Can someone refer a good gaming desktop?

[=Death Hunter=]

I'm looking to spend about $800 on a gaming rig. What's the best bang for my buck? And what things should I keep in mind when shopping?

[ajnl]

Graphics card is probably the most important for gaming. So a little less money in CPU and a little more in GPU is good.

 

Are you planning on buying the parts and putting it together?

[=Death Hunter=]

I have literally no experience in building a PC. Pro would try to piece one together

 

I have literally no experience in building a PC. Or i would try to piece one together

[DontShootUK]

I tend to go the AMD route myself as for gaming I find the GPU makes the biggest difference and AMD CPU's cost less.

 

Self building is not hard but if you haven't done it before I would suggest researching the parts and trying a local PC shop, they might throw one together for you for $90 and over-clock it if you take a wish list.

 

Black Edition Quad Core Phenom AMD qould be good place to start (you can over clock the black editions) and at least 4GB DDR3 ram (8GB Preferred, RAM is cheap these days) and an NVidia Graphics Card, the GTX 570 seems good value for money at the moment at around $290 or for less the GTX 560 at $160, both will run everything full screen.

 

http://www.ebay.com/...5#ht_669wt_1139

 

http://www.ebay.com/...f#ht_642wt_1139

 

Rest is up to you, monitor size, hard drive size. Get a largish tower case with good cooling, you usually need two 12cm fans to over-clock.

 

These guys are in the UK but do great deals, you could base your system on their packages: http://www.aria.co.uk/Systems/Bundles/

 

Give me a shout if you need any more help.

[TulsaGeoff]

Intel i5 and a Nvidia 560 or 660 GTX. I spent a little more for a 570 GTX and it runs everything @ 1920x1200 resolution. You also want a motherboard you can overclock with. http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/ Will build you one.

Edited September 4, 2012 by TulsaGeoff

[ajnl]

Also, when you get 4 to 8 GB of RAM. Make sure to get the gaming ram with at least 1600MHz.

[=Death Hunter=]

Thanks this helps!

[Jefke]

Also, when you get 4 to 8 GB of RAM. Make sure to get the gaming ram with at least 1600MHz.

 

BULLSHIT

 

1333, 1600 or 9001 doesn't make much difference (well 9001 might if it was poissible XD)

but 1600 is same priced as 1333 so doesn't matter

 

ps. Go for 8gb, 4 is not enough ^^

Edited September 4, 2012 by DrJoske

[=Death Hunter=]

I found a PC shop that builds close to me. How much of a difference is between the Intel i5 and i7???

 

I want as close to top of the line as I can get without going overboard on stuff that really doesn't make much difference.

 

But basically what I'm looking for is a good processor, a good amount of ram and a really really good graphics card?

[=Death Hunter=]

http://www.microcenter.com/product/347306/XMS3_Series_8GB_DDR3-1600_(PC3-12800)_CL9_Dual_Channel_Desktop_Memory_Kit_(Two_4GB_Memory_Modules)

 

Would this be good ram?

 

Also AMD Phenom II vs. Intel i7.......

 

And is half the price. But since I know squat about this stuff I'm kinda in a vice

[Jefke]

http://www.microcent...1600_(PC3-12800)_CL9_Dual_Channel_Desktop_Memory_Kit_(Two_4GB_Memory_Modules)

 

Would this be good ram?

 

Also AMD Phenom II vs. Intel i7.......

 

And is half the price. But since I know squat about this stuff I'm kinda in a vice

 

Don't be too worried about the ram, the differences between it are minor.

 

Simple said: i7 cpu tend to blow away phenoms.

 

Now the BUT: for gaming the i7 cpu are useless, the big difference between i5 and i7 is hyperthreading (i7 has it i5 doesn't have it)

Hyperthreading is almost, if not completely useless for gaming, you won't win much/any performance...

 

So I would recommend to go for a i5 2500k (great overclocker , sandy bridge => 2dn generation) or the i5 3570(k) (if not planning to overclock, this one is a bit faster than the i5 2500k and less energy consuming , Ivy bridge => 3nd generation).

 

That been said, amd phenom or even in my opinion lesser fx processors of AMD will to the trick just fine for gaming.

None of them will bottleneck a single graphics or even crossfire/sli (had crossfire amd hd 6850 on a phenom X6 1090t => all overclocked though)

 

It's just setting the target right, pure gaming rig. Save a few bucks on the cpu and go with a nice graphics.

Edited September 5, 2012 by DrJoske

[=Death Hunter=]

What's overclocking?

[Krayzie]

definitions:Overclocking is the process of running a computer component at a higher clock rate (more clock cycles per second) than it was designed...

 

Means if it is designed to run at 25000, he overclocked it to run at 30000. My phone for example is normally set at 998 I have it UNDERclocked to run at 572 but can overclock it to run at 1360ghz

[ajnl]

BULLSHIT

 

1333, 1600 or 9001 doesn't make much difference (well 9001 might if it was poissible XD)

but 1600 is same priced as 1333 so doesn't matter

 

ps. Go for 8gb, 4 is not enough ^^

 

We looked at different memory speeds for the LGA 1156-based Core i7-870 and chose to run DDR3-800, -1066, -1333, and -1600 at fast, as well as relaxed, timings. Although the differences were typically very small, there were a few applications that obviously benefited from faster memory.

In all cases, we’ve seen significant performance differences when looking at the synthetic or low-level benchmarks. Memory bandwidth does increase considerably if you speed up the memory transfer rate, and tightening timings also improves performance by cutting latencies. However, only a marginal fraction of these benefits actually arrive at the application level. Even going for the fastest memory available will give you a performance boost that is probably smaller than the effect a faster processor speed bin would deliver.

 

Nevertheless, there are some applications that are more sensitive to memory performance differences than others. Some 3D games (Left 4 Dead in our case) show a noticeable performance boost, likely because it isn't being bottlenecked by graphics performance. Memory-intensive applications, such as Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 and WinRAR, ran quicker, as well. However, the majority of our benchmarks saw little to scarce performance improvement when going for faster memory, so we tend to stay with our original recommendation: go with brand-name memory at mainstream speeds, which still are in the DDR3-1333 space.

 

 

Link

 

You can read the rest of the article (located above is just the conclusion), the differences may not bet huge, but it is still worth it to go for 1600MHz, especially since they are not that expensive. Also, when gaming, the difference is more noticeable.

 

Not saying that you have to worry about RAM speeds too much, I'd worry more about the graphics card, but just saying that 1600MHz seems to be the way to go atm.

Edited September 5, 2012 by ajnl

[rolf]

@ajnl: one issue is that current i5, i7 don't allow more than 16GB if you use 1600MHz. Not that that'll be a problem for most gaming rigs, but still. Then again, if you can overclock, you can also underclock, let the 1600Mhz be recognized as 1333MHz and you can add 32GB. If it's only a few bucks, don't care indeed. But if it costs twice as much, just buy twice as much ram

 

 

Anyway, as other already said, for a gaming rig the only important thing is the GPU. Try to get a GTX560/570/660. If the $800 bucks is without monitor and stuff, you can even look into a HD7950. Personally I wouldn't do that because I hate AMD and Nvidia is superior imo, but you might consider

 

Furthermore, since you do not know what overclocking is, I do not think that you should build your own pc. If you encounter problems, some might need to be resolved in a similar was as overclocking. Knowing how to recognize the problem and how to solve it is an advantage you do not have yet. I really think it's best for you if you walk into a local pc store and ask if they can give you a nice setup. Rather than buying immediately, come back here and post the list of hardware, then we can see whether you're not getting riped off

 

Third, if you ever want to upgrade yourself (new videocard or something), let them build the pc from scratch and not give you some HP or Dell. Although those can be good, those are not upgrade worthy. Then again, for a great deal you might consider it.