Greenwood

Had SSDs before in RAID (2 drives), it's very impressive but I'm trying to keep the cost down big time, I couldn't conscience SSDs at this point. The fast HD will do, bear in mind I've been on a laptop with 5400rpm HDD for a while now

Yep went too far down the responsible dad route, ended up getting a R9 380 in the end, equiv to 960 but will be able to crossfire at a later date (when they enable it and i buy a second card). Cheap/friendly mobo doesnt support SLI. I've also bought the AOC 24" 1080p FREESYNC 75hz gaming monitor to boot which obv. wouldnt work with a nvidia card, their equiv gsync tech being oh-so-much more expensive. It's all ordered and enroute! R9 380 + freesync should be quite decent!

Gents, thanks for your time. No further input required, machine ordered. For those curious, I managed to get (for about 400 quid, not inc. monitor) FX 6300 AMD CPU (6 core) 8 GB ram 500w EVGA psu DVDR 750gb 7200rpm Western digital black HD AMD R9 380 (equiv nvidia 960) A motherboard with 2 pci-express 2.0 slots for future crossfire if NA supports it (does it, btw??) A custom CPU cooler Windows 8.1 with free upgrade to 10 (giving me a fallback option if 10 presents issues). thanks again. G

Hi, as per OP I'm looking to spend about £500 (UK). The computer isn't for gaming and future proofness, it'll be for a bit of work and NA, I'm not looking to the future with it I don't have designs to play the latest and greatest when they're released.

Hi all, Naval Action broke my laptop. 5 minutes in game and it died, overheated, won't boot ever again. Thanks unoptimised code (handled WoWS and PoExile no probs for hours on end - well ventilated!) - devs you need to offer some sort of laptop melting compensation by way of free 1st rate deeds or something, I'm not alone. I've been managing unhappily on my laptop for a while, not wanting to spend, having not played NA for about 4 months or so (played it on a gaming laptop since sold), now we're in a good place with the game/software and I need to get heavily involved I want a desktop computer, I'm in the UK (for retail purposes), I don't want to spend more than £500 or so, I realise I won't be playing on HD+ ultra settings. What would you recommend? GPU - I haven't had an AMD card for about 10 years so I think it's time to give them some of my cash... looking at the R9 380 or perhaps a bit less powerful, but in that region. Anyone with any experience of this card with NA I'd be keen to hear your thoughts. CPU - This is the biggie for Uni engine I believe, I realize intel are head and shoulders above AMD with certain engines, e.g. total war, I appreciate this engine might be one of them, how BIG is the different though? AMD are so much cheaper... This is the bit I really want advice on, anyone with experience of benchmarks of CPUs for NA please chime in. Otherwise I think we need to create a NA benchmark thread, it's a mine field esp. with the unoptimized code throwing a spanner in the works. FREESYNC - Anyone with experience of this? Anyone know of any good etailers otherwise I might try and get a second hand rig off ebay Thanks in advance, VincentJ

Vincent Jervis checking in. Anyone out there (who I know?) Recognise Garbad, obviously, was there in beta before it even went gold! G