12 replies to this topic

[dazzalatic]

Hi,

I need to buy a new PC as mine is on it's last legs, all I want it for is Office work, FME and be able to play Train Sim 2015.

I've seen this on ebay and not being very tech savvy, I need to know if this is a good pc or if I should steer clear, I'm hoping some of the more technical on here can guide me. My Budget is around £230 that's why i chose this one.

TIA

Dazzler

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/111477186627

Edited by dazzalatic, 07 April 2015 - 06:20 PM.

[jay2]

Looking at the system requirements for train sim, that setup is going to struggle tbh, it only has onboard graphics.

For Office etc it should be ok.

 

If you sroll down , you can customise that setup and add a dedicated graphics card.

 

How they can call it a gaming pc with just onboard graphics is laughable tbh.

Edited by jay2, 07 April 2015 - 07:09 PM.

[Guitar]

NEVER BUY A MACHINE FROM EBAY.

 

Build it yourself, its not that hard, its basically lego these days.

The AMD APU chip's aren't that bad. They are better than normal on board, but you are still much better off with a dedicated card.

As someone who plays Train Simulator a lot, I can tell you that PC will struggle to run it if you want to turn up the gfx settings at all.

 

Some questions...

 

What resolution is your screen.

Can you wait til you have more cash available? If so, do. The best time to buy is when the next series of cpu/gpu comes out, they start selling of the previous series at ridiculously low prices. You want around £400 minimum to build a gaming machine.

 

Basic PC setup requires, CPU, GPU, RAM, HDD, PSU, Case, Motherboard.

 

After a certain point, the Motherboard, Case, HDD, PSU have little effect on gaming. The mobo does matter, but that involves a discussion about chipsets and goes way beyond the scope of this post.

 

RAM is less important than CPU, just make sure you get minimum 4GB, 8GB is preferable, anything over 8GB is great. CPU is less important than GPU, most CPU's are capable of throwing data round at silly rates anyway. For gaming, high cpu speed is preferable to multi cores. I'd rather have 2 cores at 3GHz than 4 cores at 2GHz. A lot of games can't make much use of multi-cpu's because, well its complicated, take my word for it.

 

GPU is the most important thing for gaming, get the most expensive you can afford, just make sure you don't exceed the limits of your PSU.

 

The last thing you need to know is that Train Simulator 2015 is one of the worst developed commercial games I have seen.

The simulation is broken for many locomotives as they add new stuff every year and dont fix the old layouts.

The graphics are poorly optimised. They said they were working on a new front end using Unreal Engine this year, and then promptly announced that they weren't.

I've seen this played on much higher spec systems than mine and it still struggles, despite not being that complicated a game.

[dazzalatic]

Thanks for the replies guys, I'll probably look into getting a system then adding a dedicated graphics card as me and saving money don't go hand in hand as i'm out of work at the moment, the only reason i'm able to afford this is because i've been given some money by my dad. As for my monitor resolution, I wont know till i get back home tomorrow, I'll post that on here when I do.

 

Honestly dont think i'd be confident building my own as i'm a bit of a clumsy c*** and would probably end up messing it up.

I'll have another look round and see what I can come up with.

 

Cheers

Dazzler

[Guitar]

If you are stuck going onboard for the moment, at least get one of the AMD APU systems like you were looking at, they are much more powerful than a "normal" on board system.

 

Avoid intel on board.

[dazzalatic]

Think i will get the one i posted then add a decent gfx card later. I have 12gb of ram i can add to it too out of my dads old pc.

I've tried a cough version of TS2015 on my dads pc which is about the same spec as the one posted and it runs quite well at medium level.

Thanks for all the help

Dazzler

[SwIFT]

Deduct taxes and shipping (20% consumption tax, ebay listing and finalize sale fee plus paypal fees etc. with express delivery service) the tower and hardware seems to low cost must be some nasty generic components in their.. don't jump into it as it's fairly easy to research hardware components as industry use traditional 3 tier pricing model of entry level, mid market, and uppermarket just skip past product descriptions (subjective) and focus on product specification (objective) then look up reviews or comparasions etc.as Guitar states building computers is like lego it's no different then connecting your computer peripherals you just need to research compatibility.. from what it looks like Train Sim releases new game every year so you will struggle to play 2015 and you're likely unable to run 2016 so don't junk your money on cheap hardware.. It needs mid-market CPU & GPU which together is likely to cost more than that budget tower that is listed as gaming rig

Edited by SwIFT, 09 April 2015 - 03:31 PM.

[SwIFT]

Deduct taxes and shipping (20% consumption tax, ebay listing and finalize sale fee plus paypal fees etc. with express delivery service) the tower and hardware seems to low cost must be some nasty generic components in their.. don't jump into it as it's fairly easy to research hardware components as industry use traditional 3 tier pricing model of entry level, mid market, and uppermarket just skip past product descriptions (subjective) and focus on product specification (objective) then look up reviews or comparasions etc.as Guitar states building computers is like lego it's no different then connecting your computer peripherals you just need to research compatibility.. from what it looks like Train Sim releases new game every year so you will struggle to play 2015 and you're likely unable to run 2016 so don't junk your money on cheap hardware.. It needs mid-market CPU & GPU which together is likely to cost more than that budget tower that is listed as gaming rig

 

The best way to save money on computers is to understand them to enable to utilize them you can really get your moneys worth when it comes to computers mines coming up to 10 years you don't have to go crazy on product specifications and buy way beyond your computing requirements but if you're gaming you'll likely want to update core components like GPU, CPU, & Ram between 3 to 5 years to be able to run all the latest games if it's just general web browsering, media playback, and the occasional intensive processing tasks like archiving, encoding, burning, picture and video editing you'll get away with using entry level computer it just means the tasks will take longer..

 

What's your current computer? maybe you'll find it more economical to upgrade the CPU & GPU and steadily improve other components over the years like replacing the tower case, adding additional hard disk drives, ram, psu, motherboard etc. etc

[Matty.N]

Deduct taxes and shipping (20% consumption tax, ebay listing and finalize sale fee plus paypal fees etc. with express delivery service) the tower and hardware seems to low cost must be some nasty generic components in their.. don't jump into it as it's fairly easy to research hardware components as industry use traditional 3 tier pricing model of entry level, mid market, and uppermarket just skip past product descriptions (subjective) and focus on product specification (objective) then look up reviews or comparasions etc.as Guitar states building computers is like lego it's no different then connecting your computer peripherals you just need to research compatibility.. from what it looks like Train Sim releases new game every year so you will struggle to play 2015 and you're likely unable to run 2016 so don't junk your money on cheap hardware.. It needs mid-market CPU & GPU which together is likely to cost more than that budget tower that is listed as gaming rig

 

The yearly Train Sim release are just free, incremental updates. Mainly just optimization & minor bug fixes. Hardly anything has changed from 2013 - 2015 baring a few new trains & a Menu rework. It was able to run ok on a Phenom II x3 (1.8ghz) with a pathetic 5470M (fluttered around ~25 - 30 fps in the open) so I imagine an entry level rig with a dedicated card should run it just fine.

Edited by Matty.N, 09 April 2015 - 03:49 PM.

[dazzalatic]

My current pc is a Compaq Presario s4500UK I bought it IIRC in 2004 for the princely sum of around £800 from PC world.

It's lasted me till now but it's just so slow these days. I've ordered this http://www.ebay.co.u...=STRK:MEBIDX:IT and I'll put a dedicated card in it should i need one.

 

I've also got 12gb of ram out of my dads old pc that I can add to the new one.

Thanks for the replies

Dazzler

[No1Stoney]

You only get 2 RAM slots in that PC (providing the motherboard in the pic is the actual one you get) so you will only be able to install a further 1 module. 

[VampUK]

Did you add an operating system? I ask only because the default setting on there is £229 without an OS.

[dazzalatic]

No OS but i've got 8.1 ready to go on it :-) as for the memory i'll just fit in what I can and keep whats left as spares.