New PC - Any recommendations?

Hi all, I've decided that the demo is far too taxing on my 5 year old PC so am taking the plunge into a new one. My Father in law says that I shouldn't just look at slightly above minimum spec and should really look at Gaming PC's. There seems so much choice around, not necessarily in PC World but in Computer Shopper magazine there seems loads of choice.

I want a PC that can handle FM2009 really well, I don't want judder on the 3d and I see some guys on here have high spec machines that seem to have judder problems.

Can anyone recommend what I should be looking for, I don't want to waste my money (please, no sarcastic responses saying save £30 and don't buy this bug ridden game).

Thanks in advance for any help

i think any pc that costs more than say 500 quid but two main attribrutes are quad cord and good graphics cards oh and plenty of ram

Do you play (or want to play) other games besides FM. If you are after playing stuff like Crysis, Far Cry 2 etc, then get the most expensive graphics card you can afford. If you just want to play FM, then get a lower spec graphics card (but make sure it has a graphics card, not a build in one on the motherboard) and spend more on the processor. I wouldn't worry too much about getting a quad core processor, but an Intel Core2Duo of some type should be a minimum requirement. If you are running Vista, then make sure you get at least 2GB ram, I wouldn't bother with more than 3GB though, as you won't be able to use it all. And I would avoid PC world like the plague - I got mine from Mesh and am very happy with it.

Please bear in mind that as soon as you buy a new Pc it will probably be "out of date" the next day or something ridiculous like that! Have you thought about upgrading your current PC? That could be a more cost effective option as gaming PC's tend to be a bit on the expensive side of things, especially if you are going for a top end one! The 3 most important things to consider are the processor speed, graphics card and ram! I have a 2.00ghz ati radeon, 2 GB of ram and the graphics card im not sure about as thats no really my expertise! The point i make is my machine is not a gaming PC but runs FM09 perfectly well, no jumps etc, and i bought it straight off the shelf from PC world! You could phone Dell and build your own and talk it through with someone over the phone. You dont have to buy it but if you tell them what you want out of it it may give you more of an idea of what you need! I note that FM is having a problem recognizing intel hardware, seens as i dont have that it may be why! Good luck PC hunting, Phew, I'm shattered after writing all that lol

Hello mate,

Assuming you'll be buying and not building maybe look at something that's either Dual Core or Quad Core. Looking at FM's use of cores in the demo you might as well get a cheap quad or a decent dual as it clearly doesn't multithread well.

RAM should be 4GB. It'll show up as 3.5GB on 32 bit systems, but don't be afraid of 64 bit Vista which'll happily do 4GB or even 8GB. I've been on 64 bit since day one and had no driver issues.

Graphics will be interesting. nVidia and ATI both seem to have problems but I stopped building machines with nVidia in some time ago, the drivers were a nightmare. I'd aim for an ATI HD3XXX or 4XXX, prices are good, and there plenty of decent cards on offer. You'll find a lot og gaming builds will have something 'uber' in it regardless.

Where were you thinking of buying from?

I disagree with Magnolia Dave - I don't think Quad Core is at all necessary unless you are looking to future-proof (sic) your system. Indi75 is kinda right on RAM, but if you're running XP, why bother going for 4GB? Just use 3GB of RAM, or even 2GB. 2GB is absolutely fine for your needs.

aim for duo core processors above 2.2 ghz - i've got the amd 6000 which is 3ghz

aim for 3gb of ram on vista 2gb on xp - on fm08 i could run 9 countries with 21 leagues without any slow down

aim for a decent gpu - unless you want other games you can get a cheap card in mid range for the match engine

I disagree with Magnolia Dave - I don't think Quad Core is at all necessary unless you are looking to future-proof (sic) your system. Indi75 is kinda right on RAM, but if you're running XP, why bother going for 4GB? Just use 3GB of RAM, or even 2GB. 2GB is absolutely fine for your needs.

Not even for future proofing, there's nothing coded for Quad yet. Sure the new 45nm Quads are nice but if the cores are underutilised and the clock speeds are lower than the dual core speeds they don't offer much.

I'm gonna park a Nehalem based quad in my next build, but that'll be more out of interest than because I need it. My E6850 eats everything you chuck at it several times over so no real need for quad.

On the RAM Gillsman has a point, if your going to linger on XP 2GB will do, maybe 3, but since 3 is not matched pairs 2GB might well be the way. FM absolutely flies on Vista tho, Readyboost works wonders for it, and you might even get a decent deal on 8GB of RAM from Mesh PC.