Good morning.

I am new on here and to the game, played 5 day demo and have waited fr a few months before buying this game. I have been a mac boy for years (trysty little power book G4) and finally had to bite the bullet and build PC so I can finally play this game. i have had a custom machine built:

Configuration

* CPU: Intel® Core™ i3 540 3.06GHZ 4MB L3 Cache LGA1156
* HDD: 750GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD
* MOTHERBOARD: GigaByte P55M-UD2 Intel P55 Chipset CrossFireX DDR3 ATX Mainboard w/ 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, USB2.0, SATA-II RAID, 2 Gen2 PCIe, 2 PCIe X1 & 3 PCI
* MEMORY: 2GB (2x1GB) PC12800 DDR3/1600mhz Dual Channel Memory
* 600 W PSU

now I am not a pc expert and a mate helped me build this. what I need folks is graphics cards (and monitor later) I have been trawling reviews, this website , toms hardware ect and I am looking at either the gtx 260...which seems to be fading out or not being made as much, or the gtx 460. their near enough the same price. I currently have a 600 W PSU so know I will probably need to upgrade to 700 if getting the 460. the company that has build this however has said to go for ATI 5770 as less power requirements and close to gts 250 / gtx 260

now if i am aiming way too high then tell me. considering this will be the main and only game for time being then maybe a smaller card like 9800 or 250 would be fine, or settle for the 5770

i am just confused. i feel the 460 would be good and worth the investment. slightly worried about settings and resolution but can do that later, but i dont want to make the machine like the USS Defiant....overpowered and over gunned for a ship that size"

budget is around 600 quid really - the system i have bought was 400, so 200 for gpu and monitor

if any of you wonderful folk out there can put me out my misery then I would greatly appreciate it.

regards

McPeedster

The GTX 460 handles this game very, very well I've played it on maximum settings without any slowdown whatsoever, it is a power hungry beast though & managed to blow my 600W power supply after an hour or two on highest settings! Not a problem encountered on my replacement 850 PSU though. I would recommend upping the memory too, to 4Gb, 2Gb just isn't quite enough to steam along at full speed.

If you are planning on using Crossfire though (2 or more graphics cards) then it would be worth looking at the ATI cards as Crossfire is specific to them!

Hello

thanks for responding to me, appreciate the help. I had a horrid feeling someone would say more Ram. thats another £40 odd quid. the 460 will be £140 and upgrade to 700W im looking £40. the things we do to play these games but im not looking at crossfire....well not this stage. as I said I am not great with PC's so when is together I hope it will be set for the next year or so. I think my ps3 will start to feel left out

I spoke to the company making building my PC, they still recommend using ATI 5770. however the forums on here stated that you have to take off AA and make so many other adjustments to lets the 5700's and 5800's work.

but glad to hear the 460 is a good bet. its looking more like NVIDEA card for me to be honest. just need to pick the 250 or the 460 me thinks.

cheers

Sorry for asking a stupid question that is probably really obvious but I'm looking to buy a new PC and I was wondering if this http://www.eflexcomputers.com/produc...gaming-pc.html would be powerful enough to be able to play Star Trek with decent graphics settings and be able too run it smoothly.

Thanks!

Onboard video from anything less than core i3 just won't cut it, and the 450 watt power supply doesn't leave much power for an add in video card. The CPU is a bit overkill, any multicore at 2ghz or better should be fine. Either look for a core i3 or i5, or a core 2 duo with a 550 or 600 watt power supply and GTS 250 video card.

In that case can anyone give me a link to a fairly cheap gaming rig that can still play Star Trek Online?

i only have link for Europe/Germany ... i this helps you ... 800 Euro are more then enough for a good enough PC for STO ...

http://www.alternate.de/html/categor...ames+Hardware&

http://www.alternate.de/html/product...e&l2=Alternate

or from UK

http://www.amazon.co.uk/shinobee-Gam...5242410&sr=1-1

Thanks I've been looking all over for a cheap gaming rig and thanks to you i have finally found one.

Thanks a Million