It depends on what you want from your PC. I believe you can play most if not all the games on the present market now with a pc of around £400. This is if you build yourself. When you buy a prebuilt machine its usually a £100 at the minimum addition to the cost of the parts. On the subject matter of playing games, I would assume that most people are content with good performance and a medium level of graphic ability on most games.
If you want high performance and high end graphic fidelity the cost usually goes up about £200. I recently purchased a high end computer for £620 and its able to play all the games I have thrown at it with good peformance and good visuals. The other pro to a high end purchase is its longevity. Of course, the concept of longevity is relative to what you think is suitable for a gaming PC. I believe the current price of £620 on high end spec will last you a year or two before you have to start tweaking down graphic sliders to save some performance. But even then, I am sure you will be still content with the games you are playing. Definately more so when compared to a console.
My personal reccomendation is to get a high end machine. It saves you money in the long run, as you dont have to keep repurchasing a graphic card.
Reccomendations regarding actual specifications would be 4gb memory is the minimum now and dont cut savings on a good power supply. Your LCD tv's resolution leads me to reccomend a beefy graphic card. At the moment ATI is leading the market as they have the only DX11 cards out, this is their HD5800 series. You probably will be saving your money so you can wait for Nvidia's new launch of cards which will also be DX11 compatible. Not saying they will be better but will give you more choice and will drive down prices in the ATI HD5800 line perhaps. You can always look at performance benchmarks.
I've given you my price in pound sterlin, I would imagine the currency conversion would provide a more or less accurate scope.
Regarding the monitor question. No there isnt really a downside to using that that I know of. Be sure to research the right ports. A lot of modern graphic cards come with adapters.
First thing you should do is to back up your valuables on an external source. Be it USB stick, dvd rom, hosting site, another hard disk etc. This is because the hardware could be corrupted and not the OS.
Do a format from the bios, and re install vista from the disk.
If the problem persists I would imagine the hardware is the culprit. Changing laptop hardware is usually difficult and expensive from my experience.
Im in a pretty embarressing and surreal situation.
Just awhile ago I reformatted my computer and re-installed steam. It prompts me for my password which I haven't typed in years (auto sign in all the time). Unfortunately I dont recall what it is so I go to "recover lost account", it sends me a verification code to my email but unfortunately it comes with my security question which I dont even recall typing.
I dont know my password nor do I know the answer to this security question. It's a damn shame to lose my collection of games as well as my friends. It's incredibly annoying to lose this because of such a trivial matter.
I have a physical copy of HL2/CS:S with cd key that I can provide to Steam support, is that more than enough for proof of ownership? My games like TF2 and L4D are all digitally bought so I have no way of gaining access to their keys.
Also the security question they provided me was: "Whad did customer support last reset your passphrase to?"
edit: contacted steam - Turns out cd key was sufficient
@sodiumCyclops: You could show him comparative benchmarks from both the high end ATI and Nvidia cards. If he is also interested in long term you can also mention that the 5 series are the cards with DX11 currently.
However, if he is set on nvidia the gtx275 is still a good choice.
Sorry for the late reply. Im building a PC soon also so I could probably benefit from discussion.
6gb DDR3 is more than enough ram I think. Gigabyte are good brand for motherboards too. Not sure about the i7, generally I would personally spend more on graphics than CPU.
About the GTX275, according to this benchmark is ranks lower than the Radeon 4890. Im only mentioning this because I believe neither of those cards are DX11 ready and the 4890 is generally cheaper.
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