Help buying a new PC/laptop

[Bluey2005]

Hi guys,

I'm wondering if somebody can help me find a new super-duper PC or laptop. I know next to nothing about this kind of stuff, so I'm not going to attempt to find one myself as it'll only end up being worse than the machine I have now.

I'm basically looking for a substantial upgrade to my current specs which are...

Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3800+, MMX, 3DNow (2 CPUs), ~2.0GHz
Memory: 2048MB RAM
Hard Drive: 293GB

When I bought this machine 2/3 years ago, I was led to believe it was a very good one. It started off that way but for whatever reason its performance has declined in recent times. Whether that's because I have a lot rubbish on it, I don't know. Is it still considered good in today's market?

The new machine needs to be able to play Football Manager 2009 very well, purely because the current one doesn't. I'm not sure if anyone here is familiar with the game, but I want to be able to run a stupid amounts of leagues with no noticeable slowness. I'm led to believe the graphics cards required to run the game aren't too costly. I don't play first-person-shooters or anything like that, so I'm not looking for a fantastic GFX card...but not too ****, either. The only other game I play is Netsoccer, but it's quite an unknown one and basic in terms of graphics.

I don't want potential helpers to think I'm looking specifically for a gaming machine, though. It's just for FM, really. I want other programs to run well too.

In terms of a budget, I'm willing to spend up to £1k. I hope that will get me something that's considered very good in today's market and won't get dated quickly in tomorrow's. I'm flexible on whether it's a desktop or a laptop. And obviously, any extra perks/programs that come with it are a bonus!

Hopefully someone will be able to take up my demands. Cheers!

[AndrewGC]

There will be some better tech answers than mine, but I think Footie Manager and Championship Manager and the ilk are more processor and memory games than reliant on the graphics cards.

That might help one of the 'techies' when giving advice - I think more processor power and memory are more important for those games so hopefully someone can give some idea of a good 'number cruncher'.

[BedstorfromAP]

My brother is a big Football Manager Fan and He has a 2 Ghz Pentium and running 768mb RAM also runs World of Warcraft on the same Machine and that should break the Graphics but runs smoothly on a 64Mb Geforce card [img]/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
Only thing I can advise to speed up things a slight bit is Set the Hard Drive/RAM Virtual drive Settings to Auto as a Memory Intensive game can bog down a bit causing "Buffering" The Computer will appear "slow" to you, if on a small Manual setting

[Bluey2005]

So does anybody have a suggestion on a PC I could purchase?

[AndrewGC]

I think the jist of the answers is a fast processor, good memory and a decent graphics card.

Now you need to do a bit of research yourself and look at sites like eBuyer and the ilk to see what is on offer.

I've got Footie Manager 2008 and the Recommended Specs on the back actually make no mention of a graphics card. The key thing is processor and memory.

[BedstorfromAP]

Ok Here is some help for you www.dell.co.uk will make you a "custom" machine for you off their stock list and It will be Good but the Price can be prohibitive (up against 1K!)
Cons They Have only a narrow range of options as to Component choice [img]/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] (and they insist you take certain Items)
But Instead go to www.pcspecialist.co.uk/ and Play around with their range
Which is a wide Choice
and every configuration can be modified [img]/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]
and I can buy a Triple core 8000 series Phenom CPU Asus ATX motherboard (the Proper sized board),250 gb Sata Hard drive
4GB RAM Case and a 450 Watt Psu in a Nice tower, Plus XP or Vista (And a decent graphics card/s) for Just over 550 Pounds [img]/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]
All you do is plug your monitor/keyboard In and You will have a computer that will be both very fast and yet have plenty of Upgrading potential in it [img]/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
Ps I'd swap the Stock PSU unit for a WinPower 650/700w PSU from Novatech which cost about 30 Pounds each (they want over 50 pounds to fit the same)