Is this a good gaming pc?

[Breno]

Hey guys not sure if this is the right forum but im thinking of selling my laptop and buying a desktop and was wondering if this was a good buy or not http://www.amazon.co.uk/OCHW-QUAD-4-0GHZ-GAMING-COMPUTER/dp/B008AB03QM/ref=sr_1_34?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1384545593&sr=1-34&keywords=gaming+desktop

it seems pretty good and very cheap.

i'd probly replace the graphics card when i get a chance with a gtx 650ti maybe? is that possible? also ill have to buy a monitor with that. this one seemed pretty good

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-S22C300HS-Monitor-250cd-1920x1080/dp/B00BFTRSXW/ref=sr_1_2?m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1384549398&sr=1-2

also how hard is it too install windows 7?
i'd be playing Wow mainly but i liked to play some strategy games like starcraft 2 maybe some battlefield depending on how good this pc turns out to be

i'd try build my own but i dont have time this year as ive never done it before it would take quite awhile but how great a saving and power boost would i get if i did build one from scratch?

i got about 500-600euro maybe less to buy a pc so if anyone could help me out that be great.

 

[thesilentman]

Hey guys not sure if this is the right forum but im thinking of selling my laptop and buying a desktop and was wondering if this was a good buy or not http://www.amazon.co.uk/OCHW-QUAD-4-0GHZ-GAMING-COMPUTER/dp/B008AB03QM/ref=sr_1_34?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1384545593&sr=1-34&keywords=gaming+desktop

it seems pretty good and very cheap.

i'd probly replace the graphics card when i get a chance with a gtx 650ti maybe? is that possible? also ill have to buy a monitor with that. this one seemed pretty good

Next time, I'd say Advice Forum or the PC Users Group we have here. Don't be afraid to drop by. =)

Tis a fine machine, I'll give it that. I just prefer an Intel processor myself, and maybe the GPU (your suggestion of 650ti is alright, but I think there are better options) could be upgraded. But I don't think it's bad for the price, just not my liking.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-S22C300HS-Monitor-250cd-1920x1080/dp/B00BFTRSXW/ref=sr_1_2?m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1384549398&sr=1-2

also how hard is it too install windows 7?
i'd be playing Wow mainly but i liked to play some strategy games like starcraft 2 maybe some battlefield depending on how good this pc turns out to be

Depends on what you mean by hard. On the overall, it's pretty simple and mostly click click click. If you have specific questions, fire away.

The PC should be fine playing Starcraft and Battlefield. I've been out of the loop when it comes to tech as of late, but it should handle most of everything on high, aside from just straight down bad ports.

 

[DataSnake]

Yeah, you'll definitely be wanting a better GPU. A GTX 650 Ti is as good a choice as any, certainly beats the Radeon 6670 bundled with the PC. Other than that, it looks good. You may have to turn down some settings in Battlefield, but it should be entirely playable with a 650. I don't see WoW or SC2 being much of a problem at all. As for windows 7, it's pretty easy to install. Put in the disk, turn on the PC, follow the instructions on the screen. In case you didn't already know, you can get it here [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116986] for $100.

 

[Hazy992]

That's not bad for the price, although I would recommend you get a better graphics card than a 650ti (like a 7850 for example). I'd probably get a new power supply as well as the one in that rig probably isn't very good.

 

[Breno]

Next time, I'd say Advice Forum or the PC Users Group we have here. Don't be afraid to drop by. =)

Tis a fine machine, I'll give it that. I just prefer an Intel processor myself, and maybe the GPU (your suggestion of 650ti is alright, but I think there are better options) could be upgraded. But I don't think it's bad for the price, just not my liking.

thanks for the reply, what graphics card would you recommend? also are all graphics card compatible with all motherboards? or do different types need different slots? like with CPU? sorry im pretty new to all this.

and in relation to windows 8 would installing it slow down my machine compared to if installed windows 7? i prefer windows 7 from a purely functional stand point but i remember reading that windows 8 improves performance somehow, is this true?

thanks again for the help, really appreciated.

 

[Get_A_Grip_]

It's not too bad considering the price. The hardware is a few years old, so if you were to build for this price there would be little to no performance increase.

As far as GPU upgrade goes, I'm currently using a MSI HD 7850, and it's a solid card, runs cool and quiet even when overclocked and I wholeheartedly recommend it.
Windows 8 runs faster than Win 7. I'm using Win 8 and I actually do like it. I am using StartIsBack though, to give me a proper start menu. Installing Windows is really straight forward, it holds your hand through the entire process.

If you do pick this PC up, I would recommend getting a better power supply a few months down the line. Odds are that the one included is cheaply made and may have a high failure rate. You don't want a PSU to fail as it can potentially wreck all of your other components while doing so.

 

[w00tage]

Have you given PCPartPicker.com a go yet? Even if you're not up for building your own, you'll see the retail prices of the parts in the machine. The active compatibility checker is a fantastic feature, really helps you get things together.

 

[w00tage]

Also, I did a price check on Nvidia GTX 670 recently. It was on sale for 219.00, and it's a sweet card for the price. It's built on a 680 reference board so it's not an overclocked POS like some are Benchmarks - http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

It's better than I expected, usually computers that are sold as one part are horribly expensive, horribly underwhelming, or both. That one's the right amount of price and performance.

Forgetting the GPU, because everyone's already picked on that, you could also do better with the hard drive and the RAM. A 1TB hard drive is undeniably useful for storing tons of games or downloading high quality porn, but solid state is a step up from traditional hard drives performance-wise. Use the 1TB as an external, and get a 300GB SSD, the SSD is going to last you for a while. 8GBs of RAM is going to keep you running most games on for a while, but upping it up to 16GBs might be a good investment.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

For the price, it'll work. The first things on the upgrade list are the graphics card and the power supply.

I'd recommend going to an AMD 7770 as a relatively affordable graphics card upgrade and of course getting just about any Antek power supply over 450 watts.

If you want to go higher up the line for the graphics card but still being fairly affordable, I'd go with one of the new AMD R9 270's. They're around 200 bucks and have a pretty good kick behind them.

 

[Seracen]

Not bad for the price, but it isn't some overly special deal either. This close to Black Friday, you might want to look at some of the PC sales.

I prefer AMD with ATI, but most game devs seem to prefer NVidia, which I prefer to run with Intel.

Personally, I'd look at the next big (graphic heavy) title you want, then hit the recommended req's (preferably exceed, considering tech depreciation).

 

[Amir Kondori]

Have you looked into just putting one together yourself? If you have access to any help at all it isn't that hard, there are Youtube videos and websites that will show you how step by step.

You won't necessarily save money but you will likely spend that money more on the parts you could use the most. You will get way more bang for your gaming buck with an i3 and an R9 270X than you will from a quad core an a 6670 gpu.

 

[Amir Kondori]

Not bad for the price, but it isn't some overly special deal either. This close to Black Friday, you might want to look at some of the PC sales.

I prefer AMD with ATI, but most game devs seem to prefer NVidia, which I prefer to run with Intel.

Personally, I'd look at the next big (graphic heavy) title you want, then hit the recommended req's (preferably exceed, considering tech depreciation).

AMD graphics card run just as well on Intel platforms as AMD platforms, and the same is true of Nvidia's offerings. The only differences come down to things like processor performance and for multi-gpu configurations pci-e bandwidth can make a difference, but that is only on the high end.

 

[Seracen]

Not bad for the price, but it isn't some overly special deal either. This close to Black Friday, you might want to look at some of the PC sales.

I prefer AMD with ATI, but most game devs seem to prefer NVidia, which I prefer to run with Intel.

Personally, I'd look at the next big (graphic heavy) title you want, then hit the recommended req's (preferably exceed, considering tech depreciation).

AMD graphics card run just as well on Intel platforms as AMD platforms, and the same is true of Nvidia's offerings. The only differences come down to things like processor performance and for multi-gpu configurations pci-e bandwidth can make a difference, but that is only on the high end.

Agreed, it's all personal preference. I just found less headaches approaching it in this manner. I've run Nvidia with an AMD Six-Core, and it ran Witcher 2 like a charm (although I fried my power supply on Metro Last Light...it was too weak, haha).

 

[Crazy Zaul]

The OS isn't included so it's not actually cheap. When I was looking for a new 1 a few months ago the general consensus seems to be that OCHW is a crap brand.
I'd say build it yourself. Everyone says its easy and I never believed them but I thought fuck it ill try it and it is actually easy, I just left the old 1 on and watched the newegg video while I was doing it.
The main thing that was cheaper about building its was that custom built or retail ones with the same parts and same total price had shit cases.

 

[Magix]

I just can't help but laugh at the way that page says "MASSIVE 1000gb harddrive". Really? That's basically the minimum amount of HDD space you get nowadays, 500gb is mostly a laptop thing
And of course, 1000gb always looks bigger than 1tb because there are more digits

 

[Amir Kondori]

Not bad for the price, but it isn't some overly special deal either. This close to Black Friday, you might want to look at some of the PC sales.

I prefer AMD with ATI, but most game devs seem to prefer NVidia, which I prefer to run with Intel.

Personally, I'd look at the next big (graphic heavy) title you want, then hit the recommended req's (preferably exceed, considering tech depreciation).

AMD graphics card run just as well on Intel platforms as AMD platforms, and the same is true of Nvidia's offerings. The only differences come down to things like processor performance and for multi-gpu configurations pci-e bandwidth can make a difference, but that is only on the high end.

Agreed, it's all personal preference. I just found less headaches approaching it in this manner. I've run Nvidia with an AMD Six-Core, and it ran Witcher 2 like a charm (although I fried my power supply on Metro Last Light...it was too weak, haha).

Personally I find that while Nvidia and AMD run pretty much neck and neck these days that Intel is still clear and away the better performer in CPUs. I really like AMD as a company and back when the Athlon 64 was kicking the Pentium 4's butt all day long that is what I ran.
I used to run Nvidia cards for a long time too, but once AMD caught up with the HD4000 series I switched and at least in my main rig have only Radeon's since. Although I still use Nvidia cards in some of the builds for our customer's (I work at a PC repair and retail shop).

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

Holy shit. You found a pre-built pc that doesn't have people telling you to build it yourself? Bravo

Forgetting the GPU, because everyone's already picked on that, you could also do better with the hard drive and the RAM. A 1TB hard drive is undeniably useful for storing tons of games or downloading high quality porn, but solid state is a step up from traditional hard drives performance-wise. Use the 1TB as an external, and get a 300GB SSD, the SSD is going to last you for a while.

Actually not quite. SSD's are WORM devices: write once read many. They wear out faster than hard disks the more times you write to the memory. BUT, op might not be the kind of user who frequently writes a lot of data. I just thought I'd point that out to him. Its generally safer to back up anything you put on an SSD to a hard disk.

I'd rather go for a hybrid drive. Or use both a hard drive and a small SSD and install the OS and favorite programs on the SSD. Though personally, I'd also rather have one huge pool of memory on my main computer

 

[Seracen]

Personally I find that while Nvidia and AMD run pretty much neck and neck these days that Intel is still clear and away the better performer in CPUs. I really like AMD as a company and back when the Athlon 64 was kicking the Pentium 4's butt all day long that is what I ran.
I used to run Nvidia cards for a long time too, but once AMD caught up with the HD4000 series I switched and at least in my main rig have only Radeon's since. Although I still use Nvidia cards in some of the builds for our customer's (I work at a PC repair and retail shop).

(Salutes a fellow tech head)

I don't do PC repair and stuff any more, but I think the most frustrating thing for me (recently) had been trying to explain to someone how integrated video cards weren't going to help high end gaming.

Of course, I asked why bother gaming on a laptop, unless the laptop were a $1000+ monster, but that was another hour long conversation entirely.

As for building it yourself. Sure, I suppose it's cheaper to find parts on sale and stuff. I actually place a monetary value on one's time. Moreover, I happen to be a fan of buying partially build rigs, which I then upgrade.

If nothing else, having a full recovery disk, without having to mess with drivers on a separate install, is one advantage to prebuilt units.

 

[Amir Kondori]

Personally I find that while Nvidia and AMD run pretty much neck and neck these days that Intel is still clear and away the better performer in CPUs. I really like AMD as a company and back when the Athlon 64 was kicking the Pentium 4's butt all day long that is what I ran.
I used to run Nvidia cards for a long time too, but once AMD caught up with the HD4000 series I switched and at least in my main rig have only Radeon's since. Although I still use Nvidia cards in some of the builds for our customer's (I work at a PC repair and retail shop).

(Salutes a fellow tech head)

I don't do PC repair and stuff any more, but I think the most frustrating thing for me (recently) had been trying to explain to someone how integrated video cards weren't going to help high end gaming.

Of course, I asked why bother gaming on a laptop, unless the laptop were a $1000+ monster, but that was another hour long conversation entirely.

As for building it yourself. Sure, I suppose it's cheaper to find parts on sale and stuff. I actually place a monetary value on one's time. Moreover, I happen to be a fan of buying partially build rigs, which I then upgrade.

If nothing else, having a full recovery disk, without having to mess with drivers on a separate install, is one advantage to prebuilt units.

I completely understand someone having their computer built, I do it all the time for our shop's customers, we do several custom builds a month(in addition to standard OEM retail sales). Some people just don't want to fuss with it.

Personally the time it takes is irrelevant to me, like someone who likes to work on their car on the weekend this kind of stuff is something I love, so it is fun for me to put together a new build, or mod some aspect of my computer, or upgrade, etc. I just ordered an R9 290 and GC-VGA02-01 aftermarket cooler to slap on it, which will be quite a bit of fun for me next week.

The driver thing though is no big deal, if you really want to have a disc for your drivers you can always download all the drivers for your machine and burn them to a CD.

As for it being cheaper, I know a lot of people claim that as a benefit of building your own but unless you spend months looking for sales, specials and rebates I don't think you really save all that much money. The real benefit, in my opinion, is that you get to pick each and every part yourself, so you get exactly what you want.

Next on my build list is a server. I have a barebones Intel pedestal server and all the parts needed to build it up, I have just been too lazy to get it done. I will probably look at completing it before the year is out.