Cheap refurb for a stop-gap

Definetly. 8600GT is a very decent video card, and run those games just fine at at decent settings. It's a bit underrated. I thought so too until I was able to run Crysis Medium settings at 1200x800

The 8600gt is an okay GPU and is the weakest part of that system, when gaming is considered.

* What resolution would you be gaming under?
* Are you planing on doing a totally new system later, or are you going to try and upgrade the refurb??

Here is a good upgrade for a relatively good prices... PNY GEFORCE 9600 GSO 768MB DDR3 GRAPHICS, VCG96GSO7XPB RVCG96GSO7 for $57.98

cool, thanx all.

at lunyone : I'm planning to get a new 24" HD monitor (probably the iiyama since its the only sub £200 2ms tft with a HDMI input and good reviews).

obviously I'm not expecting the £200 system to play at HD res.
I'm planning a totally new build probably around christmas time now to give the HD5xxxx time to drop in price. (system will be based in a coolermaster scout, probably x58 mobo with an i7 or the new 6core from AMD, with either Ati or Nvidia's new offerings, on windows 7 with an 850W PSU) so will probably buy this system and sell it off for spares.

I've waited over a year to build my new system, wating for all the intel stuff and new HD series to get finalised and now i just cannot put up with my computer's stuttering anymore!

I think i've found the motherboard spec. I THINK its an nforce 630i with GF7100 onboard and its actually got an 8600GTS (is that better or worse than the GT)

also, anyone know the max FSB on those motherboards? i know nvidias are never very high (also only one PCIe 16 slot but oh well).

The 8600gts is a slightly better GPU over the 8600gt. As far as the FSB is concerned, most manufacturers LOCK down their BIOS, so you probably won't be able to OC anything on the mobo. This is why I don't buy pre-built PC's, unless it is for someone who needs a lot of tech support (grandma's). You would be better off buying basic cheap parts yourself and just pulling out the parts later and putting together your own bad a$$ system yourself, IMHO.

I always build my own systems. but am just waiting atm for the new i5/7's and HD5870s to come out and then drop in price. This system is purely for an interim gaming system, and is way cheaper than anything i cud build at that spec.

I see where you going with this. I wouldn't bet on any i5/i7 price drops anytime soon. AMD will have to undercut the i5's to be competetive and than Intel will have to counter sometime. I wouldn't expect any price breaks until after the first of the year, IMHO.

if you're willing to save cash, forget about the latest intel, nvidia and ati hardware. focus RAM and tweaking instead.

I've bought the system now, getting it next week. There's no games out atm that I'm desperate to play, just want to play the games i have without stutters. plus i have a PS3 and most games i want come out on that too (except strategy games annoyingly!). I'll wait till after christmas for the price drop then, hopefully starcraft 2 might be out by then!
Thanks for everyone's input!

Let us know how it turns out for you, I'm curious to see/hear how the system performs for that kind of $.

System arrived, day after i ordered it(pains told them to deliver it in a week as i was away! anyway picked it up from Royal Mail depot) all works, quiet but its saying the GPU is an 8600GS, i dint think there was an 8600gs.

Yes there was. Apparently Packard Bell had ordered a sh$t ton of them and put them in a lot of their systems. Not a standard GPU though, and fits below the 8600gt. Here's a forum post that talks a bit about the GPU.