Bought me a new PC.

[baad bwoy]

I just bought myself a new desktop pc, I have been considering this for ages as my current machine is years old, very, very slow and perhaps nearing the end of its life.
I bought this one from Dell, seemed to be a fairly good deal, and I hope to be able to play Doom 3 and HL2 on it, is this going to be possible?

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?b&c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&oc=D03506&rbc=D03506&s=dhs&sbc=ukdhsrsdimen_5000_2#bottom_anchor

I got the 1 Year European Collect and Return Service which left me to pay a total of ?588 inc delivery

[Ciaran]

The graphics card that comes with it is very slow. One of the slow PCI-E cards out.

D3 benches: http://www20.graphics.tomshardware.c...charts-06.html

But the SE version of the X300 you bought is probably slower than the one used in the bench. :/

[EvilBoris]

thats a damn good price though, even with that graphics card.

[simoran1]

yeah its not a bad price but you will struggle to play any of the latest games with that gfx card. really for hl2/doom3 you'd need nothing less than a 9800pro/6600gt. if your mother board is pci-e then id go with the 6600gt, great card for the money. if your interested ive got a 9800se going for sale, the one that will softmod to 9800 pro speeds. anyway still a good price for the spec.

[Ginger Tosser]

I play HalfLife 2 on an X300 with 256mb and it runs fine, not too sure how it'll behave with 128mb on the card though. Try it if it doesn't work, then upgrade.

[baad bwoy]

I think I will get the machine and some games and then decide whether I feel that I need upgrade the graphics card (I probably will choose to upgrade)
I find Dell seem quite unusual with their pricing strategy, the same machine yesterday was priced at over ?700 (i think)
I am chuffed though as my current pc is over 6yrs old and was second hand when I bought it, this new machine should be quite a leap forward.

[simoran1]

I play HalfLife 2 on an X300 with 256mb and it runs fine, not too sure how it'll behave with 128mb on the card though. Try it if it doesn't work, then upgrade.

actually your right, hl2 should be ok as a)its mainly cpu intensive and b)it was designeed to run better on ati cards. i dont think there would be a great difference between the 128mb and 256mb versions to be honest.

[baad bwoy]

The graphics card that comes with it is very slow. One of the slow PCI-E cards out.

D3 benches: http://www20.graphics.tomshardware.c...charts-06.html

But the SE version of the X300 you bought is probably slower than the one used in the bench. :/

In looking at some of those benchmarks I notice that for Doom 3 the GeForce 6800 GT Sli seems to top the chart (at least for the first benchmark test)
while for Half Life 2 the Radeon Video cards seem to fare better than the Geforce cards for some of the benchmark tests,
what does it mean, how to know which card to upgrade to?
And are there some newer Graphics cards just around the corner which are worth waiting for?

[EvilBoris]

thats because doom 3 is nvidia optimised and Hl2 is ATI optimised :P

[simoran1]

In looking at some of those benchmarks I notice that for Doom 3 the GeForce 6800 GT Sli seems to top the chart (at least for the first benchmark test)
while for Half Life 2 the Radeon Video cards seem to fare better than the Geforce cards for some of the benchmark tests,
what does it mean, how to know which card to upgrade to?
And are there some newer Graphics cards just around the corner which are worth waiting for?

basically hl2 was designed with ati cards in mind (i think valve struct a deal with ati) whereas nvidia cards are better in opengl based games (doom 3 for example). in comparable term the order of gfx cards goes something like this ati 9800 series = nvidia 6600gt
ati x800 (pro,xt) = nvidia 6800/gt
ati x850 (xt/pe) = nvidia 6800 ultra

any of the above cards are fine although the 9800 and 6600 series are slowly moving out of fashion. you can never be totally future proof with gfx cards but a x800 or 6800 should do you fine if you wanna upgrade. hope this helps

[baad bwoy]

thanks, I will bear this in mind when considering any upgrade, I have noticed some of these graphics cards cost a packet, might be a while before I can afford to upgrade to something suitable

[wod]

i'd have to change the vga card to something like an x850 xt pe or 6800 gt but try it and if its rubbish upgrade the card. looks like a good deal otherwise

[baad bwoy]

Is it worth me calling Dell and asking them to upgrade the graphics card to a 256MB PCI-Express nVidia GeForce 6800 costing ?105.75 extra?
Apparently it takes them about 7-10 days to build a machine so they should allow me to change my order (shouldn't they?)

[Kotatsu Neko]

Is it worth me calling Dell and asking them to upgrade the graphics card to a 256MB PCI-Express nVidia GeForce 6800 costing ?105.75 extra?
Apparently it takes them about 7-10 days to build a machine so they should allow me to change my order (shouldn't they?)

Yes, definately.

If you can afford it then go for an X800 XTPE though. The X850 is disproportionately expensive over the X800 at the moment. It's quicker, but not by much, and yet the extra you will pay is huge.

The X300 is a card for Firefox and MS Word really. It will not play Doom 3, Far Cry etc.

[wod]

Is it worth me calling Dell and asking them to upgrade the graphics card to a 256MB PCI-Express nVidia GeForce 6800 costing ?105.75 extra?
Apparently it takes them about 7-10 days to build a machine so they should allow me to change my order (shouldn't they?)

yes if you can afford it but for the time being order it with the ati and then upgrade later on ?