help on my gaming pc

[dolittle182]

hi all

i am 11 years old and ive been saving to upgrade my pc, ive just reached ?250
i havent got a clue what to get. I need a new motherboard, prosesor, graffix card and memory and hard drive. i want to play the latest games. what is the best hardware for my money? or do i need to save more money? :bonce:
i would be greatfull to any posts.

thanks guys

 

[Cavalry]

http://www.nvidia.com/page/home.html

Try nVidia, some of the best products availible

The GeForce 8800GT Graphics card is supposed to be the best

But start with a new processor or bigger hard drive.

 

[dolittle182]

ok so that card is ?154.99 so im looking at a lot more than ?250 then?
what motherboards do you recommend?
thanks

 

[Druckles]

You want some help?

First of all, I'm going to tell you that you won't be able to play "the latest games" with that amount of money.

Secondly I'm going to ask you how competent you are. From your comments, I would take it that you're not capable of building your own PC, or that you've bought one before. I'd also probably guess that you're still at home and the only money you have to rely on is pocket money. In which case, saving up is going to be a problem.

If you're not capable of building your own machine, you are going to have to rely on manufactured machines, which can be unreliable when bought cheaply. However, you will get the peripherals such as monitor, keyboard and mouse with the machine, which you wouldn't be able to afford had you built it. You can certainly buy a desktop computer for ₤250 (GBP doesn't work on HL2.net, so just copy my symbol), but it won't be able to play the latest game.

I'd recommend you save a lot more money. Your age might also be helpful so we know what kind of income you're expecting in the next year. If you doubled the cash you have, you'd probably be able to get a decent machine that can play most games, but not the latest such as Crysis and Bioshock.

Your current specs will help significantly.

Edit: To give you an idea of what you might want to expect:
A decent graphics card: ₤100 - ₤150
A decent motherboard+processor: ₤150
Memory: ₤30
250GB Harddrive: ₤40

I recommend you go here and look around. Also look at reviews of different things you're interested in. Get to know your harddware.
Upgrading your PC from nothing is a very complicated procedure

 

[dolittle182]

I have a asus motherboard, amd xp2200, ati 9800pro agp and 1gig ram.
i have just got a new monitor and cool case i saved for, all above in there. just need good hardware so i can play the games i want to play. my uncle does all the building, but he knows nothing about gaming. I have no probs with saving more cash. so your saying if i had ₤400 i could build myself a good system? crysis and bioshock are the games im looking at playing. would you say the same as Cavalry that The GeForce 8800GT Graphics card is good? and what motherboard do u recomend? also processor and memory..

thank you very much for your time

 

[Druckles]

It's all quite complicated, when it comes down to casual gaming. If you want to build a state of the art system, you'll have to expect to pay the premium on all the best equipment. However, you can get slightly worse hardware for a lot less money. But if you don't pay enough, you'll find your system is out-of-date pretty quickly. So you have to find a good ratio between money and quality of your machine.

If you want to play Crysis, I'd certainly tell you that you need more money. If you have the peripherals and the case, that's indeed a good start. Something like ₤400 - ₤500 will get you a system that you can play Crysis on, if not perfectly. ₤250 certainly won't get you what you need. You might be able to get an ok motherboard/processor and graphics card, but you probably wouldn't be left with any money for memory. And you'd find your hardware quite old pretty quickly. Not needing a case would certainly bring the price down by about ₤50, as would a harddrive.

You might want a new power supply, as well, if you don't have one.

In the end, it's up to you what you choose and what you go for. If you plan on saving up significantly, any recommendations I make now will have changed 6-12 months down the line. So I wouldn't want to say, in that case. But you really should stick your head in to the PC market and keep up to date with what they have. If your Uncle does the building, does he know anything about current hardware on the market?

As for the 8800GT... it is a good card, for a good price. But then I'd recommend ATi's HD 3870 because I'm a fanboy

 

[DEATHMASTER]

I'd recommend 500 GBP to start.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

8800GT is a significantly better card! Everyone will tell you that, as long as your name isn't Druckles. For the 512mb model it's unbelievable performance (high settings on Crysis) and it's roughly 150-200 quid depending on the brand. For his price requirements I'd put that down as a definite.

Remember thread starter, things need to be compatable with each other, so that card will need a motherboard with a PCI Express slot 16x (which most modern mobos do have now...if not all). Also, your Power Supply Unit will need enough juice to run that graphics card on it's own individual power supply. So that is another component you will need, unless you already have one with 500+ wattage.