Buying a new gaming PC

[davet30]

Ok,

I'm gonna move from windows XP to windows7 OEM and so I'm considering getting an 'off the shelf' PC and it's main function will be online gaming.

Anyone got any really good tips with regards to what specs I should be looking at?

e.g. hdd (controller type and size), processor, ram, and finally the graphics card (I guess displays are pretty much what you like :-) )

Thanks

[smurfy]

hiya davet30.
It would really help to have some idea of budget.
It's pointless giving a whole list of top-of-the-line boxes if your budget won't stretch that far.

Apart from that, "off the shelf" and "gaming PC" are almost (but not completely) mutually exclusive terms. It's far better to build or if you're not confident of assembling it yourself getting one custom built to order. Will 99.99% of the time be better for purpose, upgradeable and cheaper than the OEM products.

[davet30]

ok I've a budget of around £800 GBP

I've built the last 3 PC's myself so am capable in that respect. I've a number of 'old' cases and mb's with processors and odds 'n' ends etc. The main reason I was considering buying an oem system is the cost to buy Windows7 OS on top of components.

Thanks

[davet30]

Update .... I've decided the cost may be going into the £1000's. The specs I've been looking at are:

Intel® Core™i7 Processor Extreme Edition i7-990X (3.46GHz) 6.4GTs/12MB Cache.

Motherboard: ASUS® P6X58D-E: DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, 3-Way SLI

Memory (RAM) : 8GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)

Graphics Card : 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready

Hard Disks X 2 : 1TB SATA-II 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 32MB CACHE (7,200rpm)

Power Supply : CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE

Processor Cooling: INTEL SOCKET LGA1366 STANDARD CPU COOLER

Hopefully the Mo BO will have on-board audio

Anyone have any comments?

I've already for a decent case and I may even consider using the existing power supply and graphics card. (Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS (640MB))

[MaDef]

Just a suggestion, but since hardrives prices have spiked, see about getting an SSD for your main drive (OS + programs) and using your current drive/s as data storage. You'll see a definite decrease in OS and program load times. Once prices come back down, you can add drive/s in the future.