Gaming PC

ichigo

ichigo

Executive Member
Joined
Aug 1, 2006
Messages
9,251
Reaction score
36
Location
Pietermaritzburg
Whats a good Medium/High Ranged gaming PC and how much cheaper is it to build the pc myself?

Want it for WoW, Starcraft II, Diablo III and Guild Wars

Would like to play in High/Ultra Graphics Settings and reasonable FPS

also might connect it to my TV through HDMI (think its called) to watch movies

Money is no object since i'm going to save for it

Thanks for help
 
You're looking at around R10 0000, everything besides a keyboard and mouse included
CPU - R2000 (AMD Phenom 955 or Intel i5 760)
Mobo - R1500 (anything at this price will be fine)
RAM - R1000 (4gb DDR3 1600)
HDD - R500-900 (500gb - 1.5tb)
Case - R900 (CM690ii)
GPU - R2700 - R3800 (HD5850 or HD5870)
PSU - R750 (get a corsair, they are excellent and reliable)
Screen - R1500 (with the horsepower you have anything less than a 23" is stupid)

One thing to note - the AMD 6000 series GPUs are being launched on 16 Oct (iirc) and there will be price drops on current 5000 series GPUs because of it. So depending how long it takes you to save up you may want to get a 6000 series card, or pick up a cheaper 5000 series. Savings can be made here and there, but you did say money is no object ;) Add on another R1500 - 2000 if you want a LGA1366 rig (i7 930 CPU)
 
Archer said:
You're looking at around R10 0000, everything besides a keyboard and mouse included
CPU - R2000 (AMD Phenom 955 or Intel i5 760)
Mobo - R1500 (anything at this price will be fine)
RAM - R1000 (4gb DDR3 1600)
HDD - R500-900 (500gb - 1.5tb)
Case - R900 (CM690ii)
GPU - R2700 - R3800 (HD5850 or HD5870)
PSU - R750 (get a corsair, they are excellent and reliable)
Screen - R1500 (with the horsepower you have anything less than a 23" is stupid)

One thing to note - the AMD 6000 series GPUs are being launched on 16 Oct (iirc) and there will be price drops on current 5000 series GPUs because of it. So depending how long it takes you to save up you may want to get a 6000 series card, or pick up a cheaper 5000 series. Savings can be made here and there, but you did say money is no object ;) Add on another R1500 - 2000 if you want a LGA1366 rig (i7 930 CPU)
Click to expand...

Thanks for reply thought it would cost more :). Last PC i had years ago was like R9000 wasnt even good enough :P.

Quite amazing how better pc's are getting and cheaper

Are the new pc's easy to build, cause i havent built one for 2 - 3 years

Edit: Forgot to ask which is better heatsink on GPU or fan
 
Last edited:
The i7 950's prices are better than the i7 930 at the moment, but going for a Socket 1366 rig would set you back at least R2k more - I learned this the hard way.

You can have a look at the pre-built systems at evetech.co.za. From what I've seen on their webpage they have pretty decent game PC's for all the price ranges that you can think of and their selection of components are pretty good as well. I haven't bought from them though - I prefer building my own stuff.

Update:
The Cogage True CPU cooler is very good air cooler at around R360 - R450 (depending on the CPU socket that you have).
 
Would this system work for graphics designing using GIS since its CPU heavy

also thanks for the link

is The Cogage True CPU cooler quiet?
 
Last edited:
I would go for the 1136 platform if you not to phased about cash
I'm assuming you not one to Over clock?

CPU: i7 950 R2640
MOBO: Asus Rampage III Formula R3500 I just think it looks awesome with awesome features, but a general 2.5K mobo would also serve you well.
RAM: G.Skill 3x2GB 1600 CL7 R1500
HDD: 1TB for now then buy a SSD later or buy one now (very debatable) as intels G3 have been postponed till Feb next year.
If you want an SSD then I'd go with 120GB G.Skill Phoenix pro R2350
Then the rest as archer said.
And think about getting a nice CPU cooler for the extra cool n quiet :)

1136 is usually quite a bit more pricey over the 1156, cash for performance increase is not really linear, but this is true for most high end computer parts.
So it's your choice.
 
Last edited:
For graphics designing go for the Amd 6 core or Intel i7 cpu's with Hyperthreading, Yes that Cpu cooler is quiet
Can also check out the Geforce GTX 460 cards witch can be had for about R2100 and up :)

Edit: Make sure you get allot of RAM, always helps
 
nakedpeanut said:
I would go for the 1136 platform if you not to phased about cash
I'm assuming you not one to Over clock?

CPU: i7 950 R2640
MOBO: Asus Rampage III Formula R3500 I just think it looks awesome with awesome features, but a general 2.5K mobo would also serve you well.
RAM: G.Skill 3x2GB 1600 CL7 R1500
HDD: 1TB for now then buy a SSD later or buy one now (very debatable) as intels G3 have been postponed till Feb next year.
If you want an SSD then I'd go with 120GB G.Skill Phoenix pro R2350
Then the rest as archer said.
And think about getting a nice CPU cooler for the extra cool n quiet :)

1136 is usually quite a bit more pricey over the 1156, cash for performance increase is not really linear, but this is true for most high end computer parts.
So it's your choice.
Click to expand...

Thanks and yes i dont overclock

Terumo said:
For graphics designing go for the Amd 6 core or Intel i7 cpu's with Hyperthreading, Yes that Cpu cooler is quiet
Can also check out the Geforce GTX 460 cards witch can be had for about R2100 and up :)

Edit: Make sure you get allot of RAM, always helps
Click to expand...

Geforce GTX 460 was thinking of that i like it :), I'll probably go for Intel i7.

btw do i need more than 4 gig of ram? cause ive seen some pcs which can handle 8 to 12 gb or is it overkill

will be using 32 or 64 bit Windows 7 Ultimate
 
Last edited:
The rig that NakedPeanut suggested is pretty close to what I currently have:
Core i7 940 (ES: running at i7 950's multiplier) + Thermalright 120 Ultra Extreme cooler, Corsair 6GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM + AX850W PSU, Asus P6T Deluxe v2 M/B + Xonar DX Sound card, 2x Inno3D GTX460 768MB, Seagate 1.5TB HDD + G.Skill 120GB SSD, CoolerMaster 692 Advanced case
I bought a great deal of my stuff 2nd-hand, but in the end the time I spent searching for 2nd-hand components costs me more than what I would've paid extra on brand new components.

This Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R (rev. 2.0) motherboard @ R2600 is an awesome deal:
- SATA3 6Gbps
- USB3
- CrossFire + SLI

I really don't know why you want to spend R900 more on a motherboard that is already very expensive.

I'm not sure if you'll be needing more than 4GB of RAM, unless you're doing massive GIS projects.
With the Socket 1366 motherboards, the minimum amount of RAM that you should get is 6GB, because 3GB just doesn't cut it any more for development (programming/CAD) work.
A 32-bit OS won't allow you to use more than 3.25GB of RAM.
If you're going for a Socket 1366 motherboard and don't intend on doing ANY overclocking, then you could go for DDR3 1066MHz too. The advantage of getting DDR3 1600MHz is that you can manually adjust their latencies slightly lower than most of the DDR3 1066MHz when running at 1066MHz.

Does your GIS software support multi-threading? Because if it doesn't, then you might as well stick with an i5.
 
Last edited:
Even if you do not intend on doing any overclocking you can still set your RAM to 1600 with one step, provided it has a XMS profile for that speed. BIOS reads the profile and sets it up for you, easy. As for the GTX460, a single one will drop you below 30fps regularly in SC2 at highest settings. So you either get two of them, or a single high end AMD card which really would be my aim, especially with their new stuff just around the corner.

Any chance you know which exact GIS program you will be using?
 
The small amount of OC on the ram is pointless, i would much rather op for 6gig like peanut suggested. Archer while most of your opinions make sense most of the time, i cannot see why the loyalism towards Ati/Amd especially if Ati cards perform so poor in SC2. i used SC2 just because you used it. And the GTX is ahead of the 5870 while being nearly R600+ cheaper.
Links, only on SC2
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...-starcraft-ii-gpu-performance-comparison.html
By no means am i saying Ati cards suck, its just in that particular game when AA is enabled they take a massive hit fps wise, and yes more recent drivers do lighten the effect a bit.
 
Terumo said:
The small amount of OC on the ram is pointless, i would much rather op for 6gig like peanut suggested. Archer while most of your opinions make sense most of the time, i cannot see why the loyalism towards Ati/Amd especially if Ati cards perform so poor in SC2. i used SC2 just because you used it. And the GTX is ahead of the 5870 while being nearly R600+ cheaper.
Links, only on SC2
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...-starcraft-ii-gpu-performance-comparison.html
By no means am i saying Ati cards suck, its just in that particular game when AA is enabled they take a massive hit fps wise, and yes more recent drivers do lighten the effect a bit.
Click to expand...

You realise of course that that review used 10.6 drivers for the AMD cards, while SC2 AA support was only added in 10.8? I have not checked the difference between the two but thats likely the reason for the poor AA performance. You need to look at the whole picture. As for why I recommend AMD GPUs right now - its becuase they are better, its that simple. The only exception is the GTX460 which is a beast in SLI. My last card was an 8800GTS, I really couldnt care less who makes the card, I just look for value for money. The fact that you think I have loyalty towards anyone shows how few of my posts you've actually read.

As for the RAM issue, its not an OC, you get plently of low latency RAM that runs at 1600 stock.

edit: so even with cat 10.8 the AMDs still lag behind the nvidia cards when AA is turned on in SC2. One thing to remember though - eyefinity is a great AA equaliser, no need for AA when your resolution is 5760x1080. Most likely thats not the case for the OP though.
 
Last edited:
Yes i glanced at the increase a while back with the newer cats, radeons ''better'' than nvidia cards? Do explain, based purely on heat and power usage i would call them more efficient nothing more. As with the last 3 generation nvidia cards they all were hot and power hungry, witch are dare i say ''normal'' for high end parts? My gtx 480 runs at roughly the same temperature that my old 4870 ran, there's a reason they make aftermarket coolers yes? If you compare top performing Ati to nvidia you will see ati actually gets spanked, especially in our lovely country with the prices we have.
So in short
5850 < 470
5870 < 480
5970 --- Tba lol

PS i am actually an AMD fan
 
I don't see why we recommending a 460 to op when he's going with i7 for a gaming rig and willing to spend cash.
I'm not saying lets waste his cash, but we not doing a budget build?

A gaming machine relies more on the GPU than the CPU, and I feel that buying a 460 is kind of stupid as it is a lower end card (note I never said low end).
You really should be looking at the mid to higher end card setups:
5850 ~R3000 http://www.landmarkpc.co.za/store/sapphire-hd5850-game-edition-5850-radeon-hd5850-p-3566.html
470 ~ R3400 http://www.prophecy.co.za/inno3d-nvidia-geforce-1280mb-gddr5-320bit-pcie-p-68263.html
5870 ~R3900 http://www.landmarkpc.co.za/store/r5870-twin-frozr-5870-hd5870-p-4392.html
460 SLI ~R4200 http://www.prophecy.co.za/inno3d-nvidia-geforce-gddr5-256bit-pcie-p-82915.html
prices are just the general area you be looking at..
With the current pricing of the 470's I would really consider them (if you can deal with the noise and heat :) )
 
Last edited:
If buying on a budget, the GTX460 is sweet. If there's R1,000+ more available, go for the 5850 or the GTX480
 
Merenwenrago said:
Whats a good Medium/High Ranged gaming PC and how much cheaper is it to build the pc myself?

Want it for WoW, Starcraft II, Diablo III and Guild Wars

Would like to play in High/Ultra Graphics Settings and reasonable FPS

also might connect it to my TV through HDMI (think its called) to watch movies

Money is no object since i'm going to save for it

Thanks for help
Click to expand...


Im selling this machine second hand

Intel Core i5 2.2Ghz
4GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD4650 1GB Graphics Card
1TB HDD
22inch LCD LG Screen

R5000
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X