Help!!!!!!!!

[portbhoy]

Ok chrimbo is around the corner and my son is looking for a gaming pc (just the tower) I would like it to be at least 3.6ghz, 8gb ram and the graphics card to have at least 1gb without any hyperthreading wizardry. He also want's to run a dual monitor setup and have a desk to fit it all on, so any ideas? I don't want to start getting into funny money and considering everything else I will have to buy I have a ceiling of around £350 for the tower, I have been browsing online but my heads buzzing so any help would be much appreciated.

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Is it any good?

 

[Exos]

I think the question really is what does he want to use it for, gaming? also not sure why it has to be at least 3.6Ghz? there are plenty of CPU's available which are perfectly capable, but lower clock speed (core2 duo, dual core, quad core, i3, i5 etc)

I could also buy a 1GB 4850 and it not be suitable for what he wants to play...

 

[portbhoy]

Ok fair point just now he is using a dell E520 with 8gb ram (dont know what kind) and a geforce 8400gs 512mb graphics card which he says isn't up to the job. He want's to use it as a gaming pc but he is also into graphic design and fancy's himself as a budding games designer he's just like me dumb as hell when it comes to the hardware. As for the cpu I have no idea whats good and what isn't so needing loads of advice by the looks of it.

 

[surfbum]

what about that for the price u want to pay
Galaxy 3 Intel Quad Core I5 1tb 8gb DDR3 Nvidia GT 520 1gb Desktop Gaming PC

 

[portbhoy]

Whats the graphics card like on that? Is the graphics card the deciding factor? I looked it up on youtube and it seemed laggy and all the comments where about FPS (frames per second) so whats an ideal mix for a budget range or am I being too fussy for the money?

 

[little_pob]

To be honest, for a purely gaming rig, you don't actually need more than 4GB of RAM. But if he's messing with photoshop, illustrator etc the extra can come in useful.

With multiple generations on the market and AMD falling behind Intel, going just by the CPU speeds isn't an accurate method of comparing CPUs anymore (and probably never was).

As such have a look at this: Lists | Ebuyer.com - due to the £350 budget I've had to compromise on CPU, RAM speed and graphics, but it should be upgradeable for the next couple of years.

If you find a bit more to add to your budget, or your son wants to contribute a little, let me know how much more you've got to play with and I'll tweak the list.

 

[Exos]

To be honest, for a purely gaming rig, you don't actually need more than 4GB of RAM.

With multiple generations on the market and AMD falling behind Intel, going just by the CPU speeds isn't an accurate method of comparing CPUs anymore (and probably never was).

As such have a look at this: Lists | Ebuyer.com - due to the £350 budget I've had to compromise on CPU, RAM speed and graphics, but it should be upgradeable for the next couple of years.

If you find a bit more to add to your budget, or your son wants to contribute a little, let me know how much more you've got to play with and I'll tweak the list.

I was looking for that last night but for the life of me couldn't find the link on ebuyer!

EDIT: Just realised doesn't give you the list option until you add components. Duh

 

[portbhoy]

Thats absolutely brilliant input but is it going to give him a better pc than he has now or would I get similar just upgrading the graphics card in his current setup given that it's already got a dual core in it?

 

[little_pob]

Depends on what CPU you currently have fitted in the Dell.

But if you do decide to just upgrade, I'd replace the PSU at the same time as you're likely to find the factory fitted won't power a modern graphics card.