I'm saving up for a new laptop/pc, but I know next to nothing about computers. I want something that will run my games smoothly, but be within my price range (less than NZ$2100). So what is a rough outline of a good rig? What sort of processor am I looking for, how much RAM, and what sort of Hard drive do I want?

What the heck is an NZ for starters. Also what games do you plan on running smoothly? That could range from solitar to crysis or whatever the kids play these days.

NZ = New Zealand. Not too many games, 3 or 4 at the most and ranging in age from less than 5 years.

The only good advice I can give is get a desktop for games. Laptops become obselete quite fast. A desktop is easy to upgrade and over time, it's cheaper. I've had the same desktop for more than 6 years now, but the only original pieces I have are the hard drive, dvd drives/burner and... huh, the case. A multi-core cpu is the now and future, but you also have to consider the gHz, 2.5 and up. Some old games (like OB and Morrowind) don't deal well with multicore, so if you have one or many cores set to 3 gHz, you'll be fine. What else? If you plan on building it, or getting it built for you, stick with one company, that is, Nvidia graphic card/Intel cpu or ATI/AMD.

For a 32bit system, having more than 4Gb of ram is a waste. For a 64bit, more is nice... but most programs don't use the 64 advantages as of now, they will run like a 32 on your 64bit system. In computers, the bigger the number (of whatever, like gHz, Gb), the better. That is, except for refresh rate of monitors, speed of the hard drive read/write, latency of ram...

p.s. if I am way over my head, here, please tell me, those are the simple things I gathered over time and I might have understood them wrongly.

Do you need a pre-assembled PC? ...or can you build your own?

What is needed other than the PC tower? Monitor, speakers, mouse, keyboard, Windows OS disc? All these can affect the price.

CPU: For a new system right now, try to get a SandyBridge chip. The Core i5 2500K is a monster processor with great overclocking potential.
RAM: 4GB (2X2GB) or 8GB (2X4GB) G Skill Ripjaws.....at least DDR3 1333. Corsair, Crucial, and Kingston are typically decent too.
HDD: If not SSD, then the 1TB Samsung F3, WD Caviar Black, or Hitachi 7K1000.C are great drives.

Can help you out with a build if you wish. Just answer the questions above.




FYI, too many generalizations here. Sure, more GHz is beneficial for CPUs, but it's way more about the technology in the chip. Frequency of one CPU is only comparable to other CPUs that are within the same technology. A Pentium 4 @ 2.5GHZ gets destroyed by any Core 2 chip...even the 1.6GHz ones. It's not a apples to apples comparison. There are certainly CPUs under 2.5GHz that would run games very well.

The "stick with one company" suggestion doesn't do much but limit oneself. I use a Intel CPU with a AMD video card just fine....many do. There's nothing wrong with mixing an AMD CPU with a Nvidia card...and many do this as well. You should just buy the best performance for your money.

And it's not always the bigger the number the better. This is especially true among video cards and CPUs, as I've indicated above with the higher frequency Pentium 4 getting pounded by most modern CPUs that have a lower frequency. With video cards, the common misconception is that the higher the model number, the better. That's not always true. A GTX 560 is not faster than a GTX 480....nor would a Radeon 5450 be faster than a Radeon 4890....again it's all about the technology architecture and specs.

Agreed. This is the second time I've seen this mentioned recently and I to have had no issues with Intel (CPU) and AMD (GPU) solutions. Nor did I have issues with AMD (CPU) and Nividia (GPU) solutions.

MACINTOSH!!!!!!!! unless you want one for gaming... and if you have a lot of money saved up. I did, so I got a macintosh, and i DO NOT regret it. I have had about a dozen friends buy a cheaper pc, and their computers have died already, and they have had to spend a lot of money trying to get them fixed. macintoshes are more economical, meaning that yes they cost a lot more now, but they will cost you less money in the future. Everyone I have met that has owned a macintosh has told me they love it, and are glad that they switched over from pc.

pc lovers... NO FLAMING ME!!!!!

Yeah, Macs are great, but I bought a top of the range Mac desktop (not iMac) about 12 years ago, and it died after about 5 years. It wasn't worth having it repaired, as the processor and motherboard were out dated and you can't (easily or legally) buy a replacement Mac motherboard. I also had an iBook that died about 6 months later!

The build quality was great, but nothing's perfect.

Whatever you buy, it will be outdated in a year ... :wink_smile:

"I want something that will run my games smoothly"

Forget it.

What other programs will you need to run on this computer beside gaming?

If gaming is the only demanding task, you will get the most bang for your buck by building your own desktop, and you will have enough extra money left over to buy 1080p monitor plus a non-gaming laptop in the event you need something portable.

If you simply must get a gaming laptop, there are some good ones out there, but they are a bit more expensive and most are quite heavy and bulky. Get something with minimum 1600x900 or 1920x1080 resolution display and video card should be AMD 5830M or better or NVIDIA 460M or better

It might not be true for CPU and GPU combinations, but don't certain motherboard and CPU combinations work better together? Like Intel CPU and Intel motherboards? (Motherboards actually made by Intel, and not made by Asus for Intel or something).
Something named "quickpad" IIRC. (Not quite sure.)

Nope. You can't put an Intel processor in a motherboard with an AMD socket and vice versa, but otherwise it doesn't matter the manufacturer.

Right now I'm using an Intel brand motherboard, and it can't even overclock my Intel processor.

Thanks for all the help guys! I found a computer building site and found it'd cost me about $2100. When I have the money, I'll post another thread specifying what I'm going to get.

:blink: The distortion field is strong in this one.

No need for another thread...just update this one. Price-check and hardware-check with this site too:
http://www.extremepc.co.nz/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=134&zenid=380678e1f14fd5efaca2f2359da93d48

I'm sure there are others in New Zealand, but that's all I got for now.




:thumbsup: