New PC

[cold fusion 33]

So basically, for christmas I am dying for a new PC, and to be honest, I don't have too much money to play with. I searched around quite a bit, and found one on Dell, but the price of that has gone up quite a bit, prompting my search for something else. My step dad told me about a company called Crys Tech (www.crystech.co.uk). He bought a PC from there a few years ago and they seemed good. Plus I live relatively near their base, so it's ideal for me.

So I looked on their site and found this:

 

USB Ports: 6x USB (2.0)

DVDRW Software: Nero Express

Memory: 2GB 667MHz DDR2 RAM

Warranty: 12 months RTB warranty (first 30 days Coll & Ret)

Case Style: Standard Mini tower Case

Home/Office Set Up assistance: Telephone Support

Processor Upgrade: Athlon 64 AM2 Dual Core 5000 Processor

Hard drive: 160GB SATA II 7200 RPM HDD

Optical Storage: 20x Dual format DVDRW

Keyboard & Mouse: Ps2 Keyboard & Ps2 Scroll Mouse

Speakers: Mains powered speakers

Network adapter: 10/100 Lan

Graphics card: 512MB Geforce 9500GT

 

Now I am only used to using old hardware, so I have absolutely no idea if this is good or not. I don't want to do anything especially amazing on it, I just want a new PC, I already have the screen, so I dont need to worry about that. So is this a good PC? Altogether it comes to £200 there abouts, as far as I know, although Im not too good at buying stuff off of sites, so I may be wrong. Would anybody care to check if I have found the right price or not? It is the Crystal Premium.

 

Thanks in advance,

Cold Fusion 33

 

Ps, do you think it will play GTA IV?

[kingvercetti]

I would say your biggest problem there would be the 9500GT, it's fairly underpowered and really won't do too well with quite a lot of games coming out now, so if you can get that upgraded to say a 9800GT, go for it (the site says it runs a 500w PSU, so you should be alright for something like that). RAM shouldn't be an issue, DDR2 is dirt cheap, you could easily expand to 4GB for £35 if not less, although I wouldn't bother if it'll be running a 32-bit OS.

Looking at the IV requirements, it'll likely run it on the lowest settings alright for you, but seriously try to get that 9500 upgraded, what they say about it being a great choice for gaming enthusiasts on the site is bollocks in my opinion.

[cold fusion 33]

Meh, Im not a massive gamer, Sketchup is my main program, and the only games I would seriously consider putting on it are like San Andreas etc... But the next PC up from that one is running an 8400 GS, would that be better?

Well, I'll probably be running XP home, so RAM definately won't be an issue there.

Hmm, the lowest setting will do for me . Like I said, Im not a massive gamer or anything.

But seriously, this is wayyy better than my 800Mhz AMD lol .

Can you check that I have got the right pricing here? £200 for a PC like that sounds too good to be true .

Thanks for the help Vercetti

[kingvercetti]

 

But the next PC up from that one is running an 8400 GS, would that be better?

Ugh, no, that's even worse. For £200 it does seem a decent deal though, so maybe you should buy it then get a better GPU once you have the cash? Ignoring the 9 and GTX series, 8800GTs are still very competent, small form factor cards and aren't too expensive, maybe you'd wanna consider that afterwards? Because really, the 9500 sucks.

Also, I aren't so sure about it running XP, especially as it makes a point of saying that it has a DX10 card, which obviously isn't available under XP.

Edited November 25, 2008 by kingvercetti

[cold fusion 33]

I guess that I could upgrade afterwards if I felt like it . I'll see . Considering the fact that I have been using an MX440 for about 4 years, anything new would blow me away .

I forgot to say, the PC doesn't come with an OS, and to buy Vista it's £55 extra, and I don't even like Vista that much. And the only install disc I have is XP home, so I might as well make use of it . I thought you could download software to make DX10 work on XP?

But how would DX10 really affect me so much? I mean San Andreas doesn't use DX10... But Im guessing GTA IV does . Oh well, Im sure that I'll be able to borrow an install disc for Vista afterwards .

[kingvercetti]

For all it's worth, as a gamer without massively deep pockets, you can safely ignore DX10 for now, it's not required by any game ever made as of yet, and for those that do support it, it normally adds fancy features only really applicable to high end cards, so you'll be fine with DX9 on XP.

[cold fusion 33]

Awesome, that sounds cool .

I looked on the site, and, well the 8800GTS is like £110 more... Way out of my range . What about the 8600GT? Is that any better? It's only an extra £20.00 .

Thanks or all the help Vercetti! .

Edited November 25, 2008 by cold fusion 33