Gaming Desktop

[danny2997]

2 hours ago, Guppy said:

I thought I'd jump into this topic, and see if anyone can advise on a laptop alternative to the one I've been looking at (which is out of stock).

 

MSI GF62

 

My budget is up to around £1,200 and want to future proof as much as possible. The sort of game, similar to the poster above, would be FM and the like, nothing that will require too intense graphics. I would like it to handle on FM for extra a very large database with numerous leagues selected, as an example. 

 

I'm happy to buy pre built, like the one from Currys, but also open to building my own but my knowledge on that front isn't my strong point. Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated.

If you're just looking to play FM then shooting for a laptop with a budget of £1200 may be slightly overkill but at that price point, I'd personally recommend a HP Omen laptop like this:

 

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/hp-omen-15-6-intel-core-i7-gtx-1660-ti-gaming-laptop-512-gb-ssd-10193666-pdt.html

[HankMarvin]

3 hours ago, Guppy said:

I thought I'd jump into this topic, and see if anyone can advise on a laptop alternative to the one I've been looking at (which is out of stock).

 

MSI GF62

 

My budget is up to around £1,200 and want to future proof as much as possible. The sort of game, similar to the poster above, would be FM and the like, nothing that will require too intense graphics. I would like it to handle on FM for extra a very large database with numerous leagues selected, as an example. 

 

I'm happy to buy pre built, like the one from Currys, but also open to building my own but my knowledge on that front isn't my strong point. Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated.

Building your own Laptop, generally requires specialist companies.

 

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-ge73-nvidia-gtx-1060-16gb-17.3-fhd-120hz-i7-8750h-gaming-laptop-lt-276-ms.html 17" screen here same price

 

if it was just for FM in your home

you could build a overclocked PC for half the money,  remote in on a remote session via Ipad and have it around the house.

 

[Guppy]

Thank you @HankMarvin and @danny2997

[Rusko187]

For anyone wanting a gaming PC and not confident on building I would most certainly recommend using Overclockers, that said it's honestly not hard, as long as you research what you're doing.

 

I've built my last 2 computers and it's all plug and play nowadays, most annoying thing is the cable management. If you're after advice on what to get be sure to post what budgets you wish to work to, and what you're after (in terms of performance quality and the kind of games you wish to play).

[Guest BlueBrett]

I'm looking into building a PC for the first time at the moment. I always hear people saying its easy and it's making me feel pretty dumb. Never been a techy person, far from it in fact, but it's irritating the hell out of me that I can't seem to get my head around this.

 

I don't need a super computer but I feel like if I'm doing this I may as well do it properly and go for decent spec. The main thing that's giving me a headache is I want a triple monitor set up. I don't want multi screen gaming or anything, I'll just play games on the middle one but i want 3 screens for doing work stuff. I understand that means I need a pretty good graphics card but it never seems clear which ones can easily support 3 monitors..also does it make it easier if I buy 3 identical monitors or is that irrelevant? And does buying a high performance graphic card have knock-on implications for the rest of the components I'd need? I have done some research but I'm not much the wiser for it and I don't really trust a lot of what I'm reading as I imagine most of these guide writers are sponsored or have partnerships or whatever.

 

I had in mind a budget of around 1500 for the build (not including the monitors of course) but I can be flexible on this if need be. 

 

I'd appreciate any advice, especially re. graphics cards.

[Suzie the Fox]

26 minutes ago, BlueBrett said:

I'm looking into building a PC for the first time at the moment. I always hear people saying its easy and it's making me feel pretty dumb. Never been a techy person, far from it in fact, but it's irritating the hell out of me that I can't seem to get my head around this.

 

I don't need a super computer but I feel like if I'm doing this I may as well do it properly and go for decent spec. The main thing that's giving me a headache is I want a triple monitor set up. I don't want multi screen gaming or anything, I'll just play games on the middle one but i want 3 screens for doing work stuff. I understand that means I need a pretty good graphics card but it never seems clear which ones can easily support 3 monitors..also does it make it easier if I buy 3 identical monitors or is that irrelevant? And does buying a high performance graphic card have knock-on implications for the rest of the components I'd need? I have done some research but I'm not much the wiser for it and I don't really trust a lot of what I'm reading as I imagine most of these guide writers are sponsored or have partnerships or whatever.

 

I had in mind a budget of around 1500 for the build (not including the monitors of course) but I can be flexible on this if need be. 

 

I'd appreciate any advice, especially re. graphics cards.

For me the 1st time i built a pc was many years ago and it was way easier then, the hard part was making sure you bought all compatable parts. That part is a little easier now, but there are many more wires and sockets now and that can be confusing. 

 

If its any help last year i bought an MSI Geforce 1070 GFX card which i have 2 monitors connecting into it. Both are diff brand screens and i use the main one for gaming and the other has Chrome/Discord or whatever on it. There is also another slot in the back of the card, which i dont use but with a DVI connector i can plug in another screen. You just need to check the specifications of the card you are interested in and look at what ports it includes, most newer cards nowdays always have x2+. (If you are unsure then let me know the brand and i will take a look.)

Not sure exactly how much i paid for the card, somewhere around the £600 mark, but i'm sure it will be much cheaper now. 

 

[Innovindil]

3 hours ago, BlueBrett said:

I'm looking into building a PC for the first time at the moment. I always hear people saying its easy and it's making me feel pretty dumb. Never been a techy person, far from it in fact, but it's irritating the hell out of me that I can't seem to get my head around this.

 

I don't need a super computer but I feel like if I'm doing this I may as well do it properly and go for decent spec. The main thing that's giving me a headache is I want a triple monitor set up. I don't want multi screen gaming or anything, I'll just play games on the middle one but i want 3 screens for doing work stuff. I understand that means I need a pretty good graphics card but it never seems clear which ones can easily support 3 monitors..also does it make it easier if I buy 3 identical monitors or is that irrelevant? And does buying a high performance graphic card have knock-on implications for the rest of the components I'd need? I have done some research but I'm not much the wiser for it and I don't really trust a lot of what I'm reading as I imagine most of these guide writers are sponsored or have partnerships or whatever.

 

I had in mind a budget of around 1500 for the build (not including the monitors of course) but I can be flexible on this if need be. 

 

I'd appreciate any advice, especially re. graphics cards.

https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/intel-x299-pc/

 

Jump on there and have a playaround. If you press the button next to graphics cards it will tell you the max monitors they can support. My 1080ti easily runs 3 monitors, anything close to that range will run 3 monitors well. They also do some nice prebuilds for relatively competitive prices, but if you're looking at building your own on the cheap you are probably better off buying the parts separate from other places. Still a decent place to start your building.

[Guest BlueBrett]

Thanks I'll take a look. 

I would actually consider a prebuild if I could be sure it would meet my requirements. Would probably save me a lot of trouble to be fair. I live in China at the moment and I'm concerned about getting scammed with fake parts or just massively overcharged because I'm a foreigner. Also makes it that bit harder to get advice because my Mandarin doesn't really cover IT speak.

[Rusko187]

Have you considered what parts you're wanting? Another piece of advice is to sign up to Overclockers forum, you'll get advice off here but if you gave those guys a budget and loosely what you want, they will draw you up a list of the parts you need. It's honestly not hard to build, it's understanding what components are compatible i.e. not every processor will work with every motherboard, etc.

 

Be happy to have a crack build for you though, question being is would you want an AMD / Intel / Nvidia build? AMD are known to be cheaper and less quality, Intel are as you imagine.. the opposite. Nvidia, I will only ever buy their cards... usually bullet proof and have G-Sync.

[Carl the Llama]

On 23/10/2019 at 06:40, BlueBrett said:

Thanks I'll take a look. 

I would actually consider a prebuild if I could be sure it would meet my requirements. Would probably save me a lot of trouble to be fair. I live in China at the moment and I'm concerned about getting scammed with fake parts or just massively overcharged because I'm a foreigner. Also makes it that bit harder to get advice because my Mandarin doesn't really cover IT speak.

I can vouch that the PC Specialist site is a good place to get an idea of your options and compatibility, cyber powered gaming also do a good build-your-own tool.  If you're happy with pre-builds I would recommend against PC Specialist though, my previous computer came through them and they weren't great to deal with.  I'm currently running a new Scan pre-build with a n i7 9700f (not OC-able) and a 2060s and I'm very pleased with it (so far I've not tested many different games but to give you an idea it's a steady 110+ fps running Witcher 3 with everything on ultra while temperatures on the CPU only reach the mid-30's and the GPU peaks around 62-64).  But at your budget you could easily take the next step to a 2070, 2070s or maybe even a 2080 building it yourself depending on the deals you get.  Depending on the kind of work you do your bigger concern might be having a processor that can handle all the tasks you're asking of it.  For that I'm not too sure what prices you're looking at, but don't be afraid to forgo intel for a cheaper AMD processor if it helps your budgeting, the new Ryzens are seriously competitive and they're all overclockable unlike intel who only unlock a few chips each series.  If games are the most taxing programs you'll be running then 16gb RAM and a stock i7 will set you up more than well enough I should think. 

[Guest BlueBrett]

19 hours ago, Carl the Llama said:

I can vouch that the PC Specialist site is a good place to get an idea of your options and compatibility, cyber powered gaming also do a good build-your-own tool.  If you're happy with pre-builds I would recommend against PC Specialist though, my previous computer came through them and they weren't great to deal with.  I'm currently running a new Scan pre-build with a n i7 9700f (not OC-able) and a 2060s and I'm very pleased with it (so far I've not tested many different games but to give you an idea it's a steady 110+ fps running Witcher 3 with everything on ultra while temperatures on the CPU only reach the mid-30's and the GPU peaks around 62-64).  But at your budget you could easily take the next step to a 2070, 2070s or maybe even a 2080 building it yourself depending on the deals you get.  Depending on the kind of work you do your bigger concern might be having a processor that can handle all the tasks you're asking of it.  For that I'm not too sure what prices you're looking at, but don't be afraid to forgo intel for a cheaper AMD processor if it helps your budgeting, the new Ryzens are seriously competitive and they're all overclockable unlike intel who only unlock a few chips each series.  If games are the most taxing programs you'll be running then 16gb RAM and a stock i7 will set you up more than well enough I should think. 

Thanks for that. Food for thought. The work will mostly just be writing and research so hopefully I can save a bit on the processor as you suggest and put the difference towards a better GC.

 

 

When I'm done I'll try to remember to post what I end up with.