worth a flop?

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★ Black Lounger ★
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ive been bouncing around the idea of getting a new pc for a while now, my current one is showing its age and despite all the fixins ive put in it (new HDD, tripled the memory, and a new graphics card) it still isnt good for much else.

i figure now that my 360 has starting eating my games for breakfast, theres no time like the present.

for gaming its not exactly a powerhouse, out of the box it could run the HL engine at a smooth 99-100 fps (even though the monitors refresh rate was much much lower o_O) nowadays its a jumpy 40-60, and even spikes down to below 20 sometimes if alot is going on. HL2 demo was playable, but i had to turn everything way way down, i could also run ut2k3 but outside of regular deathmatch i was always choking up and getting 5-10 second freezes at random intervals.

building one is out of the question, the person who was going to help me last time moved to Alaska to live with his wife's family (pussy whipped *******)

ive been looking around on best buy/wal mart for the christmas specials and ive found a few that perk my interest but alas i may be severely underestimating how much of a resource hog vista is.

this was the first one that caught my eye, and yes im well aware of how cheap it is
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=8154910

but i dont understand the pci slots on it, clarity here would be helpful, the last time i pruchased a computer PCI express didnt exist, also are enough available to upgrade later on?

there are others, but im not really sure what im looking for to be honest.

i dont expect to able to run gears of war, or crysis on any computer within my budget, at least not on high settings. but i at least want to be able to play lets say Doom3 with decent settings, or something near it(not planning on getting it, but im setting that as a benchmark)


of course this could all be for naught, im calling xbox tech guys soon, if what i tell them warrants a return/repair i may give mass effect another go.
 
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Don't read this, skip to the edit -.-

I don't understand how the website lists them. o_O

"Expansion Slots Total (Free): 1 ( 0 ) x processor ¦ 4 ( 3 ) x memory - DIMM 240-pin ¦ 2 ( 2 ) x PCI ¦ 1 ( 1 ) x PCI Express x1 ¦ 1 ( 1 ) x PCI Express x16 "

Does that mean that you have 2 PCI slots used and 2 open? 1 PCI-E slot used and 1 open, and 1 PCI-Ex16 slot used and one open?

Or, more likely, if I look at how the processor's listed, 2 slots total, 2 taken? Which would mean that it's gonna be hard adding stuff without taking the current stuff out. I think, and I could be wrong, that the way the website lists those specifications, that you have no more PCI slots to fill, but you do have 3 extra slots for more memory.

I think.

EDIT: Hm, after reading the website again I think that you might have those amounts of slots open. It says "Total (Free)", so I think you have 4 PCI slots open - 2 PCI slots, 1 PCI-E slot, and one PCI-Ex16 slot. Which I guess should be enough for some upgrading, should you need it.
 
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★ Black Lounger ★
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im reading practically everywhere that 1gb of memory is just enough to run vista, and not much else.

if i was to purchase this pc and double it up to 2gb (if possible, i didnt look)
would it be half decent for a casual pc gamer?

i was using doom 3 as a benchmark, but in reality at most i would be using it for is maybe HL2 and some mods, maybe some ut2k3-4, and lets say a WoW.

would i be able to run all of these at max settings without slugishness?
 
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Double that RAM and I'd say yes. You'd have pretty much a 4000 Mhz Dual-Core with 2 gigs of ram. Only thing that means nothing to me is the video card. But besides that, yeah, I think it'll run fine.
 
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I have a laptop running Vista on 1gb of ram, but it helps a LOT to have at least 2. Vista will run decently with 1 gig, but only if you don't do anything crazy. So, get 2 gigs, you'll thank us later.
 

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