Gaming PC

[Pistonbroke666]

Originally Posted by JJ75

You should be fine with Alienware,as you will know,made by Dell to a higher standard than the rest of Dells' stuff.

Alienware does have a good rep but full price it is a little on the expensive side. A bit like Apple - good product, massive mark up.

I remember when Alienware used to be an independent company. I think Dell did well to pick them up.

Ever heard of YoYoTech?

[JJ75]

Yeah,heard of them,not dealt with them myself but a friend bought a system from them a while back,found it cheaper somewhere else 3 days later!

[Pistonbroke666]

Originally Posted by JJ75

Yeah,heard of them,not dealt with them myself but a friend bought a system from them a while back,found it cheaper somewhere else 3 days later!

Oh dear!

Specced up a nice system with them and there's a cash back offer with MSI so it made it a little more tempting...

Quick Q for you - let's say I was playing a demanding game like Battlefield and I had two identical systems but one has 16gb RAM at 1600mhz whilst the other has 2133mhz. Is this something that affects the performance as much as a decent graphics card does?

[JJ75]

To be honest,i doubt you would notice any difference unless doing any extremely specialist data-processing tasks,your graphics card is more important when gaming and 16gb of 1600mhz is more than enough.

[Pistonbroke666]

Originally Posted by JJ75

To be honest,i doubt you would notice any difference unless doing any extremely specialist data-processing tasks,your graphics card is more important when gaming and 16gb of 1600mhz is more than enough.

Thanks for confirming mate.
I did think it would be the graphics card that makes or breaks a system.

[JJ75]

No problem,glad to help

[Pistonbroke666]

I've popped overclockers an email and they're gonna make me an offer on a PC of similar spec to the Alienware. See if I can save a few pennies

[Neil1]

I have built many custom specked machines but these days I go for a laptop, funny really as I never thought I would say that.

Anyway mine is an Acer V3 772G which I bought at the beginning of this year and basically it's now out of date, paid £925 for it.
I play games on it, Crysis 3, the latest Thief, Wolfenstein The New Order and all play at maximum levels with ease.

Alienware is expensive for what it is and is now owned by Dell.

It all depends on how much you want to spend, building them is fun but does have it's own issues but getting someone else to build it for you will be the best way to go if you have no experience of doing this.

[Pistonbroke666]

Originally Posted by Neil1

I have built many custom specked machines but these days I go for a laptop, funny really as I never thought I would say that.

Anyway mine is an Acer V3 772G which I bought at the beginning of this year and basically it's now out of date, paid £925 for it.
I play games on it, Crysis 3, the latest Thief, Wolfenstein The New Order and all play at maximum levels with ease.

Alienware is expensive for what it is and is now owned by Dell.

It all depends on how much you want to spend, building them is fun but does have it's own issues but getting someone else to build it for you will be the best way to go if you have no experience of doing this.

I've always been a laptop guy but they're kinda limited and seem to have shorter lifespans than a tower - no doubt attributed to heat and dust build up.

I've been looking at the MSI Nightfire case. Small but quite tasty and simple.

Spec is...

NightBlade Mini-ITX Gaming Barebone
600W Silverstone 80+ Gold Power Supply (NightBlade)
MSI® Z97I GAMING MOTHERBOARD - (NightBlade)
New 4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4790K Quad Core Processor (4.4GHz, 8MB Cache)
CPU overclocked - Intel i7 4790K overclocked up to 4.4GHz
Custom size Water CPU Cooler - (NighBlade)
16GB DDR3 2400Mhz (2x8GB ) Dual Channel Memory Kit
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 780 Ti GPU - 2880 Cores,2x DVI/DP/HDMI
120GB mSATA Solid State Drive
120GB mSATA Solid State Drive
2TB SATA III 6Gb/s, 7200rpm, 64MB Cache, 8ms Hard Drive
LiteOn DVD-RW(8x) Optical Drive Slim Slot Loading - SATA Black
Integrated 7.1 High Definition 8-channel Audio
Wi-Fi 802.11n, Bluetooth 4.0, Intel® Wireless Display, Dual band up to 300 Mbps Wireless LAN (onboard)
Microsoft Windows® 8.1 - 64 bit inc. DVD & Licence

Quite beefy and hopefully should last a little while.

[Ricwin]

To be honest, unless you are going to be pushing some huge tasks (far beyond even the most demanding modern game) then 8Gb RAM is more than enough.

Intel is certainly the way to go for the CPU. However I'd stick with an AMD graphics card, better value for money (especially in the budget you have set for the whole system).
SSD's are a must. I use two SSD's and two HDD's. Obviously, the OS is installed to an SSD.
Forget about Windows 8.1. Its great for a tablet or phone, absolute junk for a PC or laptop. GO with Windows 7 x64 and upgrade to Windows 9 a few months after its release.
Dont bother with just a DVD-RW. Blu-ray drives are much cheaper now than they used to be, it'll be a handy upgrade if its connected to a large TV.

As nice as Mini-ITX is, its not practical at all. SFF cases have gotten alot better in the last couple of years than they used to be, but scope for upgrades and cooling potential are very limited.

Also, have you had a look at Scan?
Their 3XS range can accommodate almost any requirements on any budget, from huge custom desk builds to tiny media systems.