I saw this on ebay uk and it looks, along with the sellers apparent rep pretty good. But I'm not techhead, so can anyone tell me if this is the sort of machine that can run games like LotrO (which I'm dying to try - or even WoW) and perhaps, dare i hop (because i've always wanted to try) Dawn of War 2. Or is it basically cheap end components.

I'm bored witless of console gaming and want a decent pc as well.

What's your budget for this?

Not much information given on that page, plus I'm no tech-head either, but I bought a new rig recently when my old one died. Based on that, a few observations:

- 2 Gb-s of RAM might be decent enough for many games, but RAM is so cheap you could just as well get 4 Gb-s, and in many cases it will make a difference.

- 80 Gb hard drive looks too small to me. My old computer had one, and that machine was obsolete in every possible aspect. Sure, you might get away with it if you don't want to have many games installled simultaneously plus maybe a bunch of other stuff as well, but still... I'd suggest you plan for the future and get a bigger one: you can get 500 Gb or even 1 Terabyte without breaking the bank. I've read somewhere that as long as your motherboard can handle two hard drives it's better to get two 500 Gb ones than a single 1 Tb one, but don't ask me why, that discussion was a bit over my head.

- Since you want it for gaming, your choice is graphics card is humongously important. That description doesn't say anything about it, which makes buying it a huge gamble. Unfortunately, this is a very, very complicated issue thanks to the vast number of products out there covering a wide price scale, and the lack of any truly user-friendly ways of determining what's a good choice for your wallet.


EDIT: Oh, and don't get Vista or that even newer Windows operating system. Everywhere I turn I hear complaints about how this or that game has problems on them, especially if it's a slightly older game. Windows XP will do just fine.

Quote from: JongWK;357914What's your budget for this?

at most £150

Quote from: Premier;357916Not much information given on that page, plus I'm no tech-head either, but I bought a new rig recently when my old one died. Based on that, a few observations:

- 2 Gb-s of RAM might be decent enough for many games, but RAM is so cheap you could just as well get 4 Gb-s, and in many cases it will make a difference.

- 80 Gb hard drive looks too small to me. My old computer had one, and that machine was obsolete in every possible aspect. Sure, you might get away with it if you don't want to have many games installled simultaneously plus maybe a bunch of other stuff as well, but still... I'd suggest you plan for the future and get a bigger one: you can get 500 Gb or even 1 Terabyte without breaking the bank. I've read somewhere that as long as your motherboard can handle two hard drives it's better to get two 500 Gb ones than a single 1 Tb one, but don't ask me why, that discussion was a bit over my head.

- Since you want it for gaming, your choice is graphics card is humongously important. That description doesn't say anything about it, which makes buying it a huge gamble. Unfortunately, this is a very, very complicated issue thanks to the vast number of products out there covering a wide price scale, and the lack of any truly user-friendly ways of determining what's a good choice for your wallet.


EDIT: Oh, and don't get Vista or that even newer Windows operating system. Everywhere I turn I hear complaints about how this or that game has problems on them, especially if it's a slightly older game. Windows XP will do just fine.

80g is small but it will do as i don't store loads of files and don't intend to rul every game going. I just want to be able to run a few games, specifically id' really like to play LotrO at least. I need a new machine anyway. But i know nothing about the components either so cpomaring them to the required specs is not easy. I don't know whether xeon processors are any good, and i know nothing about that graphics card either.