PROCESSOR Intel® Pentium® D 915 Dual Core Processor (2.80GHz, 800MHz fsb, 2x2MB cache) edit OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition (Incl Operating System Re-installation CD) edit SUPPORT SERVICES Collect & Return, 1 Year Service only edit MEMORY 2048MB Dual Channel DDR2 533MHz [2x1024] Memory edit HARD DRIVE 250GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst™ cache edit SECUREDATA SOFTWARE No Secure Data Software edit OPTICAL DRIVE(S) 16X DVD+/-RW Drive edit GRAPHICS CARD 256MB ATI Radeon® X1300 Pro PCI Express graphics card edit Accessories MONITOR 19" Value Flat Panel (E196FP) edit SOUND CARDS Integrated Sound Blaster Audigy ADVANCED HD Audio Software edit SPEAKERS No Speakers edit KEYBOARD Entry Quietkey USB Keyboard - UK/Ire (QWERTY) edit MOUSE 2 Button USB Scroll Optical Mouse - Black edit FLOPPY/MEDIA DRIVES No Floppy Drive edit MODEMS No Modem Well i mainly play MMORPGS, Light FPS games, Strategy games, any idea if this will be future proof and give good preformance?
The X1300 isn't really futureproof, any gfx hardware you buy now is maximum DirectX 9.0, the next in line DirectX 10 level hardware will be released around / just before Microsoft will release it's next os Vista. But it outperforms Nvidia's 6600GT in most benchmarks Uncomplicating the Complicated | Hardware Secrets called it; The rest of your computer is pretty good, Dual Core CPU's do better in most games and future games will only benefit from having Dual Core technology.
Your rig is fine (great in the ram department) and will last a while, as in till about late 2007 without the processor being an issue. But yeah the graphics card will definately hurt, currently a lot of games don't run well on it. A list of games you like to play would be helpful but otherwise keep in mind that you can't really get away with maxing any upper end FPS or MMORPG, and new strategy games like Company of Hero's or Rise of Legends require high end graphics cards that cost at least $150 for you to crank the settings.
The games i wish to play (a short list) Guild Wars, Halo pc, (all) Command and conquer, Rise of nations, rise of legends, Shadowrun (if possible, but it doesent matter because im getting it on xbox 360) Rise of nations 1, The sims, The sims 2. FPS games dont really matter because i have a 360 for those. but... now the price, will i be getting a good deal for £640? Thanks.
640's pretty good concidering that you get a nice monitor with it. Again it would be nice if it had a built to order option for a better card but you make do with what you have. As for the games: Guild Wars should run well, it isn't terribly GPU intensive, or even a bandwidth hog, I got it to run pretty smoothly on 56k, it was just the updates that killed me. Halo's not a problem, it's a old game that will run fine on modern hardware. I'm assuming you prefer it on PC due to the mouse control though right? Rise of Nations 1 should run just fine, Legends apparently doesn't run very well on any card, even the highest end cards stuggle when things are really cranked up, and I'm talking about 30fps here. But the first one should keep you busy. Every Command and Conquer (except for the latest one coming out later this year I belive) will run just fine, no issues there. And the Sims/Sims 2 will be fine, there's not a whole lot to render at once so you should be all set.
well im comparing so that seemed to get a good review but.. what about this is this going to be better? Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 1.86Ghz 2MB cache 1066mhz FSB Memory: 2.0GB DDR2 533mhz (2 x 1GB) (Recommended) Hard Disk Drive: 200GB S-ATA2 3.0Gb/s 8MB buffer Second Hard Disk Drive: None Optical Drive: 16x Double-Layer DVD+/-RW Second Optical Drive: None Graphics card: ATI Radeon X1600 Pro 256MB PCI-E TV/DVI Floppy Disk Drive: None Operating System: Genuine Microsoft Windows XP Home SP2 Sound Card: Onboard Sound Internet and Networking: Onboard 10/100 network card (Built-in) Monitor: 19’’ TFT Monitor Peripherals: Keyboard, mouse and speakers Printer: None Warranty: 3 Years Standard Warranty Case: Compucase 6K34 Thanks
ATi Radeon X1600 Pro aint going to be any good too, well i suppose it is ok, but wont run alot of games at max settings.
For the games you want to run, the X1600 is fine. However, should you get into FPS games, like Doom 3, FEAR, etc, you'll find that card to be lacking.
Doom 3 runs okay on high with the X1600XT but it's fairly old now. Oblivion, FEAR, Prey, etc. won't run so great but they're not on his play list so it's fine. The second computer you're looking at is a better setup, Core 2 duo is great, 2gigs will be awesome and the X1600Pro, like others have said, will run all the games you're looking at, though again Rise of Legends, again won't fare as well. Otherwise you're good to go.
