Gaming computer

[Hiram King Of Tyre]

My son wants to buy a gaming computer. He has a budget of £5-600 in his head. It would be useful if he could play bluray etc in his bedroom but gaming is his priority. He plays mainly simulator games, the list he's given me is:

Farming Simulator 2013
Euro Truck Simulator 2
Call of Duty
Grand Thefy Auto
etc

Can anybody recommend which machines he should be looking at? Or is building it yourself a better option?

[hyperD]

Have a look at the Scan website - quite upgradeable, decent overclocks, nice cooling.

I bought an overclocked I7 last year which is above your budget but they do some good low-mid ranged stuff.

scan.co.uk

[Durbs]

Best getting over to Overclockers UK forum for that kind of thing:

Overclockers UK Forums - Powered by vBulletin

Tons of specs there for around £500, you can build a decent gaming machine for that e.g. Spec gaming build £500 - Overclockers UK Forums

I'd personally build it myself, more fun that way. If you've not done one before, don't worry, its easy, just like lego really. Stick to an i5 rather than an i7 if its mainly for gaming.

[Hiram King Of Tyre]

Have a look at the Scan website - quite upgradeable, decent overclocks, nice cooling.

I bought an overclocked I7 last year which is above your budget but they do some good low-mid ranged stuff.

scan.co.uk

Thanks yes, I did look at scan. I looked at the G30 I think.

This was the other one I had looked at. The Novatech Black NTA09

I don't keep abreast of PC specs myself though so of course can't really judge

[Hiram King Of Tyre]

Best getting over to Overclockers UK forum for that kind of thing:

Overclockers UK Forums - Powered by vBulletin

Tons of specs there for around £500, you can build a decent gaming machine for that e.g. Spec gaming build £500 - Overclockers UK Forums

I'd personally build it myself, more fun that way. If you've not done one before, don't worry, its easy, just like lego really. Stick to an i5 rather than an i7 if its mainly for gaming.

Thanks, I'll have a look over there. I've not built one before but have changed cards and stuff so don't mind a bit of plug & play. Of course, the benefit of building yourself is that you can choose your own components.....but that's where I don't know where to start

[Scrag Meister]

I'm a build your own type of person and £500 would get me a graphics card :-), a friend of mine went to these folks PCSPECIALIST - Custom PCs, Custom Computers, Custom PC, Desktop PC, Custom Built Computers, Gaming PC.

I'm also a Scan fan, so they are worth checking out.

[d000hg]

Are AMD CPUs any good these days? For a dev machine I like the idea of 6 cores for VC++ compilation but I thought Intel ruled right now?


Also... games traditionally are NOT good at using multiple cores efficiently. I'd prefer fewer fast cores than more slower ones, even if that reduces overall theoretical 'CPU power'. A CPU which can automatically run cores faster when only 1-2 cores is in use might be optimal, which ones are those?

[Durbs]

Also... games traditionally are NOT good at using multiple cores efficiently. I'd prefer fewer fast cores than more slower ones, even if that reduces overall theoretical 'CPU power'. A CPU which can automatically run cores faster when only 1-2 cores is in use might be optimal, which ones are those?

All the current i5/i7's have the ability out of the box to automatically overclock themselves above their advertised speed if extra juice is needed (and they are cool enough) and they underclock themselves if they aren't needed. It won't boost all cores, just the ones that need the power.

AMD are unfortunately still not in contention. Bulldozer was a flop and they've just released Piledriver which is supposedly a decent improvement but still not in the same league as an Ivy i5 in most benchmarks. The AMD chips only sneak the lead in certain very highly threaded tests. So best bang for buck, stick with Intel, especially for gaming.

As I said earlier, i5 is a better bet for a gaming rig as games generally don't benefit from the hyperthreading in the i7 so you may as well save a few quid.

[d000hg]

All the current i5/i7's have the ability out of the box to automatically overclock themselves above their advertised speed if extra juice is needed (and they are cool enough) and they underclock themselves if they aren't needed. It won't boost all cores, just the ones that need the power.

I think that's what I was thinking about... if you're running a single-core application, it's able to dynamically ramp up the clock speed on one core since the others are idling?

[Hiram King Of Tyre]

If I go for the Scan G30, which of the upgrades would be sensible?