A little help deciding on my first gaming computer

Hey everyone, I currently own all 3 gaming consoles and play them regularly, but recently I have been having an urge to enter into the PC Gaming crowd to finally round out my gaming experience. With PS3 I have games like Uncharted, Call of Duty, Final Fantasy etc, with XBox 360 I have Mass Effect and other 360 exclusive games and with Wii I have Zelda, Mario and a load of RPGs exclusive to the system, however the recent plethora of games releasing on PC has enticed me to finally start thinking about PC gaming. I want to play games like the original Crysis, Starcraft II, and Portal. Games like Crysis 2 and Battlefield 3 look more polished and refined then there console counterparts so I would like to give those a try, and lets not mention those deals on Steam that will save you some cash. Anyway, I am not looking for a top of the line rig, just one to get me started and one that I can upgrade in the future. The following are two PCs that are available for purchase at my local FutureShop, and fit within my price range, and I want the PC gaming community to give me some feedback. Please note, I am a little out of touch and I am limited in my knowledge of PC Hardware. Please answer me the following questions when looking at the 2 PCs, will it play Crysis? On what settings? Is it futureproof or will it certainly need upgrading?

1: HP Pavilion Elite

Processor: AMD Phenom II 1055T

Processor Speed: 2.80 GHz

Processor Cores: 6

RAM: 8GB PC3-10600 DDR3 SDRAM

Graphics Card: AMD Radeon HD 6570 with 1GB Dedicated Video Memory and up to 4GB Shared Video Memory

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium

Sound Card: AMD 785G Chipset

Cache: 3MB L2, 6MB shared L3

Price: $900

2: Gateway

Processor: Intel Core i7-2600

Processor Speed: 3.4 GHz

Processor Cores: 4

RAM; 8GB DDR3

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT420 with 1GB Dedicated Video Memory

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium

Sound Card: Intel H67 Express

Cache: 6B L3

Power: 300 Watts

Price: $999

a solid effort on your part but what currency is this in? both are overpriced garbadge tbh.. yes they have most of what make a good gaming machine but they lack a very specific requierment which makes them .. NOT good gaming machines the video card.. video cards get lazily tossed around by the folks over at prebuilt dell, hp, emachine, etc and dont get the credit they deserve.

so here is wat i recommend.. you build it yourself.. its gotten really easy to do it.. tab a into slot b sort of stuff. if your willing to hear me out or at least do a partial build (like most is assembled for you am you need to do is install 1-2 parts(id show you how)) please talk back.

both are good systems dont get me wrong but id probably not find a job better suited for them than media center on playing un demanding MMO's and bad console ports.

He's right, they're both a bit of a rip-off.

The key to finding a pre-built PC though is just looking on the correct sites and making sure you at least have knowledge of what is a decent video card and what is not.

For example, I found this one with about 1 minute of searching and it has, in my opinion, exactly what you need:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227335

He's right, they're both a bit of a rip-off.

The key to finding a pre-built PC though is just looking on the correct sites and making sure you at least have knowledge of what is a decent video card and what is not.

For example, I found this one with about 1 minute of searching and it has, in my opinion, exactly what you need:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227335

xxLordDavidxx

is good but ive seen better deal.. i helped someone out the other day to a phenom II x6 gts 450 machine for 650 bucks

a solid effort on your part but what currency is this in? both are overpriced garbadge tbh.. yes they have most of what make a good gaming machine but they lack a very specific requierment which makes them .. NOT good gaming machines the video card.. video cards get lazily tossed around by the folks over at prebuilt dell, hp, emachine, etc and dont get the credit they deserve.

so here is wat i recommend.. you build it yourself.. its gotten really easy to do it.. tab a into slot b sort of stuff. if your willing to hear me out or at least do a partial build (like most is assembled for you am you need to do is install 1-2 parts(id show you how)) please talk back.

both are good systems dont get me wrong but id probably not find a job better suited for them than media center on playing un demanding MMO's and bad console ports.

ionusX

cpu: core i5 2500k $220 (free shipping)

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072&cm_re=core_i5-_-19-115-072-_-Product

motherboard: Asrock H67M $105 (free shipping)

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157233

case + powersupply: rosewill destroyer w/ rosewill 500 watt power supply $90 (10 dollars shipping):

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.619207

generic lg dvd-rom sata $23 (free shipping):

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX24925(ME).aspx

seagate 1tb HDD $55 (free shipping):

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX32592(ME).aspx

memory: ddr3 4gb dual channel kit (corsair xms3 twin series) $47 (free shipping)

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX23994(ME).aspx

now comes the tricky part here we go!

windows 7 64-bit $120 (free shipping)

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX25758(ME).aspx

HIS hd 6950 2gb $275 (13 dollars shipping)

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161368

that leaves about 190 for handling and if you wanted to upgrade to core i7 or a better case

feel free to spend that as you wish on on a keyboard n mouse.. expect to play most any game you want maxed out at 1680 x 1200 and more or less the same thing at 1080p even before those changes

total atm is about 840-850ish

a solid effort on your part but what currency is this in? both are overpriced garbadge tbh.. yes they have most of what make a good gaming machine but they lack a very specific requierment which makes them .. NOT good gaming machines the video card.. video cards get lazily tossed around by the folks over at prebuilt dell, hp, emachine, etc and dont get the credit they deserve.

so here is wat i recommend.. you build it yourself.. its gotten really easy to do it.. tab a into slot b sort of stuff. if your willing to hear me out or at least do a partial build (like most is assembled for you am you need to do is install 1-2 parts(id show you how)) please talk back.

both are good systems dont get me wrong but id probably not find a job better suited for them than media center on playing un demanding MMO's and bad console ports.

ionusX

little to no difference omitting the 1100t the phenom II x6 line preforms the same as the x4's

I would recommend you to save money and go for an Intel Sandy bridge processor ( future proof) and preferible a Nvidia Graphics card Solid_Tango

hes got 900 to spend man and i openly recommended a 6900 seires and an i5 SB.. -.-

no reason to complain about those man while their are better gpu's i didnt want to push it as priced for psu's and cases are really bad here especially after shipping. ive seen power supplies up in the area of 70 bucks a pop after shipping for basic 500 watt's

I would recommend you to save money and go for an Intel Sandy bridge processor ( future proof) and preferible a Nvidia Graphics card Solid_Tango

hm? whats wrong with AMD graphics? Both nvidia and AMD have competitive graphics cards. But yah OP, make sure you build the computer yourself, we'll help you out if needed. By the end, you will have given up gaming on consoles, I guarantee it. The best looking ps3/xbox 360 games won't hold a candle compared to the pc.

[QUOTE="Solid_Tango"]I would recommend you to save money and go for an Intel Sandy bridge processor ( future proof) and preferible a Nvidia Graphics card ionusX

hes got 900 to spend man and i openly recommended a 6900 seires and an i5 SB.. -.-

no reason to complain about those man while their are better gpu's i didnt want to push it as priced for psu's and cases are really bad here especially after shipping. ive seen power supplies up in the area of 70 bucks a pop after shipping for basic 500 watt's

or heck just contact ultimategamer95 ere on gamespot.. she does builds.. shes a nice lady id trust her with my back any day.