PC :s

My pc decided to fail on me
I'm looking to compile a new one

What i want to do:
Use firefox + Guildwars + MSN
I want to play gw on full textures and landscape without too much lag

RAM:
2GB ?

Processor:
AMD? 2.8-3.0 ?

Graphics Card:
?

Hard Disk:
40Gigabyte

Motherboard:
?


Any advice guys? I can spend up to 1000 euro on a new pc
grtz

Are you looking for a desktop or a laptop? With 1000 € you can build a desktop with _way_ better specs than those in your post.

Desktop but i'm asking for recommendations from you guys, I really know very little about this and all, I just want to be able to be on msn and play gw without a shit fps of 14fps :s and occasionally use firefox for searching builds and all

so yeah,
Desktop defo

I got 1000 euro to spend
I'm letting it build in a store but I need to tell them what I want in it and I don't know what I need to buy for what I want

With 1000 € you can put together a pretty good PC, a LOT better than the specs you stated in fact. Here's what I ordered a few days ago when the new Core 2 Duo "Wolfdale" CPUs started showing up in web stores:

CPU: Core 2 Duo E8400, 3.0 GHz - 180 € (Ridiculously cool and power-efficient due to new manufacturing tech; some samples known to overclock to 4 GHz with the stock cooler)

RAM: Kingston HyperX DDR2-800, low-latency 2x1024MB kit - 90 € (Normally wouldn't bother with "low-latency" RAM but the kit wasn't much more expensive than the normal stuff, so I figured what the heck.)

GPU: Keeping my old factory-overclocked GeForce 7900GS until a decent GF 9 series card comes out.

HDD: Samsung Spinpoint T166, Serial ATA - 500 GB, 100 € (Samsung hard drives are usually pretty quiet, which is nice. I have three Samsung HDDs in my current comp and I can't hear them at all. No reliability issues either.)

Motherboard: Abit IP35 - 95 € (The Intel P35 chipset supports new Core 2 Duos and the BIOS on recent Abit boards shouldn't need an update, at least according to Anandtech. I also like the tweakability and general quality of higher-end Abit boards.)

Case & PSU: Antec Sonata III w/ a 500W Antec EarthWatts PSU - 100 € (Antec PSUs are decent enough, and the case is nicely laid out. Looks elegant too, none of that flashy LED shit.)

Prices are Finnish, so they include pretty high VAT and import costs, rounded to closest 5 € for clarity. You can probably find some of the stuff cheaper in Belgium. The above's only 565 €, leaving plenty of money for an optical drive and a good video card (and even a new monitor, keyboard and mouse if you need them).

If you spend about 200 € in the video card it should run Guild Wars at a solid 60 FPS w/ a high resolution and maxed out settings. A little overkill is always nice, especially when it means it'll probably run Guild Wars 2, too.

I just got a quad core from Tesco the uk supermarket for £579 thats around 780 Euros I believe.
http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.202-2819.aspx

Now I am not sure if they deliver outside the uk but its a medion system and they do deliver worldwide.
frame rate in GW with everything maxed is around 80 in kamadan and 170 outside.


Audio Features Yes
Box Contents PC, Keyboard & Mouse
Brand Medion
Card Reader Yes
Graphics nVidia GeForce8600GT 256MB incl. DVI + HDMI out
Hard Drive Size 1000Gb
Hard Drive Type SATA
Keyboard Type Wired
Memory Size 2Gb
Mouse Type Wired
No of USB Ports 8x (2 Front)
Operating System Windows Vista™ Home Premium
Optical Drive Type DVD Rewriter
PCI Express Ports 2x
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo Quad
Processor Bus 1066 FSB
Processor Cache 8MB Cache
Processor Model Number Q6600
Processor Speed 2.4 Ghz
Product Depth 42 cm
Product Height 37 cm
Product Width 18 cm
Software Load Vista Premium; Tesco supplied SW Bundle
TV Tuner Analogue, digital DVB-T and DVB-S (SAT) Hybrid Tuner card

If I may ask why intel and not AMD?

I'm stuck with mixing lol

I don't know what to look for in a Motherboard, Processor, Ram, and Graphics Card, and really not even what power supply :$

AMD's just not very competitive right now. The Athlon CPU design is starting to show its age and their new quad core CPU, the Phenom, is (imho) pretty disappointing with its mediocre performance and the fact it's spec'd to draw almost twice the power compared to roughly equal Intel quad cores, thus generating twice the heat, which means more noise due to cooling requirements, too.

While the dual core Athlons are still decent deals for low-midrange PCs due to aggressive price drops by AMD, and some of the lower-end Phenoms are pretty good solutions for video encoding and other number crunching work thanks to their four cores, Intel's Core 2 design just beats them in most other categories with its significantly higher performance per watt and instructions per clock rates. I've used and liked AMD CPUs in the past but that won't make me buy their stuff the way things are right now.

Mac rules the world...

So you guys think you can give me advice what to buy to be able to play Guildwars ( max graphics ect )
Firefox
MSN

all at once? and still have a decent gameplay without too much lag issues and such

http://alternate.be/html/builder/cir...eeName=Builder

AMD x2 or phenom, 2g ram, HD3800 / NV8800/ 250g hdd

WTF? LMAO...

How does Guildwars play on it? lol...

Mac's are like models in a magazine... pretty and glossy... but useless after the first look. lol...

Mac owns windows anytime in professional use where you work alot with media.

lol... I have been working in tech support for a long time... and no it doesn't. That is a myth. Mac's are not better than PCs. If they were, the market would reflect it. Even in media, like you say, Macs still are not better. They are preferred to a small lot of graphical designers... not the tech world.

Mac sucks.

Somehow I knew this thread was in for the above when Macs were mentioned.

Definitely get an Intel processor. The E8400 is a good choice. Dual core is good enough for what you want to do; there is no need to get a quad core.

The Sonata III mentioned above is a nice case. I think Lian-Li makes some nice, plain cases, but they are more expensive than the Antec. If you want a fancier case, take a look at the Antec 900.

Get a Nvidia 8800GT 512MB video card if you want to buy now, otherwise wait for a good deal after the 9 series come out. The 8800's would drop at least a little in price, and you'd have more cards to choose from.

Ok
I have Firefox opened to this forum and msn running.
Also right now im chatting in Teamspeak I have 4x4 evo on the taskbar because im playing that right now online though my racepartner is on the phone.

So went into guildwars and this is the framerate under those conditions
Kamadan 75 to 116 fps and outside its around 157 it is however lagging a little I guess having the other race game in memory is taking its toll.

That good enough if so go get something simillar to the medion system I posted above.

Ferrari > Camry, but the market doesn't reflect that.

£1,000 just to run Guild Wars, Firefox, and MSN? You could get a quad-core and an 8800 for that kind of money, but neither of those are needed for freaking Guild Wars. I've seen some benchmarks of a 9600 GT and they're pretty darn good for something that is expected to retail for less than $100, so you may want to restrain from buying a new PC until sometime in February. I wouldn't mind posting a benchmark and performance chart, but my mobile phone doesn't copy and paste yet >.<

Hay guys whats up since were on the topic of new and improved CPU's I need to update my computer without buying a new one becuase of financial difficulties (I'm the son of single mum) and well I only need things that seems critically outdated to be updated so please help. Also I know that my system sucks my CPU is about 5 years old

System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 1/25/2008, 20:44:17
Machine name: KITCHENCOMPUTER
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: HP Pavilion 06
System Model: DD228A-ABG t124a
BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.53GHz
Memory: 256MB RAM
Page File: 314MB used, 502MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.2180 32bit Unicode

Your processor is ok not great but ok it will last a little while yet unless you want to play Call of Duty 4 or similar high end games.

I can only say what I would do in the same situation.

First thing to remember 5 years is a long time power units and hard drives have been working all the time and are now past their best they could fail anytime.

Basic upgrade = cheapest option.
Upgrading the memory to 1 gig would make a big difference, they recon xp needs 512 to run and then you have other applications on top.
You could also see what graphics card options you have "you didnt say whats already there"
Note the graphics card world is a minefield imo, you would need a card with 256 memory onboard, or stick with what you have and do that as a second upgrade later on.

Second option = more expensive
Replacing the main board and processor is possible if the rest of your equipment would transfer over.
I found in my case that memory was different agp graphics had been replaced by pci express so I decided on a complete new system.

all depends on your budget, you could spend a lot on an upgrade and lose the system due to a failure of a part you didnt replace.


New system option "yeah I know you said its not an option"
Can you afford Say £299 for a new basic system then sell off the old one to recoup a little money.
Later on improve the new system which will have already have a halfway decent processor and memory.

I see I am rambling on a little "failing with old people "lol

BE SURE TO COOL IT with multiple silent fans, increases specs (since the pc doesnt need to slow down the procceses to keep the heat normal).

Upgrade the RAM first. 1GB is good as mentioned earlier.
Graphics card is second priority, depending on what you already have.

DO NOT upgrade the processor or the motherboard. You will need to reinstall Windows XP, which requires the original Windows XP CD, not some recovery CD from HP. If you actually have a Windows XP CD, the license is still OEM and not retail, which may cause problems with activating XP.

Eggrolls

Good point about recovery CDs one could really come unstuck there.

I seem to have been given a recovery cd and a vista cd as well
Nice one Medion