Gaming Rig...

[Ramsx131]

I found this on craigslist and I was wondering if it was worth it to buy this and upgrade where I can or to start from scratch and build my own, I have never built a computer before but I'll have plenty of free time this summer so I figured why not, if this is a decent buy what would be the best way to upgrade from what it currently has running.

I really only plan to play WoW on it but I will add an occasional game or two to the system...

Intel gaming computer

 

[H4x3r]

not a real bad deal at all for $500 considering it does come with a monitor.......the thing you'll want to upgrade is the graphics card most likely....but as is it would play WoW with no problems at all...not on ultra, but still very well

 

[Ramsx131]

I wouldn't have any problems with buying and upgrading the graphics card on it. Is there any card you would recommend that would make the game look the best that I can get it?

 

[H4x3r]

well WoW will never look as good as crysis, you should be able to get pretty close to it's highest settings with that card. If you want to upgrade look at the Nvidia GTX200 series, or ATI HD4800 series cards, preferably an HD4870 or better, but i would stick with the Nvidia cards because the 780i only supports SLI (nvidia only) and not Crossfire for ATI so if you ever wanted to add a second card you could for nvidia, but not ati. The new ultra mode seems to be really buggy and isn't well optimized. i can't even get 25fps in a city with my SLI gtx 260's ........and no the 780i is a nice board, you would be able to put pretty much any card in it right now and it's also socket 775 which supports quad core so you could upgrade the CPU as well on it.

 

[Ramsx131]

I'm not looking to go for ultra settings, but the current computer I have is a pre-built I bought a few years back and now a days when I'm playing even on standard settings the game will freeze and restart my computer. When it boots back up it says I need to upgrade my drivers or upgrade my graphics card, I know I have my stuff upgrading as far as I can get it. So at this point I figure why get a new graphics card when I can just upgrade my computer and get better quality gaming instead

 

[Ramsx131]

Is this a better deal for the setup or should I stick with the first one? I have emailed the second seller for pictures...

Selling Gaming Desktop

 

[H4x3r]

first one in my opinion is better, they actually have the part numbers listed and the E8400 is an awesome overclocker and it also comes with an aftermarket heat sink and fan

 

[SapperX]

Careful with craigslist. If you find out a month later that a core on the cpu is bad, there is nothing you can do. Personally, I would never buy a single computer component used unless it is from a reputable member of these forums.

 

[Ramsx131]

So essentially what your saying is that I would be better off building my own than buying a used one because of the trust factor in buying a used one. I wouldn't have any problem building a computer except I'm more afraid of the fact that after I buy everything and start to build it that I may end up screwing up at one point or basically waste 400-500 dollars on a few components.

 

[Muffin Man]

please excuse me for involving myself into this thread.

i personally would also not buy a used pc from somewhere like craigslist. but i thought that something like this might intrest you.

MSI K9N2 SLI Platinum Barebone Kit - nForce 750a, AMD Phenom X4 9500, 8GB OCZ DDR2-800, 1TB, 9400GT, ATX Case, 550W PSU MSI K9N2 SLI Platinum w Phenom, 8GB, 9400GT at TigerDirect.com

in the package comes a case, power supply, mobo, quad-core cpu, 4gig of ram, 9400 gt gpu, and a 1terabyte hdd.

it appears that all you would need is a cd drive and an OS, probably vista 64bit to take advantage of all that ram.

heres the full list on that site, there are many pc's for good prices.

AMD pc's

AMD Barebone, AMD Barebones, AMD Barebone Computer System Kits at TigerDirect.com

Intel pc's

Intel Barebone, Intel Barebones, Intel Barebone Computer System Kits, Intel Barebone Kits at TigerDirect.com

both links have listings from high price to low so you can go through the pages for cheaper ones if you like.