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Hi all, I've decided to take the plunge and move away from the consoles and across to PC gaming. I'm a little out of my depth really and certainly don't feel comfortable enough to build one myself. Ideally looking for a small form factor machine that will give me decent performance for at least a while before i have to think about upgrading. Will most likely be hooked up to a 50" 4K tv most of the time (although i dont expect to output to 4k resolution realistically). Does the following setup look like it would run whats currently out there with decent settings? Does it look horrendously overpriced? Like i said, i'm a bit out of my depth... and the people here seem to know what they are talking about .gif) http://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/shared/59e6f30c-3d80-409e-8664-1c40286e9712 Thanks for any help. |
Gaming PC help
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unclejibjab 5 posts
Seen 2 years ago
Registered 13 years ago -
Fake_Blood 11,093 posts
Seen 2 hours ago
Registered 12 years agoI'd go for a Z97 motherboard and an I5 with a number that ends with K, which means you can overclock it. -
Waited 7 years before that first post!
That machine looks just fine. Don't think it's horrendously overpriced either, even with the extra £100 for Z97/4690K. You might never overclock it (I haven't) but at least you'll have the option.
You'll certainly get 4K out of some games, I'm sure. -
unclejibjab 5 posts
Seen 2 years ago
Registered 13 years agoYeah i didn't want to break the seal on that first post too soon. You only get one chance to make a first impression and all that! 
Thanks a lot for the help. Looks like i should be up and running soon! -
oldschoolsoviet 6,968 posts
Seen 1 week ago
Registered 15 years agoThink I'll hijack this, rather than start another.
It's finally time for an upgrade, and given the lack of appeal/media options of PS4/X1, I'm looking at PCs, finally, to replace my weary PS3.
Essentially I'm starting from scatch, and looking at creating something that'll cover the bases, from PS2 emulation, to tarted-up Skyrim/Fallout etc, and capable of surviving against future stuff to a degree. I'm also getting to the age where I'd rather have all my favourite games readily available in one location, eg Valkyria Chronicles with the emulated PSP sequels, and those ISOs of Front Mission 4/5 that have sat on HDD for too long.
Sofa preference over desk, just plugged into a TV, and I've space for a tower over these (premium ?) small-form boxes, so I've been looking over threads for decent pre-builds and good customer service, and settling towards Scan like the fella above.
Looking at these:
http://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/value/budget-gaming/form-factors
and I'm thinking the G30 or 31i would be a decent start:
http://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/configurator/cheap-intel-gaming-pc-next-day-delivery-uk-g30i
http://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/configurator/cheap-overclocked-intel-gaming-pc-next-day-delivery-uk-g31i
....especially if I added a SSD to the 31i for £800.
Am I on the right track ? Wondering if the overclocking is an unecessary risk regarding PS2 emulation, and whether it's a good time to buy or not, with chatter over new chips and AMD cards on the horizon and possible price drops. Looking for any advice or ideas to keep us on the right path.
ED: When did a href tags change ? No worky.
Edited by oldschoolsoviet at 22:58:12 05-06-2015
Edited by oldschoolsoviet at 23:03:21 05-06-2015 -
DodgyPast 9,353 posts
Seen 4 hours ago
Registered 16 years agoGiven the desire to do PS2 emulation a stronger processor will benefit.
Though I haven't played around with it in ages.
You're missing an SSD drive which I'd say is pretty essential. Even if only 100gb and stick your games on a normal drive.
The 960 will cope with most current stuff OK if you dial down the settings a bit in the more ambitious games.
If you have the money then the 970 is a lot better but an SSD should be a priority. -
raheell9 1 posts
Seen 27 minutes ago
Registered 8 years agoHey everyone.
Looking to build a PC from the ground up. My budget is around 800 quid. So far, it looks like AMD are the way to go with the prices. However, I'm open to suggestions. Thanks. -
THFourteen 54,987 posts
Seen 18 minutes ago
Registered 16 years agoZ97 motherboard, i5 and 8gb of ram should be fine.
Samsung 250gb 850 ssd (£80)
Then a case and PSU (I recommend fractal or corsair 500W modular PSUs)
And then spend whatever you have left on a graphics card -
oldschoolsoviet 6,968 posts
Seen 1 week ago
Registered 15 years agoAnd back to graphics cards......
Say I forego future-proofing, and settle for a 750Ti. Sure, it'll struggle with stuff on the horizon, but there's not much bar MGSV/Fallout 4 as a possibility. For the likes of GTAV, Elite, Colin Mac at the moment, would it be sufficient for the cheaper build ? Going for something based off THF's suggestion means I could always look at a 970 or similar upgrade later, and there's a wealth of older PC games to keep us busy.
As for PSCX2, seems an i5 is fine bar the Jax/R&C/Sly games which hold no interest for me. And I'm all aboard the SSD wagon, with a normal for storage. Better to go for the dual setup than a hybrid given the prices I guess ? -
Bowzer43 1,891 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 8 years agoAt the end of the day, a graphics card upgrade is possibly the easiest thing to do, so upgrading that at a later date is advisable.
240gb SSD drives are down to around £75 and make an excellent boot drive.
If you can afford it look at getting a 1TB SSHD hybrid drive for storage and games. They are a marked improvement over a standard HDD but not as pricey as the SSD. -
oldschoolsoviet 6,968 posts
Seen 1 week ago
Registered 15 years agoHmm, I thought hybrids still had a whiff of questionable reliability about them ?
Spent the morning trawlling through Scan, Chillblast, FreshTech and suchlike, trying out variations and pricing......certainly remember why I've avoided it until now ! Everything is blinged up and tarted in promo-speak to the point of obfuscation.
Anywhere else I could trust ?
Still wrestling with whether to go for a £5-600 'Best of...' box or tip to £1000 for something that'll do a few years, and I blame my scrimping Scottish mentality. -
Bowzer43 1,891 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 8 years agoI put a 1TB SSHD hybrid drive in my PS4 in December and it's been fine.
I now have a 2TB SSHD in my gaming rig and seems to speed up load times in things like witcher 3.
I bought my rig last year from freshtech and just got them to build the core (Intel i5 4670k, Zalman z3+case,850w PSU, Asus mobo, 8 gb ram and 120gb ssd.
I then added win 7 from eBay (£40) and a sapphire r9 270x as that was all I had left.
Since then I've added another 8gb ram, another 240gb SSD, 1tb HDD, and 2tb SSHD.
Also upgraded graphics to 970gtx.
As long as you start with a decent cpu, mobo, PSU and case all the rest can be updated as and when needed.
My board will take an i7 if I feel it's needed. -
Fake_Blood 11,093 posts
Seen 2 hours ago
Registered 12 years agoI have never upgraded my cpu. If you wait two years or more there's always a new socket. -
DodgyPast 9,353 posts
Seen 4 hours ago
Registered 16 years agoFake_Blood wrote:
Since my cases, PSU, drives and graphics card usually go into my next box technically the motherboard, CPU and memory changes are an upgrade.
I have never upgraded my cpu. If you wait two years or more there's always a new socket.
Since Sandybridge it seems like what you get for your money CPU wise doesn't change much. A 3 year old 200 quid CPU is closer to a modern 200 quid CPU now than a modern 100 quid CPU...especially if you take into account overclocking.
So what you spend on the CPU now will benefit you for a long time. The same can't be said for GPUs.
Edited by DodgyPast at 16:52:11 06-06-2015 -
DodgyPast 9,353 posts
Seen 4 hours ago
Registered 16 years agob0rk wrote:
Got an i5 2500k @ 4.4. It's pretty weird still hanging on to it. Had it since before I met the wife. So probably should be grateful I haven't had to try and justify an upgrade to her yet.
Intel have been dragging their feet since Sandy. It's AMDs fault for forgetting how to make a central processing unit. On the bright side my 2600K should be good for another billion years but fucking Hell AMD, DO SOMETHING. -
THFourteen 54,987 posts
Seen 18 minutes ago
Registered 16 years agoMy i7 920 is still going strong. Cost £250 at the time. Recently overclocked it to 3.5ghz too
I'd probably wait till sky lake at the mo. -
Yeah, still in no rush to move away from my 2600k 4 1/2 years on... It's even running at stock speeds still!
That kind of longevity wouldve been unimaginable a decade ago! -
iancognito 2,476 posts
Seen 6 years ago
Registered 14 years agoDodgyPast wrote:
Say "the computer was fucked so I've bought and installed some new parts". She'll appreciate the improved performance and confident masculinity in the house.
b0rk wrote:
Got an i5 2500k @ 4.4. It's pretty weird still hanging on to it. Had it since before I met the wife. So probably should be grateful I haven't had to try and justify an upgrade to her yet.
Intel have been dragging their feet since Sandy. It's AMDs fault for forgetting how to make a central processing unit. On the bright side my 2600K should be good for another billion years but fucking Hell AMD, DO SOMETHING. -
richarddavies 8,312 posts
Seen 11 minutes ago
Registered 13 years ago*BUMP*
This'll do. A friend of mine has recently bought his first SSD hard drive to stick in his PC but he's having an issue. He has his OS onto the drive and set it so it should load from the ssd first but for some reason it won't boot it. It just says it can't find anything when he turns it on. If he looks in the drive though you can see all the files for the OS.
Does anyone have any clues as to what might be causing it? -
THFourteen 54,987 posts
Seen 18 minutes ago
Registered 16 years agoWhat hard drive is it? A new one?
I had issues with my old OCZ sand force drive and my anniversary g3258 pentium. Same issue. Couldn't resolve it. -
richarddavies 8,312 posts
Seen 11 minutes ago
Registered 13 years agoThe ssd is a spanking new one yeah. He says it just won't recognise/boot up the OS regardless of the fact it is on there 
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BigOrkWaaagh 10,554 posts
Seen 50 minutes ago
Registered 14 years agoCheck UEFI/Secure Boot settings in the BIOS. -
Sharz 2,121 posts
Seen 1 day ago
Registered 6 years agoIf you installed the OS originally under IDE protocol a SSD will refuse to work (as the OS wont be able to see it).
You need AHCI in the bios and at the time of the install, IDE is an old standard so its probably not that. But i came across a PC the other day which had this issue as HDDs can use either so they never thought about it. -
frightlever 1,524 posts
Seen 1 week ago
Registered 9 years agoI had a problem a bit like this. Turned out it thought one of my existing data drives was the boot drive. I disconnected all but the new SSD for a reboot cycle and it was recognised as the default drive from then on.
(EDIT: If you go into disk management and see that one of your data drives has about 100MB reserved, then it's probably been used as a boot drive at some point and is possibly what's causing the problem.)
Edited by frightlever at 18:27:27 21-03-2016 -
richarddavies 8,312 posts
Seen 11 minutes ago
Registered 13 years agoSorry I forgot I even posted this. Thank you I'll show him your posts now and see if it helps. -
barchetta 3,335 posts
Seen 3 hours ago
Registered 20 years agoRather than another thread, I thought it best I tag my post to this one.
My last PC was sourced from Escom (I think a P100, so rusty is a bit of an understatement). I have considered a gaming PC on and off - currently off but a mate who is coming to PC gaming for the first time has opted for this, and asked my opinion:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/pc-specialist-vulcan-fury-iv-i5-6400-cpu-gtx-1070-gaming-pc-a91wf?cmpid=ppc&gclid=CjwKEAjwiru9BRDwyKmR08L3iS0SJABN8T4vJtb6msAKgWTArCknnUcDqcG0QFf1_sTnuEYAydwbnBoCfZrw_wcB
Got to say the slew of new cards has had me going back to DF articles etc. Certainly has moved on a bit though with weak pound etc I'm unsure of best prices at the moment.
He doesn't want to self build - which I may have done if I were in his boots - so I looked around for GTX1070 systems and don't see many at all under 1K. On the face of it I may offer guarded approval but not sure how good/reliable PC Specialist builds are.
Any advice before I ruin a long standing friendship would be appreciated! -
ibenam 3,507 posts
Seen 5 hours ago
Registered 14 years agoSeems a tad expensive for what you are getting plus its ugly af -
THFourteen 54,987 posts
Seen 18 minutes ago
Registered 16 years agoI would also not think napkin are a great place to buy a PC from. (Didn't correct the autocorrect on purpose)
PC Specialist and scan.co.uk are decent. -
Anywhere else I could trust ?
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