Hi, I'm getting a new desktop and I would like to play Sims 3 mostly and if possible Gray Matter. Is this sufficient?

Desktop

It will play, but may be slow. The memory bandwidth on a GT 520 is only 14.4 GB PS. I installed the game on my Sony laptop (with a 7600 GT @ 24 GB PS) and was able to bring the game to a crawl enabling all the bells and whistles.

Are you talking about Gray Matter or Sims 3 because Sims 3 is the one I'd like most.

Are there any others then that are below $700 on tigerdirect that would be better? The one I sent you I was going to add another 4gb DDR3 to to make 8GB.

That wouldn't make any difference at all to games. 4GB is already more than they need. The only thing that's going to count is the video card. Most computers that you buy in local stores are not going to have video cards that are great for games. Especially for under $700.

You can find a few iBUYPOWER PC's at Newegg for around $800.00. But that about the minimum you can expect to pay for a gaming rig.

I've never dealt with them, so I can't vouch for their reliability - here's an example of what you can expect for that price range.

iBUYPOWER Gamer Extreme 932i Desktop PC

Would this one be okay too? This also has the same ATI HD 5770 or is the processor not as good?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7221312&CatId=1887


Sorry, I'm not very savvy with PC lingo

That should be adequate to play the game. The processor is an AMD quad core and should keep up as well.

I haven’t seen any direct comparisons to the Core i5 series, so I can’t say off the top of my head just how they stack up next to each other. I’ll see if I can find some numbers.

That says 5770, not 5570.
Quite a difference there.

Okay, thank you so much for your help so far. I must sound like such a noob

@Jenny Oops! Is it still okay? I hope. My laptop has Intel HD Graphics and keeps crashing Sims 3 (not gaming laptop) so if this could play Sims 3 even on medium settings I'd be happy.

Didn't see that one... The 5570 will play the game; it’s actually faster than my 7600 GT (which plays adequately at the default settings).

I found a set of numbers for each processor - the AMD is rated about half that of the core i5.

Is that bad? The only game I really need/want to play is Sims 3. Otherwise it doesn't have to be over the top.

It should keep up with those games.

Okay, thank you so much for not treating me like the noob that I am

I really appreciate it!