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| Thread: Does anyone have any gaming computer shopping advice? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Celfious
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From earth
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posted November 14, 2013 10:37 PM |
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Edited by Celfious at 22:41, 14 Nov 2013.
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You can get a laptop or tower under 400$ that will load -at least most various games well. As much as mvass probably hates walmart, I know surely you can get one that works there -
Ebay is a good choice too but unfortunately there are so many options where even finding complete sets (monitor SPEAKER mouse keyboard tower etc) you can still have trouble determining if the specs are what you need.
At least in retail I was able to ask an associate who didn't actually know, buy it anyways, then take it back for one that had this AMD... Which is where I would say call first to see if someone actually knows and seems willing to assist you in presenting viable options.
maybe someone here
can link to a computer on the internet that would work for you - and has buyer protection.
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JoonasTo
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posted November 15, 2013 05:55 AM |
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Edited by JoonasTo at 05:56, 15 Nov 2013.
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Sorry to disappoint mvass, but that's not enough to max games at 2560 now. It will lack in power to play them at 2560 in the future.
Also, yeah, the speakers will eat away further into the budget so that monitor will be too expensive.
One thing you might want to consider is buying a mediocre system, around $1000 now and setting the rest of the money aside, just upgrading it as you go on. That way, you will have more longevity out of the build later on.
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mvassilev
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posted November 15, 2013 06:09 AM |
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Crysis 3 is an unusually demanding game, and 30 FPS is playable, anyway.
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JoonasTo
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What if Elvin was female?
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posted November 15, 2013 06:37 AM |
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That is not maxed out, no AA, for example, and one should be looking for few years into the future, for which, Crysis 3 is a good indicator.
Speakers should be around $100-250 btw. $250-500 for surround. For low end stuff that's "good enough". Headphones are an option depending on his living circumstances too.
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JoonasTo
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What if Elvin was female?
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posted November 15, 2013 07:49 AM |
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Something I put together half-assedly but that should serve you well into the future and provide good upgrade possibilities.
This does not have a monitor because we do not know your workstation specifics. If you sit close or far, whether you have space for a large one, what aspect ratio you prefer etc.
Note that this one can still have the monitor mvass suggested and comes about even while including speakers and more gaming performance. You can achieve this by skimping on the other features, like wifi, quality of the mouseoukeyboard, overclocking tools etc.
If you want to, you can add a cheap 21-inch monitor to that and have a really good $1500 gaming configuration. 
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DoubleDeck
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posted November 15, 2013 08:51 AM |
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A good way to get a top notch gaming PC is to look at the individual parts and then get a reputable but cheaper company to build it.
I did this Oct 2012 and have:
- i7 with 6 cores 3930k
- 16 GB RAM
- GeForce GTX 690 (4GB ram!)
- Asus P9X79 deluxe motherboard
- 750W power supply
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JollyJoker
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posted November 15, 2013 09:34 AM |
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No matter whether you build or buy, your components must fit - it makes no sense to go for say, a high-end video card and a regular motherboard or hard disk drive.
The main differences between a desktop and a notebook is, that a high-end desktop is better, but a desktop (considering that you need a monitor, a keyboard and so on as well) won't be cheaper, when you want more performance than a notebook can give you.
No matter WHAT you buy, NEVER go for the most expensive solution; ALWAYS go for HIGH-END - and there for the best bang-for-the-buck.
No matter what you buy, 8 GB of RAM is not enough. RAM isn't that expensive, and even what I'd consider a MEDIUM good gaming rig should have at least 16 GB of RAM. There is no discussion here.
Also, if you go for 16 GB, consider buying one 16-GB chip (instead of 2 8 GB). This will be more expensive, but also allow simple upgrading to 32, without having to waste what you have.
Video Cards and CPUs are only the tip of the iceberg.
WHILE THEY SHOULD BE HIGH END, THEY ARE NOT GUARANTEEING PERFORMANCE. The other components must be up to it as well.
Good picks for a desktop are the mentioned Radeon 290, although this one is quite expensive. Comparable would be the Nvidia 780. The budget card would be an Nvidia 770 with 4 Gigs of memory.
With CPUs the choice is between AMD and Intel. If you consider the Radeon Video Card, I'd go for an AMD 9XXX, the decision which one being based on budget alone. The 9370 would be the reasonable solution.
With an Nvidia card an Intel CPU may be better. Here your choice is between an i5 and an i7. I would go for the i7 4770.
You should go either for an Intel/Nvidia solution OR for an AMD/ATI solution, but not for a mix.
Consider two hard disks. I think, at the moment there is no way round the Samsung SSDs, which are a quantum leap in terms of access time. No matter what you buy, whether desktop or notebook, consider a 250 GB Samsung Evo 840 plus a regular one for simple storage (the Evo would be the one to install the games on).
Then there is the motherboard, VERY important, quite expensive, if it is to be good. Basioally the choice would be between an Asus and an MSI board, for example Asus Z87 plus or one of the MSI Z87 Gaming boards.
Don't save money when buying the CPU Cooler!
Don't save money with the cooling fan either!
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Adrius
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posted November 15, 2013 10:41 AM |
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Edited by Adrius at 10:42, 15 Nov 2013.
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Sitting on 4GB RAM myself  zero issues.
Don't get the RAM craze, it's so cheap so yeah why not get loads of it, but unless you like to to do video editing while splitcreening Metro or something I don't see how 16 (!!!) is so vital.
More is better, but what's enough?
That said I don't play games like Crysis 3 or the newer BF so I dunno, maybe it's needed there.
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JoonasTo
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posted November 15, 2013 10:52 AM |
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At these times I just consider stopping posting in these topics completely./facepalm
BTW. I checked five first google results for gaming computers in the states and a similar setup to what I posted up there is around $400 more expensive. So that's around a 20% extra for work and support on top of parts. If you consider that worth it then forget about this thread and give one of them a call.
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DoubleDeck
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posted November 15, 2013 10:58 AM |
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It's expensive keeping one's PC up-to-date. Every 5 years I upgrade.
But I prefer it to those cheap consoles!
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JollyJoker
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posted November 15, 2013 12:18 PM |
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It depends on the games you want to play: Battlefield 4, Crysis 3 and so on are heavy on the hardware, but for the rest you don't need that much power.
With today's development times for games a good machine will last very long without the need to update. I do NOT play any kind of action shooters and the Samsung R780 notebook I bought 3 1/2 years ago for 900 € still works fine on any of the games I like to play, including HoMM 6 and HoMM 5 with RPE mod.
With the new Haswell Intel CPUs just out, prices have gone up. I wanted to buy a notebook for work with a 3rd generation i7 and had my hands on a 2.2 i7 with 8 GB ram and an Nvidia 740 GT for under 600 €, but the seller couldn't deliver anymore.
If I want to have a comparable machine NOW, I will have to pay 800 €.
Also, the Xmas business is up, and as much as they throw TVs at you, as much the prices for computers are high, so I would wait until after Xmas anyway.
There is also the Haswell bug (with USB 3.0 devices), so waiting makes sense anyway.
It's also of note that, if you go for a desktop, the AMD FX CPUs seem to be better than the Intels when it comes to gaming
With a notebook, though, there seems to be no alternative for an Intel CPU.
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Raelag84
Famous Hero
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posted November 15, 2013 04:17 PM |
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Wow! There is a lot of advice here. It will take a while to sort it all out.
Just to clarify I am ok with graphics not being pristine, and I do not play crysis, but I would like to be able to play new releases for many years for my dollar. It seems the advice is all there though.
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JoonasTo
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What if Elvin was female?
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posted November 15, 2013 05:24 PM |
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Then I'd recommend putting more money on the peripherals and cpu that will last you for a long time and less on short lived or easily added parts like memory, graphics card and hard drives.
This will be the most longest lasting order:
- Speakers/headphones depending on what you prefer, hifi does not age practically at all so can't go wrong spending a little extra here.
- Monitor, while monitors do develop constantly at a rapid pace, it is very unlikely that you will be buying another monitor untill very much later(unless you decide to add a second one) so you will be stuck with the one you choose for a looooooong time
- CPU, go for a high i5, this will keep you gaming 5-years into the future minimum, probably longer, also, replacing your CPU is the single largest change you can do to your computer so this will be the base you are updating your computer around later, don't want it to start bottlenecking your build too soon
Least important to consider:
- Memory, get a single 8GB and that's it. Memory is currently very expensive and anythign beyond 8GB is no use in regular gaming at the moment. When future games start needing more, you can easily upgrade up to 32GB should you need to. For a much lower price than if you bought it today.
- Hard drives, HDD space is very cheap now. SSD space is not. For maximum usability you really want an SSD but since this is mainly a gaming computer, you will need that space for multiple games that SSDs simply don't offer at a competitive price at the moment. That's why, you will want to get a 2TB HDD for now. They come cheap and do well in loading large amounts of data that games need. Later as SSDs come down in price you will probably want to get one but for now, not worth it at the price.
-GPU, graphics card is the single most defining part of your gaming computer when it comes to power. It is also by far the faster aging part of it. This means that buying a good card now, will be way more expensive than constantly upgrading to (relatively) new medium lvel cards. So this is more of a question how low are you willing to go now, to have better parts elsewhere. Graphic cards are very, very expensive, even though AMD did push the prices down by a huge margin.
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mvassilev
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posted November 15, 2013 05:54 PM |
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JollyJoker said:
You should go either for an Intel/Nvidia solution OR for an AMD/ATI solution, but not for a mix.
Not true. Intel is better (for gaming) even if you use an AMD graphics card. (Also, there's no more ATI.)
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Zenofex
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posted November 15, 2013 06:29 PM |
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Edited by Zenofex at 18:36, 15 Nov 2013.
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JoonasTo said:
R9 290 is currently so ridiculously ahead of every other card in price/performance ratio that any gaming computer above 1000 dollars should have one.
Nowadays it's not so much about which piece of hardware does better in general but about for which piece of hardware is a given software optimised. There seems to be a nice semi-official trend certain companies to optimise their software products for the hardware of certain vendors only or mainly (say, only for Intel, or only for Nvidia) and this is especially true in the gaming industry. Also, a terribly optimised junk like the latest Total War for instance will put more pressure on the CPU than on the GPU so even the latest gen video card does not guarantee that you'll get good performance.
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JollyJoker
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Undefeatable Hero
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posted November 15, 2013 08:00 PM |
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mvassilev said:
JollyJoker said:
You should go either for an Intel/Nvidia solution OR for an AMD/ATI solution, but not for a mix.
Not true. Intel is better (for gaming) even if you use an AMD graphics card. (Also, there's no more ATI.)
Sorry, you are wrong. I'm not going to link to German or other articles - if you are really interested you will find a multitude of test results that will see the AMD FX cpus AHEAD of the intels when it comes to games like Crysis 3.
The AMD 9XXX cpus are really, really good - and obviously the Radeon video cards will perform well with them.
Also, if you are into LINUX. the AMD chips nearly double their performance.
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mvassilev
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Undefeatable Hero
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posted November 15, 2013 09:43 PM |
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Here's a non-German review of the FX-9590. It's expensive, but it's beaten quite significantly by the much cheaper 4670k in single-threaded applications, is roughly even with the cheaper 4770k in multi-threaded applications, and is usually beaten by the 4770k in gaming. Also, its power consumption is absurdly high. The gaming tests were done with an NVIDIA graphics card, and I can't find anything that compares a 9000-series AMD processor and AMD graphics card to an Intel processor and graphics card, but this is already pretty damning for AMD.
I'd like a source for the assertion about Linux, as well.
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Fauch
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Undefeatable Hero
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posted November 16, 2013 04:05 AM |
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DoubleDeck said:
It's expensive keeping one's PC up-to-date. Every 5 years I upgrade.
But I prefer it to those cheap consoles!
well, with consoles you are sure of what you will be able to run. I guess splitscreen would have been an argument too, like 10 years ago. 
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Celfious
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Legendary Hero
From earth
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posted November 16, 2013 04:39 AM |
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Edited by Celfious at 04:54, 16 Nov 2013.
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Rae,
what kind of $$$s are you trying to put fourth, I get the impression you're not looking for one of these dual super core magma processor water cooled elite board X5000.omega series lol
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DoubleDeck
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posted November 16, 2013 07:10 AM |
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Fauch said:
DoubleDeck said:
It's expensive keeping one's PC up-to-date. Every 5 years I upgrade.
But I prefer it to those cheap consoles!
well, with consoles you are sure of what you will be able to run. I guess splitscreen would have been an argument too, like 10 years ago.
It's just that I'm a keyboard/mouse player, always have been and always will! Besides I am a Crysis and high tech game player, pushing the graphics to max and anti-aliasing is fantastic for eye candy compared to limited consoles. Well let's see what PS4 can bring to be table, maybe then gaming companies can push their games now and aren't "limited" anymore.
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