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Recommend me a computer


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My Shuttle PC is getting on a bit now and is really slow. The decent graphics card burnt out a while ago so I cant even play Far Cry on it.

 

So Im on the hunt for a new computer.

 

I need it to be able to play the latest games in a reasonable detail level

 

I also need it to be in a fairly small case. Shuttle size would be great but midi might be okay.

 

needs to be almost silent as it runs all day long in the lounge.

 

Hard drive space doesnt need to be huge. I currently have a 75gb and its not full.

 

Looking to spend between £400 and £500 and not fussed if it comes with a screen or not.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Im not a fan of building my own. I hate fitting processors and heat sinks as I never seem to be able to get that bit right. I can build the rest, but I have killed one motherboard in the past when I put too much force on the heatsink.

 

prefer off the shelf.

 

Got around £500 to spend so need the best gaming machine I can find for that money but with a near silent power supply and fans.

 

Im thinking MESH do some reasonable machines, any other recommendations?

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Have you checked someone like ebuyer for their best buy deals?

 

I while back I got an HP Proliant server with dual core xeon, raid, 160gb sata, memory and dvd rw all ready to go with change out of £150 new inc p&p

 

I realise that's a server machine not a home/gaming machine, but there are some real bargains out there.

 

Off the shelf + your own mods might be the best way to go if you don't want to build from the ground up, that's what I'd probably do.

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problem is there are so many specs now that I cant keep track.

 

Which video card is good or bad?

 

which motherboard is good, which processor, dual core, Intel or other, what speed DVD drive is standard, what PSU wattage is the norm now?

 

I work in IT and I cant keep up with the hardware standards.

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sometimes you see good gaming rigs on ebay, might be a bad idea but a lot of the young guys who are seriously in to their gaming are updating their rigs every 6 months and just stick the whole lot on ebay. I see rigs that cost well over a grand 6 months ago going for under £400 sometimes, might be worth a look.

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MESH is a good brand from what I've seen for shuttle.

 

Video cards it's NVidia or ATI nowadays, ATI seem to have the edge on things regarding full size AGP cards, I'm not sure on the shuttle front though :(

 

Processor Intel Core 2 Duo probably for a shuttle. AMD have screwed up their range currently until the successor of Barcelona comes out. Something like the Intel Core 2 Duo E7200. MSI S775 Intel 945GC DDR2 MATX AUDIO LAN seems like a good mobo without integrated graphics (Avoid the Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics like the plague if you want to play games)

 

Last I saw DVD was hitting 24x read, 8x write for laptop sized drives.

 

2.5' form factor HDD's are cheap now too, admittedly you said you use less than 75Gb, but a 320Gb costs you £50 now and helps increase the longevity of the box.

 

Trouble with playing decent games you're limited in a shuttle form factor for graphic cards aren't you? Most games now look to use very meaty cards with a huge thermal rating which I bet shuttles can't take. You want to play decent games on Windows now at a decent res and graphical quality IMHO a shuttle won't cut it. Why not have a games console for the job? Sainsbury's are doing a xbox360 for £99 this week... then you could consider buying a Mac Mini for a desktop replacement :D

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