Buying a new Gaming PC

[Professor S]

What is the best place to buy a gaming pc for ~$1,000? My old rig is dying a slow death after 5 years, and its time to buy new, and honestly building my own almost as expensive as buying from places like New Egg or Cyberpower.

My concern is that I want it to be well made, not packed with bloatware.

[TheSlyMoogle]

Honestly NewEgg has some decent deals as well as TigerDirect on pre-built gaming PCs.

However building your own rig is perhaps one of the most enjoyable experiences I can think of.

Figuring out what works on a budget, putting everything together, and then setting everything up on your own is beautiful.

Not only that, but you know the ins and outs of your PC at that point, so if anything goes wrong you know what's up when you need to fix it.

[Jason1]

I purchased one from Ibuypower.com a few months ago. I previously purchased from them quite a few years before that, and it was a good well built PC.

My only complaint is the shipping is a little slow. It was like 3 weeks from the time I placed the order til I actually received it in the mail. But I have had no problems with it, and there are a TON of options for configurations.

[Angrist]

Wouldn't it be cheaper to buy a $500 system and upgrade every 3 or 4 years?

[Blix]

My advice is to build your own rig. You have to do some research (which is always a good thing) and putting a computer together is easy and there's lots of videos and articles on youtube, ign and pretty much every computer website has an (obligatory) article on how to do it.


Edit: BTW Agrist, for $100 I think he can get a really good pc if he just reuses the case (the S&H on those is expensive) and maybe the hard drive and DVD burner. A really good gaming card goes for $300 and a good motherboard, I'd say, $200.

[magus113]

Originally Posted by Blix

My advice is to build your own rig. You have to do some research (which is always a good thing) and putting a computer together is easy and there's lots of videos and articles on youtube, ign and pretty much every computer website has an (obligatory) article on how to do it.


Edit: BTW Agrist, for $100 I think he can get a really good pc if he just reuses the case (the S&H on those is expensive) and maybe the hard drive and DVD burner. A really good gaming card goes for $300 and a good motherboard, I'd say, $200.

I think 300 for a good card is steep.

Maybe if you're doing nVidia rigs. nVidia cards are really expensive in my experience. I mean, I have an 8800 now since I haven't upgraded in about 2-3 years, but when I build my new rig, I'm going ATi. I just looked yesterday and an XFX 6750 with 1GB of GDDR5 256-bit RAM and Eyefinity for 170. That's a pretty damn good card, and if you're concerned about a little bit of future proofing a second one is pretty cheap so you can do CrossfireX with it.

CrosssfireX works a lot better for me too because SLi actually doesn't support dual monitors. I kinda need that, my PC doubles as a media center in my bedroom as well.

[Blix]

Originally Posted by magus113

I think 300 for a good card is steep.

Maybe if you're doing nVidia rigs. nVidia cards are really expensive in my experience. I mean, I have an 8800 now since I haven't upgraded in about 2-3 years, but when I build my new rig, I'm going ATi. I just looked yesterday and an XFX 6750 with 1GB of GDDR5 256-bit RAM and Eyefinity for 170. That's a pretty damn good card, and if you're concerned about a little bit of future proofing a second one is pretty cheap so you can do CrossfireX with it.

CrosssfireX works a lot better for me too because SLi actually doesn't support dual monitors. I kinda need that, my PC doubles as a media center in my bedroom as well.

I'm currently an ATI user. I am thinking of going with Nvidia because I always hear that their drivers are better and that they manage to mantain better FPS with higher Anti-aliasing. The 6950 (as far as I've heard) is where it's at. But at least up there, the competition is pretty close. I've heard that the 6850 is the best bang for your buck if you don't want to spend too much and that's $200 or less. I'm doing my research on Nvidia's cards but I haven't had much time. I know that Ati has problems in games like Dirt 3 where the drivers made the sun and the lighting be pink or something like that. But when Crysis 2 runs the way it should on Nvidia but had a significant performance problem on Ati cards, I really started believing what some dedicated PC builders were telling my about Nvidia and how it did some things better.

Overall it seems both companies have their strengths and weaknesses. I might change my mind back but I want to try the Nvidia cards next time. I'm buying a new card at the end of the year ( I hope) since i need a card that's DX11 ready and my 4890 is holding me back on that matter.

[magus113]

Originally Posted by Blix

I'm currently an ATI user. I am thinking of going with Nvidia because I always hear that their drivers are better and that they manage to mantain better FPS with higher Anti-aliasing. The 6950 (as far as I've heard) is where it's at. But at least up there, the competition is pretty close. I've heard that the 6850 is the best bang for your buck if you don't want to spend too much and that's $200 or less. I'm doing my research on Nvidia's cards but I haven't had much time. I know that Ati has problems in games like Dirt 3 where the drivers made the sun and the lighting be pink or something like that. But when Crysis 2 runs the way it should on Nvidia but had a significant performance problem on Ati cards, I really started believing what some dedicated PC builders were telling my about Nvidia and how it did some things better.

Overall it seems both companies have their strengths and weaknesses. I might change my mind back but I want to try the Nvidia cards next time. I'm buying a new card at the end of the year ( I hope) since i need a card that's DX11 ready and my 4890 is holding me back on that matter.

The drivers thing is probably an issue cause I'm sure I've heard about things like that from ATi users, but you also have to understand that when games are coded specifically for nVidia cards, it's all marketing bullshit. How can you expect things to run perfectly when you're not doing your job as a developer and making games that run well on all hardware, driver issues aside? There's a money thing happening behind the scenes, I'm sure of it. Why else would games be marketed with nVidia as "the way it's meant to be played"?

I have friends that are currently ATi users and they haven't had issues running anything current so who knows. I just don't like paying a lot of money for cards that can run just as well for something that costs almost twice as much.

[magus113]

Side note to Blix:

I also don't really support anti-aliasing, since most games run fine when you're playing them at your monitor's native resolution and don't really need it. I start seeing the jaggies when I have to force something to run at something that isn't the native resolution of my monitor at home.

But that's me and what I see when I play my games on my PC at home.

[KillerGremlin]

I used to be an Nvidia devotee but they totally fucked over a large number of users by not making or supporting drivers on a ton of Vista-gen cards. I know that Vista was a hardware-software nightmare for everyone, but Nvidia has some shady dealings with companies like Dell and their driver support is so-so to the point that the mod community has supplemented a ton of Nvidia drivers.

I can't speak about ATI's evils since I'm not as experienced, but I have heard good things about their cards and I'm sure you are fine either way.



@Prof S: If you go here: http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCateg...0&Order=RATING

For not a lot of beans you can get a pretty sweet pre-built machine these days. Obviously you have more control over the finer details if you build yourself, but if there has ever been a time in history where buying pre-built is almost as good as building yourself, it would be today.

The reality is that if you buy a manufactured PC you are going to see _SOME_ corners cut. So go with the reviews and the price and the spces you want. The PC gaming video curve seems to have hit a bit of a lull, so any card made within the past 2 or 3 years should tackle any recent game. If you want to play the killer game coming out in 2 years you'll want a top of the line GPU set up.

My advice is to chop 150 off your PC price and invest in buying Windows...this way you can just reformat the PC from the get-go and wipe out all the crap and bloatware that is going to come installed.

[manasecret]

I just built my new PC last October. I work with a bunch of engineers who pride themselves on building and getting the best PCs, and don't mind paying $3000+ for them. I play a bunch of games with them.

I paid ~$970 and it outruns all of theirs. While they spend a bunch of their time troubleshooting why it's not running very fast and keeping it from overheating, I have had zero problems with mine. I play Starcraft 2 and Civ 5 and Portal 2 on the highest settings with no slowdown.

Here's exactly what I bought:

1 x Rosewill Blackbone Black Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
1 x ASUS P7P55D LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard
1 x XFX HD-487A-ZWFC Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
1 x Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor BX80605I5750
1 x OCZ Vertex Series OCZSSD2-1VTX60G 2.5" 60GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
1 x G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9S-4GBRL
1 x ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 92mm Fluid Dynamic CPU Cooler
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - OEM
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue WD10EALS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
1 x Sony Optiarc CD/DVD Burner Black SATA Model AD-7261S-0B LightScribe Support - OEM
1 x 2.5" to 3.5" converter (for the SSD drive, get the cheapest one you can find)
1 x ~700W OCZ power supply

Sorry, Newegg isn't good about linking your old orders to actual products. Just look for the equivalent versions that are still sold now, and you are golden.

Whichever way you go, make sure you SPEND EXTRA ON AN SSD DRIVE. It doesn't have to be big, 60 GB minimum will do though I recommend 120 GB as it does quickly run out for games. You're just putting the OS and any other programs you can fit on there, and regardless of how much you spend on all other parts, THAT ALONE will make your new PC the zippiest computer you have ever had.

EDIT: I added the power supply. I reused my very good OCZ one from my old PC, the only thing I reused.

Speaking of which... would anyone like to purchase the very best AGP videocard ever made? I give you good price my friend.

[Professor S]

While I appreciate all of the advice, you people are too fucking complicated.

How about this: I post the PCs I'm interested in, you you techno-people rate them in terms of value and running most games at max settings at 1920x1080 on the 23in monitor. Keep in mind, I need this to run MS Office for work as well.

Here is the one I'm leaning towards:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883229253

Here is another I'm interest in with a better processor:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883229262

Does the i5 2500k processor enhance gaming on any significant level, or will the GPU and RAM do the real work?

[Blix]

Originally Posted by magus113

The drivers thing is probably an issue cause I'm sure I've heard about things like that from ATi users, but you also have to understand that when games are coded specifically for nVidia cards, it's all marketing bullshit. How can you expect things to run perfectly when you're not doing your job as a developer and making games that run well on all hardware, driver issues aside? There's a money thing happening behind the scenes, I'm sure of it. Why else would games be marketed with nVidia as "the way it's meant to be played"?

I have friends that are currently ATi users and they haven't had issues running anything current so who knows. I just don't like paying a lot of money for cards that can run just as well for something that costs almost twice as much.

Maybe the games being coded with one company in mind has something to do with it. But there's also games with "Runs better with ATI" on them. Nvidia will have the series 600 out by the time I have money to buy a new card and Ati will have the 78XX series too. I'll check them both out later and decide. I don't have much time to do a proper research and even less interest because I have no money for them atm.

[magus113]

I'm saving my money for until about October/November for BF3 and to be closer to the time where Intel is gonna start releasing 22nm dies on their processors. The Sandy Bridge-E processors are absurd, but they're only for the new LGA 2011 socket that's not coming out yet, and let's add that since it's a new socket, it's going to need a new motherboard which will probably be expensive.

Let's see how much I can actually save to decide how crazy of a computer I want to get.

I have nowhere near enough money to do so now though. Especially with my car payments.

[TheSlyMoogle]

Originally Posted by Professor S

While I appreciate all of the advice, you people are too fucking complicated.

How about this: I post the PCs I'm interested in, you you techno-people rate them in terms of value and running most games at max settings at 1920x1080 on the 23in monitor. Keep in mind, I need this to run MS Office for work as well.

Here is the one I'm leaning towards:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883229253

Here is another I'm interest in with a better processor:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883229262

Does the i5 2500k processor enhance gaming on any significant level, or will the GPU and RAM do the real work?

It's mostly your graphics card and RAM that are doing the real work with gaming.

I have been running AMD for years in my PCs and have never had a problem. To be really honest my roommate is running a PC with one of the i7 processors and I swear it takes him at least 30 seconds more to load everything in games.

I honestly couldn't justify spending an extra like 120 dollars on the second rig. I would say go for the first, but either one will be good for you probably for at least 4-5 years of gaming, maybe even more than that.

Your basic question is "Can it run Crysis 2?"

Yes. Yes it can. At maximum settings.

As for Microsoft office, you'll definitely be fine. Lol.

AND ALSO THIS:

http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/2...ents-revealed/