Graphics Card

**Fijiandoce** · 10-28-2012

Originally Posted by fusion2

Awesome, thanks a lot! Youve been a great help!

One last thing

you'll need to download these
Driver Sweeper

and one of these: (whichever on applies to you)
Nvidia Drivers-this is for WIN7
Nvidia Drivers-this is for VISTA

when you get your new card, run driver sweeper and unistall nvidia drivers. take out your old card and insert the new one in. install the nvidia drivers (make sure you've got the correct one

)
again just to be thorough, power down your pc before removing anything

Originally Posted by Cybertox

Make sure you buy the model with 2GBs VRam.

with these cards Vram isn't going to count for much. it could have 10billionGB vram and still not be useful

go for asus, as they have a reputable history. (they are, for the most part, reliable)
i've never heard of the other company :/

**keefy** · 10-28-2012

If it was £15 more I would agree but at only £3 more I say the 2B card is worth it.

**Rekmon** · 10-29-2012

Such a low powered card the extra gb of vram probably won't make a difference at all.
(and isn't going to be doing too much gaming either lol)

Have you considered trying to take your old card out, take off and clean the heatsink and fan out and reapplying thermal paste and see if the sound (and associated high temp and fan speed) clear up?

**fusion2** · 10-31-2012

Hi everyone, cheers for all your help again. I have just opened it up properly and braved taking the card out (wasn't as hard or as scary as I thought!) The noise has almost gone, down to a very dull buzzing. I cleaned quite a few dust bunnies out, and the gpu test has gone down from saying it runs at 80oC normally to 58oC!

Hmmm, sound has come back already (half an hour later) annoying buzzing. Looks like I will have to save up and buy a new pc, as it does suck even if I buy the new graphics card

Any advice on where to buy a decent pc from on the UK... recent mates have had really bad experiences with pc's turning up not working or not turning up at all....

**keefy** · 10-31-2012

These 2 are local to me so I use them quite often as i dont have to pay delivery or wait a day or 2.

Aria www.Aria.co.uk its great if you live near Manchester as you can go thee in person and pick it up.
Scan www.scan.co.uk in Bolton which isn't too far form Manchester this has much bigger shop and showroom than Aria.

No idea where these 2 are based but have never been let down by things not turning up.
www.overclockers.co.uk
www.ebuyer.com

You can select parts and assemble it yourself and save a couple of hundred pounds.

**Varsh** · 10-31-2012

Overclockers is in Stoke-on-Trent and I've been to their depot several times while I was at Stafford Uni. Very very good company.

**fusion2** · 10-31-2012

Awesome, cheers for the links and advice. Any idea what a decent gaming pc would be these days?

**Cyn** · 10-31-2012

Around the £500-£600 mark if you build it from scratch and shop around for best deals. But obviously more for a high end system and a bit less for a more entry level set up.

I actually think that Alienware X51 offers good value in a nice compact package. If they're still making them in a couple years when I make a whole new system I may just get one.

**fusion2** · 10-31-2012

Originally Posted by Cyn

Around the £500-£600 mark if you build it from scratch and shop around for best deals. But obviously more for a high end system and a bit less for a more entry level set up.

I actually think that Alienware X51 offers good value in a nice compact package. If they're still making them in a couple years when I make a whole new system I may just get one.

Just looking into the Alienware, wow! Amazing price too. Awesome, I am very tempted. I also edit hd video and use cinema 4d, would it handle this alright, well at least better than my current?

**keefy** · 10-31-2012

Well the base model X51 for £600 has a dual core processor and a crappy GT640 graphics card that will barely run any recent games like BattleField 3 on low settings above 30FPS.

**fusion2** · 10-31-2012

Originally Posted by keefy

Well the base model X51 for £600 has a dual core processor and a crappy GT640 graphics card that will barely run any recent games like BattleField 3 on low settings.

How would this fair - http://www.ebuyer.com/397462-cyberpo...elite-ecc01136

**keefy** · 10-31-2012

ITs better but you Can get the exact same stuff for about £100-150 less if you build it yourself.

Or for the same price you could get a slightly better CPU or GPU if you build yourself.

**Rekmon** · 10-31-2012

Originally Posted by fusion2

How would this fair - http://www.ebuyer.com/397462-cyberpo...elite-ecc01136

I just did the conversion and that's $1200 USD. Holy crap, expensive. I'd say build it yourself and save some cash (though definitely a much better system than the Alienware one you listed earlier)

**fusion2** · 10-31-2012

Originally Posted by Rekmon

I just did the conversion and that's $1200 USD. Holy crap, expensive. I'd say build it yourself and save some cash (though definitely a much better system than the Alienware one you listed earlier)

Haha thats England for you. Stuff in America and stuff here is priced roughly the same so if something is released in America for say $500 it will probably be near £500 here in England... so double the price really......

I guess I need to learn and take the time to build my own pc.

**Cybertox** · 10-31-2012

I own an Alienware X51.

Following specs.

i7 3.4 ghz
GTX 555 1 GB
8 GBs Ram
1 TB hd

I bought it for 1200 chf which is about 1300-1400 dollars. I can play most of the games on high settings and above 30 fps. For example i play SC2 maxed out and have an average frame rate of 50.

**Bhindi_Bhajji** · 10-31-2012

A own an X51 too, same spec as Cybertox, only I replaced the graphics card with an AMD 7850 2GB.

It will run BF3 at 1920 x 1080 on ultra no problem.

I usually build my own (cheaper), but I wanted something compact with a decent amount of grunt so went for the X51.

**Fijiandoce** · 11-01-2012

the guys who founded Alienware bailed after it was bought by Dell.

they went on to found origin
http://www.originpc.com/Default.aspx

essentially, you can piece together your own PC using their customise tools, and they'll put it together and send it to you.

however, there is no UK site. which is strange because they have an Aus and NZ one

in the event you are able to import and have chosen such an endeavour, keep your current PC power cable (the bit that plugs into the wall)

PS: this PC from origin costs USD1000. if you wish to play around with customising however, the first link will take you to the home page. Just select the gaming tab and your choice of PC tower

Edit:
Specs for that USD1000 and mini review

PSS: that USD1000 PC will set you back around £800 including shipping. At time of writing, that unit only cost £620

**Fijiandoce** · 11-01-2012

Forum screwed me over, double post

**keefy** · 11-01-2012

Thats got to be the worst looking case.

**Fijiandoce** · 11-01-2012

Originally Posted by keefy

Thats got to be the worst looking case.

no arguments on my end

however, for its price, its quite a powerful unit. and it saves fusion the trouble of manually building his own PC xD

**fusion2** · 11-01-2012

Thanks for all your help Fijiandoce! Wish they did a UK site!

**Rekmon** · 11-01-2012

Originally Posted by fusion2

Haha thats England for you. Stuff in America and stuff here is priced roughly the same so if something is released in America for say $500 it will probably be near £500 here in England... so double the price really......

I guess I need to learn and take the time to build my own pc.

That sucks. I'm supposing shipping would make having somebody buy it here and send it to you not make it worth it either huh?

Originally Posted by keefy

Thats got to be the worst looking case.

It is pretty ugly...but I've seen worse