i just switched out the nvs 315 for a 7570 amd radeon (it actually fitted my usff box) and cost 20 quid on ebay, results were on the new maps (VCity) now populated from 8-10 FPS to 35- 65 FPS, Dropzone nearly the same and a tall story hmm gotta work on that one its only the Bretoinia map and i think i know what it may be. all in all though what looks like a good buy at that price. Oh runs ARK at high with no lag now thats gotta be cool more on ebay if you have a small pc box and not rich

Nice one! I'm on a laptop so my plan for the future is to get a proper gaming laptop.

I am on a laptop as well and I have decided to build a super computer one piece at a time. I decided that the only way I will be able to get a machine that is suitable to build and play games is to have a desktop. I tried a gaming laptop and yes they are pretty good at games and GG but they are very heavy, the reason for this is that they are basically a desktop made into a laptop.

I took mine apart to have a look and it and it had a proper Graphics Card and CPU and because it is a squashed up desktop the power requirements are huge so it had to have a pretty powerful (heavy) battery. This said the only one I could afford was an older one but I looked at the newer ones and they are still pretty heavy.

Although maybe a different gaming laptop would be different, the one I had was an Alienware and there are other makes. If you do decide to buy a gaming laptop though make sure you take this into account because it is a lot of money to spend.

I did mention on quite a few occasions that the 315 wasn't a very good card if you remember :p Very glad you were able to get a better card to fit, hopefully i will make a world of difference to you

Its a much better investment to get a PC over a laptop if you're going to be gaming - the heat a gaming laptop produces will shut it down on hot days while at least with a PC you can do more to control it.
You can also upgrade a PC piece by piece and the monitor can be much bigger etc.

You also don't have to invest such a big amount all at once into a gaming PC, as long as you get a good motherboard you can add better parts as you can afford it.

Personally I just got a really cheap laptop which I use to watch TV and such for comfort and use my PC for gaming.

Yes smallg that is exactly why I am putting together a desktop.

Absolutely agree, laptops can be good, but they do have limitations, the biggest being the upgrade potential, there's only so far you can go with a laptop. But a desktop is a great investment that has the potential for continuous upgrades.

As smallg said you biggest priority to start with is to get as good and new a motherboard as you can afford, you can usually buy a motherboard kit with a low to mid end processor, the processor slot can usually take much higher end processors than supplied, and the kits usually come with the motherboard, processor and 4GB of memory. Coupled with a decent case and a good PSU the possibilities are immensely scale able from there.

For memory, most motherboards when new will come with at least 4GB, for graphics most good gaming motherboards will have at least usable built in graphics cards, and for storage you can pick up a standard SATAII HDD for peanuts now, with this base you have an adequate machine to keep you running until you can save for upgrades.

Then you just work through the components and get better as you can afford them.

Although i do on occasion build my own PC's, i've found that pcspecialist.co.uk are a very reasonable and reliable custom PC retailer, using their build forms you can have them build a PC to your own specs, and the great thing is if you choose things such as motherboard, case, and PSU carefully, you can have it built with the rest of the components at the lower end quite cheaply, then later when you have the money use their upgrade process to upgrade the parts.

I don't really have the space for a desktop PC. I will have to get some fans.

Really? A desktop can be quite small these days, although you run the risk of having graphics cards not fitting if you decide to build/get a smaller than usual one. Also you can generally tuck them under a desk or out the way (as long as you don't cut off it's air flow). These days you can attach them to a modern TV so you can probably use an existing TV rather than get a specific monitor. Space is far less of an issue these days. A gaming PC is also not going to be as good or as reliable as a desktop either, especially when run for hours at a time.

Still, it's your choice at the end of the day. Personally if I had only a laptop for everyday use, I'd have to take up another hobby.

Edit - One last thing. My PC is probably 12 years old now, possibly older. It still runs games better than my friends I5 laptop (much better, not even close). I have upgraded the video card about 4 times over those 12 years, so it's GPU processing is pretty up to date. Again an advantage that can help save you from buying another complete gaming PC 4 years down the line. Even if I had my original Graphics card, I reckon the I5 lappy would still be quite a bit slower.

Are you capable of building your own ?
You can build a PC hidden under a table, in a cupboard or even under a bed on a flat piece of board
Or if you want something more to blend in and look cool you could go a little further

Ive seen mods like that; just awesome and well thought out!

It wouldn't be the first time I have slapped together a PC in a drawer ....
Only Keyboard mouse and monitor on show

Yep my media machine is tucked away on the top shelf of a cupboard with a couple of fans keeping it cool. to fix it all i have to do is pull the shelf out and there it is. Who needs computer cases anyway.

Yeah Belidos its made a massive difference fps in the 60's most of the time now in GG and yeah m8 you did say that particular one bottlenecks so had to look very hard and wide to find a single slot card with decent performance as my case is the size of a cornflakes packet runs really sweet now even plays ARK on high graphics, next i think an upgrade to 16gb of ram and i think its nealy maxed the little machine out. I see alot of you guys are looking at new pc's (custom builds) the little itx boards are pretty good these days and are sooo tiny they are nearly the size of a raspberry pi . For me this 2nd user 20 quid card was a really good buy and if your on a low budget as i am with 3 kids all with birthdays in jan and feb (oh that really hurts at xmas and beyond) lol and at least now the fps is good enough to actually make the animations work correctly lol