Best computer spec for games?

[Gareth1964]

Hello,
I am looking to buy a computer for my son for around £400. He currently plays world of warcraft (slowly) on his current laptop.
I have found the following spec pc's which appear good to my untrained eye:

1. AMD Athlon x2 250 3.0GHz Dual-Core Processor
4GB 1333Mhz DDR3 RAM
1TB Hard Drive Storage Space
High Performance Gigabyte Motherboard
Nvidia Geforce GT520 1GB Graphics Card
WiFi Wireless Internet Access PCI Card
Stylish Black/Neon Red Mars Gaming Case
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit Edition


2. CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-650 processor
Operating system: Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 32-bit (OEM Version)
Clock Frequency: 3.2 GHz
Memory size: 4 GB
Memory Type: DDR3 1333 MHz
Hard disk capacity: 500 GB

NVIDIA® GeForce® G310 PCI-Express Graphics card - with 512 MB of graphics memory 1 x DVI-I, 1 x HDMI (supports HDCP), 1 x D-Sub VGA

DVD Re-Writer - Max: 16x DVD+R9 (DL), 12x DVD-R9 (DL), 22x DVD+R, 8x DVD+RW, 22 x DVD-R, 6x DVD-RW, 48x CD-R, 32x CD-RW, 5x DVD-RAM
8 Channel Audio
Integrated Memory Card Reader/Writer
IEEE 1394 FireWire

3 Processor Intel® Core™ i3-550 Processor
- 3.20 GHz
- 2.5 GT/s DMI
- 4 MB Smart Cache
Operating System Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit
RAM - 4GB DDR3
- maximum expandable memory 16GB
Graphics card NVIDIA GeForce G405 with PureVideo
- 1GB VRAM
Hard drive 1TB 7200rpm SATA
Optical disk drive Blu-ray player & SuperMulti DVD burner with LightScribe Technology
Memory card reader 6-in-1
USB 8 x USB 2.0
FireWire 1 FireWire IEEE 1394
Modem/Ethernet Integrated 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN
WiFi Wireless LAN 802.11 b/g/n
Video interface 1 x DVI (VGA via adapter)
1 x HDMI
Audio interface 2 audio; 6 analogue audio; 1 digital audio
TV output 1 x DVI (VGA analogue output via adapter)
1 x HDMI digital output
Expansion card slot 1 PCI-Express x1; 1 PCI-Express x16 (low profile)
Sound High Definition Audio 7.1

Are these good and which one is best for games and will be good for 3-5 yrs?

Thanks
Gareth

 

[Brett928S2]

Hi

The honest answer is neither will be good for games in 3 to 5 years.....

Its all about the graphics card for games .....so if you spent say £500 on JUST the graphics card today ...it will probably run most games on high in say 3 years time and on low (buy playable) in 5 years time...

I have just spent £400 on a new card and expect to replace it with another £400 in around a year to keep my games playing on high or Ultra.....

Neither of those machines has that sort of card....so maybe 2 years ish...

All the best Brett

 

[Gareth1964]

Thanks Brett,
Should I be looking to buy a pc where I can change the card, will that be the most cost effective way of buying a pc? Can you upgrade all pc's with new graphics card?
I dont think my son ca be classed as a "serious gamer", he plays xbox mostly and wow on a laptop at the moment (which is slow) and I thought any relatively reasonable spec pc with a seperate 1GB graphics card would be a lot better than he has currently got.
Budget is around £400 for a pc and those pc's just about fit.
Cheers
Gareth

 

[Brett928S2]

Thanks Brett,
Should I be looking to buy a pc where I can change the card, will that be the most cost effective way of buying a pc? Can you upgrade all pc's with new graphics card?
I dont think my son ca be classed as a "serious gamer", he plays xbox mostly and wow on a laptop at the moment (which is slow) and I thought any relatively reasonable spec pc with a seperate 1GB graphics card would be a lot better than he has currently got.
Budget is around £400 for a pc and those pc's just about fit.
Cheers
Gareth

Hi Gareth

Oh yes, any of those will be better than his laptop as they have a seperate graphics card rather than the laptops built in graphics chip!

So just make sure any Pc you buy has a seperate graphics card whih will be fitted into a PCIE slot, then in a couple of years you can just change the card for a better one to improve gaming...

All the best Brett