So after a lifetime of console gaming I'm finally taking the plunge and buying myself a gaming PC. Nothing ultra fancy, just a solid system with enough power to play stuff on high settings, stuff like Fallout 3 and New Vegas, LOTRO, maybe WoW (yes I'm addicted, shut up), probably SWTOR when it comes out, and last but not least, modded Oblivion & Morrowind. I really want to play those :tes:

Until now the only games I've played on PC are WoW, EVE, Minecraft and Morrowind, all on an old Dell laptop with 1GB of RAM and a Pentium 1.46ghz dual core chip and all on a glorious 15" 1280 x 800 laptop screen from the comfort of my sofa. If you don't mind I have a few questions, seeing as I'm fairly clueless about PC specs.

1) What would you say is a comfortable size monitor for PC gaming sitting at a small desk and is LED worth buying over LCD? I was thinking 22" is probably the biggest size without it being overpowering (I can't go into shops to compare sizes at the moment because I'm housebound with illness, so everything will be bought online).

2) The CPU I'm thinking of getting is the http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/CPUs+%2F+Processors/Intel+Core+I5+%281155%29/Intel+Core+i5-2500+3.30GHz+%28Sandybridge%29+Socket+LGA1155+Processor+-+Retail+?productId=43217. It's considerably cheaper than the i7. Still a good deal?

3) The GPU I'm looking at is the http://www.ebuyer.com/product/244474. It seems to have good power for a reasonable price. Worth buying?

4) Is 8 meg of RAM overkill? I know RAM is cheap but is that much even necessary?

1) Mine is 22" and I get along just fine, I wouldn't go too big simply because it is only a monitor.

2) If you can't affors the i7 the i5 is fine. I can still run things on max with my Q6600

3) I'd get a http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-msi-gtx-460-oc-3600mhz-gddr5-gpu-725mhz-336-cores-dvi-mhdmi myself, very good value for money. Two of these babies are equivalent to a high end card, but I can run new games on max with just one, and it is the 768MB version.

4) I have 6, but I don't think I ever use more than 3. 8 is a bit overkill yes.

Hope that helped a bit

Yes... 8 megs of ram is overkill...

I can vow for the 6870. Got an MSI Twin Frozr, that one is very quiet, too. Best bang for the buck, if the benchmarks I sought out are correct.

I play on the http://i438.photobucket.com/albums/qq102/Starforce9/PCSetup.jpg

8MB of RAM is a bit too low. I would suggest keeping around 4GB for gaming rigs at the minimum and 8-16GB for video editing/playing around with RAMdisks. I have 16GB that I am about to put in my sig rig when I get the i7 on Wednesday.

If you can make the jump to a 6950 or the GTX 560TI then it would be worth it.

If all you're going to be doing is gaming I wouldn't go past 4 GB myself. If you're going to be modeling or something I'd consider 8 GB of RAM.

1) I sit in front of my 32" Samsung tv in my bedroom and it is perfect size. I am the same distance obviously as if I were at a desk on a regular monitor. The size and resoulution of the monitor you need will depend on the graphics card you choose. There's no point having a card capable of blowing your brains out if the screen isn't good enough to display it. Screen size is personal choice like everything when you build your own computer, 22" is too small for me but for you it may well be perfect.

2) I have an i5 2500k and I can tell you from my own experience that it is very good, the i7 won't increase your playing experience noticably if at all, so I wouldn't pay the extra money, stick with the i5.

3) For your budget I would personally prefer the GTX460, although your chosen card will do fine.

4) For gaming, 8GB I would say is more than you will need, but it depends on what else you plan on using your computer for. 4GB for gaming should be fine.

Thanks for the input. Yeah, I meant 8 gig, not 8 meg :biggrin: There are so many graphics cards out there it's ridiculous, choosing one isn't easy for a PC newb like me. I'm getting really excited about some of the gaming options open to me that aren't on my PS3.

This will be useful to you:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU11/188

The numbers for the synthetic benchmarks don't really have a meaning but it's a good way to get a good feel for how various parts stack up against each other.

22" monitor is a good size. I like the look of LCD.
You might want to view an LCD and LED up close for awhile and see which you like best.

21"-23" are good sizes. All consumer monitors are LCD, what they call "LED monitors" are just LCDs with LED backlights.


The Sandy Bridge i5 2500 is an excellent choice. Get the k model if you plan on overclocking, otherwise that is fine.


That is a good budget card. You should also consider Nvidia though.


It's overkill for current games, but useful in other situations and games in the future.

Welcome to the brotherhood. We have free Kool Aid on tuesdays.

Tried that once, it tasted terribly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strychnine

For gaming, all you need is quadcore 64-bit CPU, 4 GB RAM, 450W+ PSU as your core powerhouse. Then all you need to upgrade for your future need is the video card. 460 GTX 1GB is my card of choice as a starter. Top notch performance at that price level, probably less than 100 USD right now with the price plunge of 560.

Take your time with the cards, 460 in 64-bit machines is enough to put 90% of your new games on ultra settings as long as you don't pull up the HD resolutions. For HD you might want to consider 560 or better cards. I speculate another price plunge after AMD APU started its mass production.

I'd also reccommend getting your parts from www.scan.co.uk

They do some good bundle deals, and the stuff is pretty cheap.

Go for at least 6GB of RAM. Maybe 8. RAM is dirt cheap at the moment. I'll be getting a new gaming rig in october (for Battlefield 3 and Skyrim) and I'm definitely buying 8GB of RAM

Hey! Welcome to another dimension of gaming. A new soul has joined our ranks... have a beer! :foodndrink:

I have a 23" monitor and it's pretty confy. 8Gb is sufficient for gaming as most games are 32b exe and can't use more than 4Gb... for now :ninja: .

Enjoy your new life :user: .

Finally got it up and running after an initial scare when I forgot to plug in one of the leads and it wouldn't boot. Man, I was sweating about that. Nothing spells doom more than switching on a PC only for nothing to happen. Now I just gotta wait for the games I bought to turn up in the post!

:mage:

I'd recommend GTX 580 in Quad SLi, 24 GB DDR3 2000 MHz RAM and a server motherboard with 2 Intel Westmere EX 4850's and a couple of SSD's in RAID0. :rolleyes:















Just kidding :celebrate:

The Intel i5 Sandy Bridge 2500K is a good chip for the money. I really don't think the i7 is worth the money for the extra 0.1 GHz, myself. I can also vouch for the GTX 460 as I have one as well. It's done me no wrong. You really won't need more then 4 gigs of RAM, I only have 4 and I get along fine.

I sit in front of my "40 TV that I use as a monitor. Works well for me, but may be a bit too big for some.

Make sure to get a good PSU. 650W should be plenty powerful.

Don't bet on it.

A virus that pops up and says that everything is going to die is a little worse.

It's very obvious and I no doubt you have, but make sure you have some good anti virus internet security installed.

http://i438.photobucket.com/albums/qq102/Starforce9/IMG_20110521_092949.jpg :tongue:

Someone came and asked me to look at their PC saying they think they might have a virus. That is what popped up.

Funny you should say that, my laptop got a nasty virus just last night. Windows XP 2011 security virus or something. I still haven't managed to clean it off yet. Lucky I got Ubuntu on dual boot :goodjob:

How can they blacklist localhost? :tongue:

The police dont want any PCs on the Internet maybe? So many questions unanswered in that virus. :facepalm: