Too lazy to search, minions get in here.

[hoho]

No one is giving you stuff for free or for less than it's worth. If you get some specific thing for cheap it means they just rip you off in other ways.

[DemonCrusher36]

I'm not sure if this is what your looking for, but I got a damn good PC that runs minecraft on maximum specs without a bump, for £600

http://www.ebuyer.com/338539-zoostorm-2nd-gen-core-i5-gaming-pc-7873-0407

I've also played crysis 2 without problems, so its a good PC for the price, IMO. Might not be the absolute max, but as I said, its damn good.

[hoho]

Ugh, that GPU in there is simply horrible and very limiting for the CPU in there. I'd say for that CPU 560TI is bare minimum and it would give you at least twice the performance in games.

Also, minecraft can easily run on really shitty GPUs, all it needs is a decent CPU. My desktop has 6 years old q6600 CPU and 560TI and can barely pull MC at some 20-ish FPS. My laptop has an I7 CPU from less than a year ago and some random crappy NVidia GPU that has around 1/4'th the processing power and 1/6'th of memory bandwidth of the desktop 560TI and runs MC at 40-60FPS at same settings and resolution (1080p, everything fancy/maxed except view distance that is on "far").

Another note is that crysis 2 is not really all that demanding from your machine, as long as you don't crank up the settings.

[ErusPrime]

Ugh, that GPU in there is simply horrible and very limiting for the CPU in there. I'd say for that CPU 560TI is bare minimum and it would give you at least twice the performance in games.

Also, minecraft can easily run on really shitty GPUs, all it needs is a decent CPU. My desktop has 6 years old q6600 CPU and 560TI and can barely pull MC at some 20-ish FPS. My laptop has an I7 CPU from less than a year ago and some random crappy NVidia GPU that has around 1/4'th the processing power and 1/6'th of memory bandwidth of the desktop 560TI and runs MC at 40-60FPS at same settings and resolution (1080p, everything fancy/maxed except view distance that is on "far").

Another note is that crysis 2 is not really all that demanding from your machine, as long as you don't crank up the settings.

fast RAM is also a very important factor when it comes to java based games.

[hoho]

fast RAM is also a very important factor when it comes to java based games.

Not really to be honest. The real-world performance difference in non-synthetic benchmarks between 1.6GHz with average latency vs 2GHz ram with low latency is just a few percentages while price difference is often >2x. Not worth the investment unless you are after some overclocking records.

The impact of RAM on performance was significantly bigger back in the K8 days but now the memory controllers in CPUs are immensely improved. Well, at least for Intel. AMD cache+memory architecture is unfortunately plain horrible for desktop usage. Basically FX'es caches/RAM are one step behind I3/5/7's. FX L1 ~ iN's L2, l2 ~ L3, L3 ~ RAM.

[TheGuy]

If I did have the things required to safely over-clock my CPU to 7Ghz, I would totally do that. That would be AWESOME!

[king_of_ping]

I recommend you try out DinoPC, http://www.dinopc.com/shop/pc/custom.asp you can get a good idea of performance and pricing using their customisation system. Prices are generally good and you can always omit items and just buy separately.

[hoho]

Ooh, pretty nice place.

	 Intel Z77 Chipset (custom-z77) 

View printer-friendly version

Customizations:

CPU:	2085 - NEW! Intel Core i5 3570K

CPU Cooler:	3015 - NEW! Xigmatek Loki SD-S963

Operating System:	11014 - Microsoft® Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Motherboard:	4139 - NEW! Asus P8Z77-V LX

Memory:	5039 - 8GB DDR3 1333mhz (2x 4GB)

Hard Drives:	6029 - NEW! 2TB S-ATAIII 6.0Gb/s

Optical Drive:	7003 - 22x DVD±RW DL S-ATA

Graphics card:	8059 - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 1,280MB

Sound card:	10001 - Onboard 7.1 Audio

Case:	17024 - Xigmatek Asgard

PSU:	18037 - NEW! 650W Corsair TX V2

Warranty:	1000 - 3 Year Bronze Warranty

£835.20	

If you won't be overclocking get i5 3450 for 29£ less. Sure, it also has a bit lower clock speed but it won't matter that much. You can put that money into doubling the RAM. If you do find that extra 200£ then get either radeon 7970 or GTX 680, though latter will be blowing your 1k target by a little :)

[The_DarthMoogle]

That's pretty nice, hoho.

But the one in the OP is still preferable. Overclockable i7, beasty sound card, slightly better GPU. However yours does have twice the RAM.

But where I'm going, I don't need minecraft.

Building it by myself could be the way to go, but I'm still not particularly wanting to do the whole rigged price comparison thing for 6 hours straight.

[hoho]

But the one in the OP is still preferable. Overclockable i7, beasty sound card, slightly better GPU. However yours does have twice the RAM.

Umm, no. The GPU in my setup is considerably better than the one in OP. Also it has four times the HDD space and OS is included. For the OP-one you'd have to shell out around £100 for the OS alone and about 150 extra for the HDD and GPU upgrades. Upgrading the CPU in my setup to same one in OP would cost ~£125.

I changed the HDD, RAM and GPU to similar to my setup (HDD in OP link is actually 5900rpm vs 7200 on mine) and the whole setup cost around £1016 in the OP's link but it still didn't have an OS.

[The_DarthMoogle]

I already have a 1TB hard drive, and windows 7 home premium.

Also, the GTX 560 apparently performs better in independant benchmarking than the 570.

[Cheap Shot]

vroom vroom!

[NightKev]

Right, synthetic benchmarks are entirely 100% foolproof and cover all real-world uses completely.

Also, wait, you mentioned "bundled OSes" earlier but you already have Win7! So that's irrelevant to your buying process... actually no, it is relevant, because you would be paying extra to have it included in the build even though you already have it. You need to mention things like this when asking us for help, otherwise you're wasting our time as we look for things that you already have.

[hoho]

I already have a 1TB hard drive, and windows 7 home premium.

That would have been good to know beforehand. Is that win7 OEM or retail? If it's the first then you can't use it. Also the point still remains that latter build is cheaper in any case.

Also' date=' the GTX 560 apparently performs better in independant benchmarking than the 570.[/quote']Any links? I find it rather hard to believe than a GPU with considerably higher memory bandwidth and computing power is slower. Are you perhaps messing up 400 and 500 series GPUs?

[The_DarthMoogle]

Okay, granted. You know what you're talking about.

The brony forum threw this one up

http://www.dinopc.com/shop/pc/Gallant-AMD-X6-6100-94p1202.htm

This six core CPU is what caught my eye about it. Better than hoho's?

[Torezu]

Compared to building your own, it's kind of...expensive. Okay, really expensive. I could get better components (faster RAM, more HD space, etc.), most with the same or better warranty, for $600-700 US.

[TheGuy]

And to think I bought a fucking 4000 dollar alienware laptop! Hah!

But, I had 5000 so I guess it doesn't matter..

Although I wanted that iphone, xbox 360, wii, PC and DSi :'(

[The_DarthMoogle]

Compared to building your own, it's kind of...expensive. Okay, really expensive. I could get better components (faster RAM, more HD space, etc.), most with the same or better warranty, for $600-700 US.

That's great to hear, but as useful to me as... a chocolate teapot.

'Finance issues' prevent this sort of purchase.

[Torezu]

That's great to hear, but as useful to me as... a chocolate teapot.

'Finance issues' prevent this sort of purchase.

Looking back, I did notice that you requested a pre-built rig. Sad but true: any pre-built rig you buy will be both more expensive and inferior to any computer you could build. Why is that finance-related? If it's just because your parents would rather you spend the money on a machine that's already built, you have a perfectly logical argument to present. Better & cheaper. That's all.

[The_DarthMoogle]

You want to know the really complicated part? Not even my parents control the money I plan to use :/

Anywho, the six core CPU.

Better or worse than the i5/i7?

And what about overclockability?

And does overclocking make things noisier? That's kinda important 'cause I'm a music guy.

And why is a highly overclockable i7 supposedly worse than the i5?

[TheGuy]

Overclocking increases noise (since the fan whirs much much much faster) and heats up faster.

Overclocked i7 = a tank

Normal i5 = foot soldier

You do the math.

I don't really give a shit about noise, on the contrary, the noisier the better, that gives me more excuses to piss off my teacher

I usually overclock my i7 x1.5, so it's FUCKING FAST.

[Saurey]

My mate got a PC few weeks ago for 1100 his got:

i7 3770k ivy bridge

GTX 680 (Evga ithink)

8GB RRD3

I know this is not much but he can run ANYTHING max graphics, battlefield 3 with 75-120 FPS on 1080p. I hope that i will get over 1k next week for my 18th BD and buying a similar rig just scared that my parents will bitch around so i get a car. i really prefer a PC GL BTW

[ErusPrime]

Overclocking increases noise (since the fan whirs much much much faster) and heats up faster.

Overclocked i7 = a tank

Normal i5 = foot soldier

You do the math.

I don't really give a shit about noise, on the contrary, the noisier the better, that gives me more excuses to piss off my teacher

I usually overclock my i7 x1.5, so it's FUCKING FAST.

1) You don't really need 6 cores unless you plan on running intense mathematical simulations on high velocity particles colliding in space or trying to render the scenes from cars from the Pixar files.

2) overclocking doesn't offer enough of a performance enhancement to risk damaging your entire system. The difference from 2.8 to 3.4 would be barely noticeable, if at all.

3) overclocking doesn't necessarily make things noisier. That just depends on the cooling system you use. It would have to run more often with greater intensity. If you're going to overclock, you want a water cooling system.

4) any chip that makes it easy to overclock could be seen as "worse" because, even if done correctly, the clock times aren't stable which could result in stuttering, machine check exceptions, or even hardware failure.

IMO: get a 4 core i7. sandy or ivy bridge are more than adequate. don't worry about overclocking. You won't see the difference.

4GB of DDR3 will be fine for most applications and 8 is decent for gaming. anything more is really only needed for server applications.

as far as the GPU is concerned, the difference between super high end and high medium is not worth the price. I just bought a radeon 6850 for 150. I can run minecraft, firefox, xbmc, and fraps and still get 35-40 FPS in MC. I get nearly 120 when I switch technic for dolphin.

[The_DarthMoogle]

Six cores is better? Excellent. Processing power is just what I need. Cubase and ASIO drivers are hungry beasts.

The fact is that the DinoPc one the bronies threw up has an NVidia GTX 570, six cores, 8GB of RAM and 7.1 Audio, all for £100 less than my lowest target is going to be tough to beat.

Five days until I acquire the funding for it.

Who will win? Technicians or Bronies?

[hoho]

Six cores is better? Excellent.

6 cores is obviously better than 4 but only when you compare CPUs with the same architecture. That 6-core AMD is unfortunately significantly slower than 4-core I5 or I7 even when you fully load all cores. In games that can't load all cores it'll be roughly at half the speed of Intel ones even though it has 50% more cores

Though it is cheaper than i5/i7 CPUs. Also it's significantly hotter, thus nosier to keep cool and needing beefier PSU.