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[Terbs]

Agree with Mr Gav...get a good PSU 650 or 750 even better. Try for the i5 also.
Some of these games can run on lower spec, but lag, buffering, texture catchups, etc, etc is a pain. I upgraded my specs and Flight Simulator turned into a whole new game. And I am talking about a game that's been around from 2009 !!!!! Modern graphics are way above my Flight Sim.
Get it right and they will be very happy bunnies

[TheBoy]

Looked at the specs on this and been in touch with a local private pc place who say they can do something very similar inc Win10 and a "gaming" keyboard(whatever that is) and a monitor for £570.

Before committing, find out exact spec of components - as its every so easy for backstreet shops to use lower quality parts that give good marketing bullshit.  And backstreet shops will usually throw it together with no regard or thought to the thermal requirements, and at best, just shove in more noisy fans (that will often make matters worse) than work out how to do a proper thermal solution - TBH I have concerns about that CCL one thermally, but at these they've had the balls to name the components used (mostly in the OK to Good category).

Ok So this is whats being suggested ,nothing hard or fast yet so please chip in and make suggestions please either good or bad

Motherboard  Asus (don't tell TB)
Chip   intel dual core 3.1 ghz
memory   hyperx 8gb ram
hard drive  1tb sata 3
cd rom dvdrw dual layer  (don't know make)
23"Hp monitor
Network 10/100/1000 lan
video card asus gt730 2gb
sound card 8ch audio
case 500w atx  ?
optical mouse
cpu fan  Intel   (don't know any specs)
Operating system Win 10 64bit

£480.91 plus Vat
With a choice of keyboards

Specs provided are meaningless.  No mention of chipset. "An Intel dual core" can mean anything from a 12yr old P4D, to a modern Celary, to a 6yr old i3, to a modern i5u, to a 6th gen i3.

And Asus mentioned. I'd be walking away from that. Quickly.

[TheBoy]

I don`t quite agree with that....Asus motherboards are generally well regarded though personally I prefer Gigabyte and i`m using a MSI GPU at the moment and seem solid so far.

Asus are NOT well regarded by anyone before (stupid/lazy) computer journos and backstreet sellers - they get good benchmark results and offer a lot of integration for the rrp, but this is at the expense of reliability. Much the same with MSI, to a lesser extent. Gigabyte's problems are usually BIOS related, much less of an issue nowadays, and nobody uses the BIOS any more. Although their poor power circuitry was problematic not that long ago.

If you want to find out about reliability, try to get the figures from one of the channel publications, not the rubbish that the traditional PC mags (printed or online) spout.

If you`re self building then it shouldn`t be a thermal mess either cos you should be researching case, cpu fan, cable routing, and thermal paste application. Get it right and you should have a quick cool gaming pc with everything you want at a price  you can afford.

There is a lot, lot more to thermal design than that. Sadly, most of us do not have the software or knowledge to do it ourselves, although common sense can get it a lot closer than what most self-build (I'm also including backstreet shops in this) comes my way. And before purchase, its high on impossible to find the required level of detail from and of the far eats produced cases.

Done well, a general purpose PC should have 1 fan (in the PSU). Done very well, a gaming PC could have one fan, but that would be quite demanding, and certainly not possible for self build (until 3D printers come down more).

[Mr Gav]

I don`t quite agree with that....Asus motherboards are generally well regarded though personally I prefer Gigabyte and i`m using a MSI GPU at the moment and seem solid so far.

Asus are NOT well regarded by anyone before (stupid/lazy) computer journos and backstreet sellers - they get good benchmark results and offer a lot of integration for the rrp, but this is at the expense of reliability. Much the same with MSI, to a lesser extent. Gigabyte's problems are usually BIOS related, much less of an issue nowadays, and nobody uses the BIOS any more. Although their poor power circuitry was problematic not that long ago.

If you want to find out about reliability, try to get the figures from one of the channel publications, not the rubbish that the traditional PC mags (printed or online) spout.

If you`re self building then it shouldn`t be a thermal mess either cos you should be researching case, cpu fan, cable routing, and thermal paste application. Get it right and you should have a quick cool gaming pc with everything you want at a price  you can afford.

There is a lot, lot more to thermal design than that. Sadly, most of us do not have the software or knowledge to do it ourselves, although common sense can get it a lot closer than what most self-build (I'm also including backstreet shops in this) comes my way. And before purchase, its high on impossible to find the required level of detail from and of the far eats produced cases.

Done well, a general purpose PC should have 1 fan (in the PSU). Done very well, a gaming PC could have one fan, but that would be quite demanding, and certainly not possible for self build (until 3D printers come down more).

The reliability for Asus products came more from a couple of pc forums I used when I built my first pc, people seemed to have less issues with them especially when overclocking. That pc ran pretty well too with a Gigabyte P45 board and a Q6600 chip overclocked to 3Ghz, 22degrees at idle and never saw more than 57 degrees when gaming and it`s still going strong now.

My current pc has a Asus motherboard, i5 4690k chip and a MSI R390 GPU (apart from the chip it`s probably your worst nightmare  ) seems solid at the moment although I had to rmi the GPU as it was dead when I got it, the replacement has been fine since.

[TheBoy]

Sadly, the stats are fairly irrefutable, as said, try to get on the mailing lists for some of the channel rags - hard I know if you can't prove you're in the trade.

And I'm not surprised the MSI card was DoA.


Because of the laziness of the regular computer journos, who will usually (badly) throw something together and run a benchmark tool, and award gold/silver/bronze on that (because, without exception, they are lazy and stupid...  ...and probably couldn't get a real job), the likes of Asus play up to that and crank up some of the defaults, where the better brands tend to keep a bit more conservative.  This (and generally poor circuitry, particularly around the power regs) and reasonably poor build quality and zero quality control, makes them the most unreliable of the lot.

One of many reasons you will never, ever, EVER see Asus components in any branded or business class computer, as they are just too unreliable.


Personally, I'm not fussed what people chose to buy - its their money, their choice .  But when someone is asking for advice, and I see advice that I know is far from the best, I have to pipe up.

I try to avoid building gaming PCs now^*, due to the thermal capabilities being based too much on guesswork - yes, I could chuck a dirty great 120mm exhaust fan, and hope for the best, but would then end up with a 4 fan solution (that's going to be a thermal mess anyway), one in each of PSU, Video card, CPU and exhaust.  But people ignore my advice of gayStations and seXBOXs, and throw hoards of cash at me insisting I do it for them...   ...any I'll spend ages looking at case PDFs and getting airflow guides mocked up before my man fabricates them out of plastic, just to get the airflow reasonably optimal...  ...and in the days when you could get quality PSUs with a 12cm fan on the bottom, it was possible to make it a 1 fan solution...  ...and all that shit before I could even start thinking about components (well, obviously you do it all in parallel).


Oh how I long for the days when it looked like BTX chassis style would take off as a replacement for ATX...



^* TBH, I try to avoid building any PC now, as a branded one is always better engineered, less hassle, and cheaper IF you can find the exact spec you need. Granted, you have to rip of Windows and reinstall to get the optimal performance (unless you're daft enough to buy the likes of Lenovo, in which case you're oppsed anyway, and serves you right ), but usually the ideal opportunity to get that big SSD in

[Mr Skrunts]

Motherboard  Asus (don't tell TB)     Depends on model
Chip   intel dual core 3.1 ghz            Dual core a bit out of date by today's general spec PC's
memory   hyperx 8gb ram                Make sure min spec DDR3 but DDR4 becoming popular on higher spec PC;s
hard drive  1tb sata 3
cd rom dvdrw dual layer  (don't know make)
23"Hp monitor                                  Cheap enough to source, check resolution against other monitors
Network 10/100/1000 lan
video card asus gt730 2gb
sound card 8ch audio
case 500w atx  ?
optical mouse
cpu fan  Intel   (don't know any specs)
Operating system Win 10 64bit

£480.91 plus Vat
With a choice of keyboards

[Mr Gav]

Sadly, the stats are fairly irrefutable, as said, try to get on the mailing lists for some of the channel rags - hard I know if you can't prove you're in the trade.

And I'm not surprised the MSI card was DoA.


Because of the laziness of the regular computer journos, who will usually (badly) throw something together and run a benchmark tool, and award gold/silver/bronze on that (because, without exception, they are lazy and stupid...  ...and probably couldn't get a real job), the likes of Asus play up to that and crank up some of the defaults, where the better brands tend to keep a bit more conservative.  This (and generally poor circuitry, particularly around the power regs) and reasonably poor build quality and zero quality control, makes them the most unreliable of the lot.

One of many reasons you will never, ever, EVER see Asus components in any branded or business class computer, as they are just too unreliable.


Personally, I'm not fussed what people chose to buy - its their money, their choice .  But when someone is asking for advice, and I see advice that I know is far from the best, I have to pipe up.

I try to avoid building gaming PCs now^*, due to the thermal capabilities being based too much on guesswork - yes, I could chuck a dirty great 120mm exhaust fan, and hope for the best, but would then end up with a 4 fan solution (that's going to be a thermal mess anyway), one in each of PSU, Video card, CPU and exhaust.  But people ignore my advice of gayStations and seXBOXs, and throw hoards of cash at me insisting I do it for them...   ...any I'll spend ages looking at case PDFs and getting airflow guides mocked up before my man fabricates them out of plastic, just to get the airflow reasonably optimal...  ...and in the days when you could get quality PSUs with a 12cm fan on the bottom, it was possible to make it a 1 fan solution...  ...and all that shit before I could even start thinking about components (well, obviously you do it all in parallel).


Oh how I long for the days when it looked like BTX chassis style would take off as a replacement for ATX...



^* TBH, I try to avoid building any PC now, as a branded one is always better engineered, less hassle, and cheaper IF you can find the exact spec you need. Granted, you have to rip of Windows and reinstall to get the optimal performance (unless you're daft enough to buy the likes of Lenovo, in which case you're oppsed anyway, and serves you right ), but usually the ideal opportunity to get that big SSD in

This is where you have the upper hand, us consumers just have to try and pick out what we think is best based on what we read and other peoples experience from forums and the like. The only reason I picked the Asus mobo was that it ticked all the boxes at the right price, my preference was Gigabyte but they didn`t have a board with the chipset and the things I wanted in my price range

[aaronjb]

Chip   intel dual core 3.1 ghz
memory   hyperx 8gb ram
video card asus gt730 2gb
£480.91 plus Vat
With a choice of keyboards

Quite a bit slower than the CCL one I linked to then - 3.1Ghz vs 3.7Ghz and a three year old video card instead of one from this year (so likely a good 30-40% slower).

Granted it comes with Windows 10 and a keyboard, but still.. that's a significant dip in performance there given the £100 difference in cost.