Minimum Spec PC in 2005?

[Mu5]

Yo

I am looking to buy a new PC - has anybody any idea the minimum spec I should go for that will satisfy todays games? (halflife 2 etc)

Any recommendations on where the best prices are will also be fondly reveived..

Cheers in advance

[VR46]

you looking to buy a complete unit or bit by bit ?? if your after bits, you won't find cheaper than ebuyer.co.uk

No expert but these sort of specs will give you a guideline until someone better posts;

CPU 2600 or above
Memory 515mb minimum (pref 1gb)
Graphics Card 6600GT or ATI equivalent
HD whatever you need/want
Motherboard with PC Express slot
Case with decent power supply

Basically as good as you can afford (for now)

[Valken]

For futureproofness get at least 1GB of ram, an X800 from ATI or 6800GT from Nvidia and a 3000+ processor plus a ****ing massive HD

Some Steam apps, Farcry, WoW, Rome and Doom 3 as well as office and windows takes up 20+GB on my computer.

[smouty]

If you looking to play BF2 then as Valken says but 2Gb ram. Should see you through 2005 .

[Digfox]

It does depend heavily on how much you want to spend and what sort of quality you want to run games at, although you've mentioned HL2 which like most games today will look best on DX9 capable hardware. Given the cheapness of the following components I'd aim for (similar to above):

AMD64 3000+ - around the ?100 mark and cheaper/better performers in game than their Intel eqivilent. If this is too much then AMD's Athlon XP chips are cheap or even the Celeron D is considered reasonable.

1GB RAM - can be had for ?80

SATA HD - again from ?50 upwards for 120GB model. I'd go for SATA becuase although no real performance advantage, the smaller cables are so much easier to install and help airflow. Lots of options depending on what you want, storage, quietness or performance.

Motherboard - Socket 939 for the AMD 64, avoid Socket 754 unless you need to. There's no performance advantage for PCI Express right now over AGP, other than future proofing your PC a bit more and being able to run two compatible Nvidia SLI cards together for bigger performance. However AGP AMD 939 boards can be had for a bit less now. Again if you've got the money go for a NForce 4 PCI Express socket 939 solution (the DFI LAN Party NF4 motherboard is king here and can be had for ?100).

Graphics - As above, go for a ATI9700Pro/9800Pro (AGP only) or an Nvidia 6600GT upwards. These will cope nicely with HL2. If more money, a 6800 or X800 series card from Nvidia or ATI will cope easily with most games this year.

If you are going to build this yourself, check out the usual websites, Tomshardware, Anandtech for reviews etc, and Dabs, Overclockers, Ebuyer et all for prices and buying. If you want a prebuilt machine Evesham have alway been recommended highly to me, athough there's lots of other good PC makers.

[replicant]

Forget about Intel. That is for sure. Definately go for an Athlon 64. I wouldn't even consider buying a nforce 2 system now with a XP. Rather pointless.

Athlon 64

Are you wanting to overclock? If so then check out an Athlon 64 3000+ with the right kit these are capable of decent clocks, which will ultimately save money. Board wise definately go for a DFI Lanparty. Either the NForce 3 250gb for 754 ( I would disagree about avoiding 754), or the Nforce 4 Ultra D (or sli equivilant). DFI Lanparty boards are fantastic for the enthusiast and highlighy recommended.

Ram

It is true that you can pick up cheap generic ram, but I wouldnt touch it. Quality ram is essential for good compatibility with other components, plus performance. Check out crucial. I don't use crucial myself, but they make good quality ram at a decent price. If you want to splash out then I would recommend OCZ ram. Fantastic ram, with great flexibility for overclocking - their lifetime guarantee covers you up to 2.9v.

GFX

I wouldnt recommend anything less than the vanilla 6800. The 6600 is a nice enough budget card, but it is worth the extra investment. Ideally go for the 6800GT, or 6800 ultra.

Couple of things to remember when deciding upon your kit.

Case - don't just look at the look of the case, also consider the air flow. Preinstalled cooling fans etc.
PSU - All these components require a good quality PSU. Avoid cheap PSU they aren't worth the money, depsite being cheap.
CPU cooling - If you are new to the pc building game then avoid watercooling, unless you feel very adventurous!! A good heatsink will cost you approx 40 quid, with a 120mm fan on top. Id recommend the Thermalright SKL series. I had great results on mine while using air cooling.

A quick rundown for you, albeit a bit of a disorganised rambling one. If you need any help on components on any budget then give me a shout mate. Ive been building my pc for years, and I know the pitfalls to avoid, and the components to go for. Either PM me on here, or give me a shout on #ntsc-uk

On pre-built pc - avoid PC World, avoid The Computer Shop, avoid Dell. Infact avoid most of them. Evesham tend to use good components in their rigs.

[Ciaran]

Slight hijack: Does DDR ram work in DDR2 slots?

[replicant]

Slight hijack: Does DDR ram work in DDR2 slots?

nope

[superkully]

I agree with what replicant says. Except:

Overclocking - Don't make you're decision thinking that you can, it is only a bonus. Having had CPUs which were supposedly overclock beasts - only to find they were not is a bit of a downer. Remember that you're running something past it's engineered limits (yes, companies do sometimes re-grade higher quality stuff when the lower quality stock is low - but...)

Dell. I wouldn't buy one, but if you want something that just works and arn't going to be messing about with upgrading then they're perfect. We've got some which have been on permanently for five+ years. But you will want to upgrade in the future, so avoid unless you're a tech-not.

[FelixofMars]

Yeah if you get a motherboard try to get one with AGP and PCI express, dont know if this is possible but use AGP for now, PCI Express is not as good as it has been made out to be, I am not sure how many games utalise the methord yet but its new so it will be faster just not yet.

[Mu5]

Nice one lads - Thanks for the advice

[Freddo]

I really wouldnt go for anything less than s939 with pci express, amd have stopped making new (90nm) processors for socket754 (except crappy semprons if you like) and ATi are heavily rumoured to not be doing a pcie version of their next gen cards, especialy at the high end.

[Rossco]

Why forget about Intel for the CPU?

[Digfox]

Because of their performance in games, and the price of the processors in comparison to AMD. Not forgetting that the latest Intel CPU's are running hotter and are using more watts than ever.

If you want to see more:

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050221/prescott-08.html#directx_9

Article reviewing the latest 6XX P4 series. This page has some charts comparing the P4's vs. A64's on DX9 games. Price; for example. ?182.07 for the A64 3500+ vs. the Intel 640 LGA775 3.2Mhz ?193.82 (prices from Overclockers), and you can see why Intels are not as good for games.

Rendering, encoding or other processor activities are a different story.

[Rossco]

Right... I am gonna be building myself a new PC soon and was going for this CPU:

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=58516

But your saying that this would be better then:

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=6042196068&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=83377

Correct?

EDIT: For use mainly with games by the way!