Given that this is a specific personal request, I felt it fell more in line with "Blogs" than it would cluttering up the tech support forum.
I have come across a decent wad of money to spend on myself this christmas and am looking to purchase myself a good ol' fashioned desktop computer. I haven't used a desktop for years now; the old one I owned died a slow and painful death and brutally crashes a few minutes after powering up. I never replaced it cause, hey, my laptop was reasonably powerful at the time and I didn't really need anything else.
Truth be told, though, that laptop is beginning to show its age a bit now. The main issue for me right now is that the laptop is barely able to run Starcraft 2; it copes fine on lowest settings in singleplayer and somewhat alright in 1v1 but becomes completely unplayable in team games and most custom games. Its hampering, quite signinficantly, my desire to play the game, so I'm looking for a desktop that can, ideally, flawlessly run the game on higher specs, as well as have a decent stab at the next couple of generations of games (I'm looking at you, Diablo 3 and TES:V!). I'd also like to be able to stream as I play and I need it to be capable of support dual monitors (which I already own, so I don't need a monitor).
Have had a browse at various places online for a decent desktop, I'm a little concerned that I'm not able to hunt down the very best deals. The best deals I've found are not much better than buying from Dell, and I'm pretty certain I *should* be able to do better than that.
So, TL;DR. I have a budget of ~£700-£800, maybe more if its for something special. I live in the UK, and need the cost of the computer plus shipping to the UK to be within budget. I need a desktop capable of playing and streaming SC2. I don't need a monitor, but need support for 2 at a time. Where to I go to get the most bang for my buck?
Small supplementary question: My rural internet connection is not the fastest. I've seen various "gaming" network cards that claim to reduce latencies by X% for £70 and above. Does anybody have any experience with these? Are they worth it or are they a con? I'm sensing they aren't; if I've got a crap connection to my ISP, I'm pretty certain I'm stuck with it.
As for what you want in a computer, although fairly innacurate when it comes to UK pricing, anything above the section labelled "GOOD" will give you more than what you want performance wise (I'm not sure about streaming but you may require a better CPU than a 955 maybe something closer to an i7).
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That's a really good guide. I wish I knew as much as this guide when I did my first build. I really wasted some money thinking "more" is better when I really didn't need "more".
In regards to the network cards, I wouldn't bother. What's your current internet speed? Go to www.speedtest.net and post the results.
I'd also recommend building your own computer. You'll get a much better deal all round. The sites bmml mentioned are great, but to add: www.tekheads.co.uk is worth a look too. They often have the lowest prices I have seen from all the online stores.
Also, if you aren't comfortable with actually building your own computer, you can still buy the parts online and then pay a local shop (or a friend) to put it together. It's still much cheaper to do that than to buy through many brand name companies (though there are some that have great deals).
Overclockers is good, they're pretty cheap too. I had one problem which is when delivered the graphics card didn't work and they said this sometimes happens when being knocked around in the van. It's good that I don't like too far from Stoke so I went in and got in fixed easily. The place where they have their office is a shit hole though, it's like a business unit and you'll have a hard time finding it but once you go in its packed full of people doing all sorts.
I got a build to £710 without an OS, don’t know if you need one. graphics - HD 6870 / GTX 470 if you can squeeze it in or HD 6850 / GTX 460 is you can’t, I wouldn't go with anything cheaper than those though
Thanks a great deal guys. That's just, like, phenomenally useful.
Having read through some of the stuff you guys have posted, I'm moving over to the idea of building my own. Seems like my money will go a whole lot further. I've never done it before and it also seems like it'd be a pretty educational process too.
I'll post back here once I've had a good look through and decided what I want.
@ Soleron The benchmark you showed are at a very low resolution and only on medium, as the resolution gets bigger the problem will get worse. AMD are cheaper and they are cheaper for a reason. The processor will probably be the hardest piece to upgrade later too, so want something decent now. Although yer if it can’t be budgeted go for AMD quad over Intel dual.
@BlueSorc Cool. I only have ever built one, i did a few years ago. TIts nothing difficult, just grown up leggo really. Your money will go a lot further, just got to make sure you research the parts, which I'm sure everyone will help you with.
EPT
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