Is this worth the asking price?

[Craig2231]

SNIP

Im not got much knowledge about the hardware side of computers, im looking for a fairly cheap pc that can cope with running games (i probably wont be playing stuff like Crysis, more like Empire total war and Football manager type games)

How much would you pay for that machine, or could you recommend me a better one?

[Ancient Dragon]

If you just want to play games then get Wii or Xbox instead of PC. They're cheeper than PC and there are more games available for them.

[Cowprit]

Motherboard ($45),Processor [single core] ($40), Hard drive [80 gig] ($30), Ram [1 gig] ($20), Keyboard, mouse, joy-pads ($40), Monitor [ctr] ($40). Speakers [creative] ($45), Total = $260. Those are the prices where i live, you might get it cheaper where you live.

But i will go with Ancient Dragon's advice, Buy a console, it will give you much less trouble and it will also give value for your money.

[happygeek]

Absolutely!

I have an Xbox for gaming, a netbook for work (writing and Internet use), a Kindle for books and an iPhone for social media and mobile email.

Horses for course, choose the best bit of kit for what you want to do with it. No compromises :)

[WASDted]

sorry guys, i have to disagree here...

1) there are far more game titles for PC than i bet all consoles combined.
2) it is quite possible to build or purchase a PC that can handle moderate gaming for relatively cheap, plus it can be used for plenty more than just gaming (watch movies, email, web, docs, pics, posting on daniweb, and on and on and on).
3) that said, i have an xbox as well and if you were going to go with a console i'd recommend that over the wii or PS3 but although i'll admit i use my xbox for a quick fix when i have an itch to game, the best games i play and the most time spent gaming for me has always been on a PC and still is.
4) i view a console as a good ad-on to a PC driven ecosystem at home. i have a PC that i use for gaming but also as a DVR, using media center to record shows, pull-in internet TV, manage all my pics and songs and movies... i use my xbox (more often then gaming) as a "media center extender" to allow me access to all this content in the room that i dont have my PC in (my bedroom).

[Ancient Dragon]

I was basing my opinion on the number of titles we sell at my WalMart store. We have one 6-foot shelf for PC games but two 20-foot shelves for displaying Xbox, and Wii games.

[WASDted]

ah my friend, that's because PC titles have been slowly moving to digital distribution over the past few years. that is, most PC gamers download their games and/or have steam accounts that allow them to take the games theit paid for to any PC.

[Dustymunchkin]

"Motherboard ($45),Processor [single core] ($40), Hard drive [80 gig] ($30), Ram [1 gig] ($20), Keyboard, mouse, joy-pads ($40), Monitor [ctr] ($40). Speakers [creative] ($45), Total = $260"
Ouch! and for gaming you'll need much better than this. I'm in UK but my advice would be a recon from Ebay. Lots of offices get their computers on contract and these are swapped annually or bi-annually, reconditioned and sold on. Look for professional retailers with high scores and where it says "20 available" or similar. XP machines are a steal because of win7 replacements.
4gig cpu 4gig ram 500gig storage 7200rpm I paid £300 (new - would have been £1,500)
You can add the peripherals (you probably have mouse keyboard and monitor) but you want minimum 7200 rpm on the drive, a cpu above 3gig and a lot of ram if you want a fast machine.

[crunchie]

4gig cpu

Where did you buy that? As far as I am aware, there are no cpu's yet that are sold with a frequency of 4Ghz at stock.

[Dustymunchkin]

You're right. Should stop relying on my own memory. (I've had it for 12 months now)3.25GHZ (4gig ram)
It's a Dell precision 490 and it has raised my opinion of Dell. (not neccessarily for the performance It's an intel processor and you'd expect it at that price) but for the accessibility. Everything inside clips out. No need to put metal screwdrivers anywhere near it. (or maybe everything's built like that these days)

[crunchie]

According to Intel, the xeon's that power the 490 are 3Ghz.

[Dustymunchkin]

Unlike intel to play these things down ;-)
In fact the documentation said 3.25 but I checked msinfo32 and that says:
Processorx86 Family 15 Model 6 Stepping 4 GenuineIntel ~3191 Mhz (which is 319.1 according to my maths)
Don't know why the difference. It's not clocked. Maybe they got confused because in system properties it says 3.20ghz 3.19ghz,3.25 GB of RAM
(it has 4gig of ram but because it's 32bit it only recognises 3.25 although my understanding is that doesn't stop it from using it all - could be wrong)

Anyway I wasn't actually bigging up my machine. It's a workhorse. I was just trying to give the original poster an idea of what you can get for the price. I imagine as it's a year on from my purchase, there'll be better machines available now.

[crunchie]

Yeah, I only googled the 490 and it came back with xeon processors rated to 3.0Ghz.
With the 32bit OS, it will only use the 3.25Gb. The rest is wasted.

[WASDted]

good idea getting an inexpensive recon from ebay or the likes. there are plenty of 2 year old PCs out there that can still handle some pretty decent gaming titles.

[Dustymunchkin]

and....just to clarify the RAM issue (without the technical jargon)
XP service pack one (probably in use originally on my machine) used all 4 gig of RAM but some drivers misinterpreted the physical addresses at the high end (because they are above 32bit) and caused systems to crash so MS limited the access in SP2. There are workarounds but better to install a 64bit OS.
I know this is over-simplified and there are much better explanations out there if you want all the technical details.

[vaultdweller123]

1gb RAM and 1gb video card is not so bad and I Prefer PC over console by control advantage... like shooting game... it's so much easier to aim using mouse rather than analog....

[WASDted]

agreed vaultdweller123, PC gaming is superior to consoles, especially in the following genres:
FPS, MMO RPG, SIM, flight SIM, driving SIM, strategy... pretty much most genres. I'll give consoles a slight edge in multi-player sports games and rhythm games (like guitar hero, dance revolution and such), and draw for arcade-style fighting games like street fighter.