Hello chaps, As some of you may know, I've recently been dragging my younger brother over to the dark side, that is PC gaming. Now, we've had a short but sweet discusssion over MW2, a quick convo about using Xbox wireless when away from the machine, noise from the Xbox drive, and graphics. Oh, and Steam! I'm now thinking, maybe he should get a PC under the TV, so he can play his favourite games on a new medium (which I don't mind splashing a little on), and he can still think of it as "a console under the TV". So, components: Mobo - £32 Processor - £50 RAM (x2) - £35 GPU - £49 HDD - £32 Cooler - £17 Case/PSU - £31 I've got a DVD drive kicking about that my bro's welcome to. I may be able to dig out a Celeron 2180 that hits 3GHz+, which would save £50. I may also be able to find a 9600T, which would save another £50 on the GPU. I know my bro would be able to sell his Xbox, and all games, for a sizable amount too. So, for £140 (or £240, if I keep hold of those parts), is this going to be a good upgrade, or should I look towards different parts? The aim is to replicate the Xbox experience on a PC, so loading times help, as do simple things like ease of use. Im not into upgrading per se off the bat, but I think this spec does the job. In terms of an actual performance upgrade, I'm not really interested - I think this will deliver beyond the Xbox, but if anyone feels I could cut corners somewhere, chime in. And if it's worth keeping my components, please say so, too! FWIW, I have an old Windows XP Pro key he's welcome to, so all he'd need is a connector for his 360 controller to a PC. Any suggestions for "making an Xbox"? Cheers, guys! Will x
The performance of the system will really depend on the resolution of the TV you intend to run it on; I can't imagine the components you list will run any particularly new games well - it certainly won't be up to playing games at similar level of graphics detail to that which he is used to on his xbox. I think to make it workable you'd need to up the graphics card - at least to an Ati 5770 (or Nvidia GT260 (or 250 if you want to make a bit of a saving). Loading times would probably still be worse than the 360's (upping the RAM might help there). As far as the xbox controller goes, as you can see http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/gaming/ProductDetails.aspx?pid=091 it'll work without much issue. Although not all games by any means will be able to use it.
What my general advice would be is: if you only have an Xbox-sized budget, then get an Xbox. The point of PCs is that they do more and do it better, so they should also cost a bit more. That said, what you've specced will perform better than an Xbox at the same resolutions it renders at, but won't be able to cope with games at a native resolution of 1920*1080. If the TV is only 1366*768, then general PC usage will be a bit of a headache and won't look very good. Also, if it's going to be going under the TV and used in the living room then using a mouse and keyboard is going to be a bit of a PITA for navigation. Overall, I wouldn't be surprised if your brother is underwhelmed by the 'dark side'. Maybe you'd care to lend him a watercooled i7 with a 4870 X2?
+1 to smc8788 id say u need £350 for a well performing gaming machine. (all new parts) your suggested build is a poor machine. GPU is bit pants and i tihnk you could get better something second hand maybe. HDD is also pretty mediocre Case with PSU is horrible. your parts seem to not quite work together you have opted for a good CPU cooler are you overclocking ? if so not a good idea to buy a crappy PSU and poor case. what is your budget ?
Well, he's only running through a bog-standard TV at the mo, but will be making the switch to an HDTV for his birthday, so 720p resolutions seem the way to go. He's a bit of a boy-racer, so any of the NFS games would do. Also a bit of a sport nut, so the FIFAs, etc. I don't envision him playing anything like Crysis, but he may want to take a punt on MW2 if it comes up cheap. Again, graphics settings can be dropped. I forgot about the mouse, smc! Thanks for that! Adam, the case/PSU is an mATX combo that's cheap, and there's no way he'll need 400W of power for a budget build. It'll fit next to the TV quite nicely too. I've got the Ebyuer red mATX cheapy with the 200W PSU, and I've been able to overclock with it, for kicks. It also doesn't NEED to be a good machine - as I've pointed out, I want this to be as low as it goes, in terms of cash, as long as it performs better than a 360. Kristian, I'll do some Google-Fu and see if I can pull up a list of games the controller will work with, and make my decision around that. No good if his faves are incompatible. He's playing Max Payne 2 on his laptop atm. The dark-side conversion is working (sort of)! EDIT: The Coolermaster Elite/460W bundle is only £52 at the moment, but I'm not sure there's room for it on the desk. Can anyone make a recommendation specifically on this - ideally, mATX, with PSU, not much money.
I cba to find out if this is true (I know the last one was not sure about fifa 10) as I am just starting drinking but you might want to avoid fifa on the PC as it isn't next gen like the consoles, it's basically fifa from 2 years ago in a frock
I took a check - EA said that for a PC version, they wouldn't be including a couple of bits, and wouldn't use the next-gen graphics, because "only 10% of PC gamers have a machine that could run them". Interestingly, Pro Evo seems to get better reviews than Fifa... I might grab a copy and take a test!
If you will be using this PC for text based activity's (internet, msn, office) you will really want to go for a 1080p TV when the current one is replaced. I went with a 720 TV and while it's fine for watching blurays and playing games on (I normally use my monitor for games, but was curious) it makes for a shocking monitor since the resolution is too small compared to what everyone is use to on proper monitors and if you increase the output resolution text becomes hard to read.
What was so wrong with his Xbox? IIRC every Game For Windows game can use the 360 controller, and many other games let you play with a generic gamepad anyway.
It's hot, noisy, limited in use, limited in space, and he can't get Steam or GOG on it - he's after Serious Sam, the Feeble Files and Civ 4 atm. He also wants to stop paying £3 a month for online play. BTW, have just been testing a 9600GT out for some games. Crysis and Warhead coped at 1360x768 in DX9 mode with all settings on Gamer and 2xAA. Left 4 Dead 2 was playable with 4xAA, 16xAF, all other settings maxed at 1360x768. I used it an old rig before, so I know Test Drive Unlimited, Fallout 3, The Sims 3, Quake/Doom, and a bunch of others are all playable at max settings, 1360x768. The games actually looked decent too. Warhead had good shadowing (as opposed to the dozen squares "shadow" I've seen in CoD:MW2 on the 360), the foliage looked decent, and the game ran smoothly, even when things went boom. Granted, it's not quite the same as 1920x1080 on a 4870X2, but it's a vast improvement over anything the Xbox has been able to produce. Downloading Mass Effect now for another test (because there were texture issues with that on the 360), and will probably fire up Bioshock at some point. I'm actually quite enjoying myself here!
