.
(just stay far far away from packard bell, they're about the only company that make bad pc's these days)

DanRSturbo

See Tony, Everyone prefers the Amd

Mine is

AMD Athlon XP 64 Bit 3200+ Processor (2.2 ghz cpu )
3 GIG Kingston DDR PC3200 ram
2 x 120 gig hard drives
2 x 160 gig hard drives
Nvidia GeForce 5600FX 256meg vga card


Runs Command & Conquer Generals in 1024 x 768 resolution perfectly fine, no glitches, no juddering. I can move 30 odd Commanche helicopters which are Stealth'd without so much of a hint of problems.

Doom III run's fecking awesomely too

Jim Galbally

Athlon 3200+ (32bit)
Decent Mobo
2GB DDR400 RAM
Ati 9800 Utra GFX
The rest is irrelevant.

i run BF2 @1600x1200 medium settings (high settingsmake it HARDER to see enemies )

my advice, DONT buy cheap components, decent memory (corsair XMS?) and a decent mobo (read reviews) make the world of difference.

Also dont bother with anything too flash...dual core and HT... pointless for your needs... wont make fook alldifference. hell, even 64bit is pointless for all of todays games!

unfortunately the best 32bit processor is still not as fast as the 64bit ones running in 32bit mode, so you'll have to cash out on an AMD64. If you wanna spend serious cash,go for the Single Core FX55 over the X2 ones... you WONT be using any of the "extra features"

you want as much on-die cache on the chip as possible, the 1mb 3500+ jobbies are the ones to go for on a budget

deffo go for 2gb of ram (2x 1gbs or 4x 512s) and run it in DualChannel as BF2 easts memory alive... my BF2 ran LOADS better when moving from 1gb to 2gb!!!!

GFX Card wise, get the best, even if they are very overpriced... BF2 is a DX9 game and it uses all the toys to get it working...my 9800 struggles when the "features" start... i will run at 50+fps happily all day log... UNTIL AN EXPLOSION GOES OFF NEAR ME (y'know, whe rethe screen goes allwobbly) then it dies and goes to about 5fps! the "extras" are deffo the killer in that game.

DanRSturbo

I might have to get this game, just to show Andy and Tony the AMD way

AndyRST

We ran BF2 on my P4 2.8 last night and it ran awesome the same as Doom3 with full graphics and CFS4, but C&C generals just doesnt

I have run the FPS program while playing CFS4 and it runs a stable 55-60 fps, as does doom3 but generals only runs 30 and drops to 10-15 while action is on the screen, i think its a programing issuse when running on P4's

More ram for my PC me thinks, and a clear out off my main HDD

Jim Galbally

andy if thats the case i'd look atdoing some google searches and see if anyone has the same problem,might be a bug.

AndyRST

there loads of people complaining that Generals freezes for 2-3 secs when playing a big map or alot of action on screen, and a good 90% of them are P4 users, so i believe it is a programing issue of the game. I have d/l all the updates for the game and running the most current drivers for everything but still no improvement.

I mean my spec (P4 2.8 800fsb, 1gb dual DDR ram, Dual DDR m/b) nvidia 128mb 6800 gfx card, Sata HDD) so that lot should easy play that game but it really struggles. We try Dans copy of generals on my PC and it ran really well, strange

nigel b

go for 2 raptor hard drives on sata 150 also

DanRSturbo

That's cos yours is infected with that Intel Gaytium 4 Processor

Tony Turbo

Thanks for the replies everyone, some decent spec's there.

My current spec is;

P4 3.0 litre
1gb psi of RAM
Radeon 9800 Pro Eagle F1


It struggles badly with Generals, never tried BF2 on it as the CPU threw a rod in June and I am still waiting for a replacement. Looks like I will be going AMD this time, but with steel rods.


Thos pictures of BF2 are awesome

Playing the game on Andy's PC last night was amazing, I sooooooo want to play this game on my plasma TV, or just play the game at all lol

DanRSturbo

What's the update then ? And what am I doing with your old shell ? Are we keeping that with current motherboard and ram and vga card and fitting new internals ?

Tony Turbo

Well Dan. Can't get through to Ebuyer still!

Tossers




So..... new spec.


1 x Western Digital 36.7Gb 'Raptor' Serial ATA150 10,000rpm 8mb Cache - OEM 50948 £61.34 £61.34
1 x LG GSA4163 16X DVD Dual Layer R/RW/RAM Internal IDE (Silver) - OEM 91528 £26.99 £26.99
1 x Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz (Prescott) Socket 478 FSB800 1MB Cache Retail Boxed CPU 58515 £127.44 £127.44
1 x Logitech Mx1000 Laser Cordless Optical Mouse -PS2/USB 72943 £32.04 £32.04
1 x Kingston 1GB DDR PC3200 400MHz Non-ECC CL3 (3-3-3) 184pin DIMM's (Kit of 2 x 512mb) 49296 £58.55 £58.55


Just got to find a credit card with enough space left on it lol

What you think Dan? Hopefully I should get the money back on the CPU, eventually

DanRSturbo

Well, you forgot the motherboard it's all going to go on, unless we're keeping your current one

You're still sticking with the shonky P4 which means General's probably won't run

I'd go for single stick's of RAM, PC3200

And you forgot graphics card unless you're keeping your old one

I'd also bin the LG DVD Burner and get a Pioneer one

Tony Turbo

I thought keep my MB and GFX card for now, just want to get the PC running.

To be honest, this BF2 is amazing Dan, I think it's better than Generals and I have only played it for 5 minutes. God, I love killing people!!!

Jim Galbally

tony, the 9800 wont cope with BF2 when the explosions rain down... fine for the other 90% of the time tho... shame really

TT,get Xfire (www.xfire.com i think) when you get BF2, it's like MSN for games so you can see whos playing what etc. v. good! quite a few of us have got it running.

the thing is BF2 is a very new game,and it needs a very good spec to run it WELL. that doesnt come cheap...

a "good" games PC (like mine) will set you back about 500quid. a "REALLY GOOD" games PC will be more like £2000+! a big price difference for not much extra performance (imho)

Dan B

I guess the 10k rpm drives really add quite a bit to the price. Compare the above hard-drive with:

200Gb Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 10 (7200rpm,8MB) SATA NCQ - Lead Free = £49.98 (excl VAT) £58.73 (incl VAT)

Read/write times are only a few ms faster on the 10k rpm drive......not what I'd class as a massive difference, but I guess it'd all add up if accessing quite a lot of files in a short space of time.

Tony Turbo

£2k, fuck that

Thanks for the advice Jim



Cheers for the link Scott, I look on there aswell for my bits, but mostly end up buying from Ebuyer.

Dan B

They're doing some good deals on paired GeIL memory at the moment......lots of good reports on it.