I know i posted a similar topic not long ago, but i figured this was different enough for it to deserve its own.

I was wondering out of the following, which is the best computer spec wise, along with which is the best value for money?

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/160515# <- £940 (rather not spend *that* much

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/-/653/860/-/929...earchtype=genre <- £630


http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw...gory_oid=-34702 < - £670

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw...gory_oid=-34702 <- Same as first item, except abit more money as it includes an upgrade to W7 when its released.

Also, i wasn't too sure if ebuyer was a uk website or not? And if so, how good/reliable it is?

Thanks again


EDIT: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/167294 <- just saw that one

The first system will definitely offer you the most bang for your buck but you could build one for cheaper that would have better parts.

Dont have the time to build my own, as i intend to buy before monday and would rather not through that much money into something im not too confident with yet

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/167294

Then that one would be the second best offering

If you're on a budget, definitely go for the third one. Then you can upgrade the graphics card later, but the 9600 is decent enough for modern gaming on mid-high settings.

Thats what i was looking at emo, as the only for 940 didnt seem to offer *that* much more, both i7 which is the main thing(?). How good is DDR3 in terms of DDR2? Like would it be better to have, say, 2GB DDR3 than 8gb of DDR2? Still quite new to the hardware side of computing.

Also are the graphics cards any good in either of the 9600 or the one you listed emo?

Depends on how much you use.

3GB of DDR3 will perform better then the 8GB of DDR2 because the memory is faster and with memory there becomes a point where it doesn't matter how much you throw on the machine its going to perform the same speed and you hit that point at about 3 - 4gb's exceptions to this rule are if you run applications which use several GB's of RAM to function then at that point the more RAM may be better.

But unless your doing AutoCAD or something just as memory hungry then the 3GB will be best.

If you're on a budget, DDR2 is what you want. DDR3 won't be the same price of DDR2 for another year or two.

Asked around at work, figured was easily the best option to get from dell...

Intel® Core™ i7 Processor 920 (2.66GHz, 8MB cache, 4.8GT/sec)
Genuine Windows Vista® SP1 Home Premium (64 BIT) - English
Microsoft® Works 9 - English
1Yr Premium Warranty Support
Display Not Included
6144MB (6x1024) 1067MHz DDR3 Tri Channel
1TB Serial ATA (7200RPM) Hard Drive
512MB ATI® Radeon® 4850 Graphics card
16X DVD+/- RW Optical Drive (DVD & CD read and write)


£870

If you're willing to pay that much, I'd say go for it. The 4850 is a pretty good card.

Yeah, as i figured with an i7 plus DDR3, its more likely that it would last abit longer, plus perform alot better, than one which is only £100 or so cheaper.

I could get it with 750gb memory for £20less, 3gb DDR for £70less and with a ATI 256mb HD4370 (i think that was the card) for £110 less, as they were all optional extra's

If you plan on gaming, you'll want something better than the 4370.

Yup, quite afew people at work seem to rave about WoW so figured might aswell give it a try at some point, plus wanting to play gta along with the occasional flight sim

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/160515#
This is the best computer, but the worst choice if you are on a budget. The RAM is excellent, the ATi Radeon HD 4850 is currently one of the best graphics cards in the world, and it's got a brilliant memory. But like Redmonke said, go for the third one if you are on a budget.

I don't get why so many people take the I7 as top range, better than everything else. It generally has a far lower stock clock speed than the equivalent Phenom IIs, a lower cache, both use 45nm manufacturing and both use 64bit architecture. The only thing the I7 has on it is that it can use triple channel DDR3 Memory, which is overpriced and unnecessary anyway.

This one looks good.

I completely agree. Seeing as you've said you'll only be playing WOW, GTA and using flight simulators, an i7 is probably overkill (a lot of games don't make good use of multiple cores anyway). And in my experience DDR3 doesn't provide a significant speed boost over DDR2 - not enough to warrant the extra cost, anyway.

If you do go for the i7, overclock it to AT LEAST 3ghz (with a decent case it could be pushed a lot further) so you're getting your money's worth out of it.