I am (finally) able to serious consider getting a new PC and would like to hear suggestions from gamers about what systems are good, reliable, and able to run the current crop of PC games coming out. What are the minimal chip sets, PC models, etc.,
... and, of course, the graphics cards.
Unless someone convinces me otherwise, i will probably go to newegg to actually order it.
Appreciate the wisdom and experience of people on these forums...
edit; games = EWOM / FE, Distant Worlds (next one - in development), Witcher 2, ES5 - Skyrim, Sword of the Stars (next one), etc
Maybe streaming video off the internet.
PC = prefer desktop....
If I were to pay someone to put one together from new parts.. assemble, etc.
Desktop* or Laptop? What price range would you like it to fit in?
* If desktop, does it have to be prebuilt or would it be possible to buy individual parts?
On graphics cards, ATI card are better buys for price vs. proformance (at least when they are new), but NVIDIA cards will give you less grief because it is easer to work around their issues. (With NVIDIA, when one card has an issue it is likely they all do, but with ATI errors are specific to the card).
16 GB of RAM** and 1 GB of dedicated Video RAM should be considered a MINIMUM.
** If you feel up to switching out the RAM, you can cut back here. Just make sure the Motherboard supports enough. RAM is the simplest thing to change later.
Depends on the game. Something like Rift is so much better optimized on Nvidia hardware that the price/actual performance isn't even close to what the benchmarks will tell you.
Unless one knows exactly what games will be played on the machine, price and power are the things to look at..
The 560 ti is an excellent performance card for the price, don't write them off for budget gaming machines. There are stock overclocked models that perform nearly as well as the top of the line 580, while being <$300 If you're going cheaper, you'll probably want to look at second gen ATI though, not much competition in the $100-200 range.
As far as processors go, I'd get a Sandybridge. A $300 processor that competes well with the thousand dollar flagship line for Nehalem is damn hard to compete with. The i5 2500k is only a couple hundred bucks for a quad core 3.3.
I put one together myself a couple months back, about a grand for a 120gb ssd, 8gb of ddr3 1600, the 2500k, a mobo, and a 560 ti.
Not really, because Rift isn't an exceptional case. More games are optimized for Nvidia then for ATI, so unless you know something you want specifically runs badly on Nvidia parts, they're the safer way to go.
Quick run down to expand on this:
- Really good gaming laptop ~ $2200 (based on looking for a laptop for my younger brother)
- An even better desktop that is assembled for you `~ $1900 (based on searching I did previously on Newegg looking at what I would get if I were to make my own + what is availible from a company I like that builds computers [same as for the laptop])
- The parts I selected on Newegg would come to $552 before shipping and rebate. Very similar to the above, only AMD based instead of Intel (equivalant speed) and holds less RAM (16 instead of 32). Besides that I had not* selected a GPU, RAM, or a disc drive. And the pre-made includes Windows and an SSD in addition to the normal HDD. All that would likely bring it up to about $1400** depending upon part selection.
* I had, but they were to be placeholders to be upgraded later.
** $200 for Windows 7 Pro, ~ $110 to $130 for a similar SSD, ~ $100 for a Blu-Ray Burner (That is what I selected on the above, though not getting one would not have lowered the price more that $25), ~ $200 to $300 for the GPU, and ~ $140 for the RAM.
I got my latest gaming rig through ecollegepc. Good customizability, good prices, great customer service. With no time/interest in putting together the pc myself, this was a very reasonable option.
Good hunting.
Groovy
Sorry, but this is insane. Can you name ONE game that allocates more than 4GB of RAM? Hell, most still fit into 2GB limit, because it's a hard coded maximum for Windows XP. Buying heaps of RAM that will just sit idle there is not very cost effective - unless you want to run games from Ramdisk. I bought 8GB only because I wanted to run Arma2 from ramdisk, but otherwise, I think 4GB is enough for most games, and 8GB should be a comfortable overkill.
Ad original topic - Witcher 2 is the most demanding. I would suggest a rig with a Corei5 CPU, 8GB RAM, GeForce 560TI (not the fastest, but certainly most cost-effective you can get today), dedicated Sound Card (important!) - probably Creative XFi Gamer, and reasonable LCD - I can recommend one of those E-IPS panels like Dell2209WA - never ever buy a TN LCD!!!
... that's about it, it's what I have and I am very satisfied with it
Thought I'd throw in my .02 since I've built a few comps for self/ family/ friends. Hardest part is making sure that all the bits are compatible, especially if you're bargain hunting, IMO. Assembling computers now is really easy (especially since power plugs are now unidirectional, and you can't invert them [goodbye 3.5" floppy drive on my first build]), though if you're not comfortable with just watching some youtube videos on harder bits like properly attaching the cpu heatsink, a friend that has done it before can help vs having to pay to have it assembled.
Newegg is good, I like em. Desktop is the way to go if you're gaming for sure.
On processors, AMD seems a bit better price/ performance now, especially with the full build cost, as the motherboards are a bit cheaper for the same quality. Intel is more efficient, powerful and has more headroom if you're overclocking (not something you'll likely do). You'll probably be more video card bottlenecked than CPU in games. I went AMD on my last build, notice a bit of slowdown on very CPU intensive games (fast forward in shogun 2 with huge armies) but not much. My Intel i7 friend doesn't get those slowdowns. Anything in the 150-200 range is a good processor normally - just so you don't go the Celeron route or something.
Video cards, I'd probably go Nvidia right now. AMD and Nvidia are pretty competitive in price and performance and specs right now. Nvidia has a bit better drivers, tend to have a bit better game support, and in rare cases PhysX in games is nice. If there's a good deal on AMD its close enough I'd go that route. Most vid cards in the 150-200 range seems to be where they start marketing for gamers. the Nvidia 560 mentioned before should run things well, my 460 runs all current games at very high that I play (including witcher 2, but no ubersampling). That and Skyrim will be vid card killers, so if you have a component you spend an extra 100 on (so more in the 300 range), I'd stick it here.
Mobo's - just be sure it fits your cpu type and if you plan on SLI later its a thought, but I wouldn't bother with that. ASUS, EVGA, ABIT are pretty good brands off the top of my head. Might look for ones that have SATA 3, as its starting to be useful. Usually good mobos will mention their capacitor quality.
Ram- its cheap, so 4GB is what I'd grab. DDR3 1600, most any brand. Some systems are just starting to use more than that, so 6-8 GB could be useful, but its cheap and easy to add later too. Might want to check motherboard compatibility (some vendors hate certain mobos oddly) but that's rare.
PSU - easy to skimp on, but I'd advise a good brand. You don't need huge power if its a good quality, and it won't melt down. Corsair is making some great ones, Antec has some nice ones as well. Most any that are 80+ bronze certified will be good, but there's occasional stinkers (like OCZ's older PSU's). probably 450 -500 watts will do for most computers, but there are PSU calculators that help. If you go cheap, buy a higher power rating, and cross your fingers.
Case - anything metal and with 120+ mm size fans is generally good, tooless tends to be another sign of quality. I like the Corsair 600t's that are on sale atm at newegg but they are pricey. Antec, Coolermaster also makes good cases. Lian Li, though they look different. Mid ATX size is good, if you get a huge vid card, you might make sure the case is long enough. You can go cheap on cases easier than most things, though it might end up a bit loud/ hot / annoying to install.
HDD/ SSD - small (40 ish gig) boot SSD + big (750gig-2tb) storage HDD is a great way to go if you like snappy performance in booting and applications, but rarely will matter in games, so you can skip the SSD if you don't want to drop another 150 on them, and just use a good 7200 rpm HDD as your main. If you do go with SSD's, OCZ vertex /agility (to lesser extent) are good, as are Intel M SSD's. A lot of people that go the SSD route love them and think they're a huge upgrade in desktop responsiveness.Optical drive- cheap is fine, but can be noisy. I grabbed a liteon iHas524, and like it a lot better than the cheap one I used to use. No more spinning noise of doom.
Moniter - if you don't have one. Grab an IPS type pannel instead of a cheap TN if you can. Elemental WoM looks so much better on my IPS than my TN, even though I have both well calibrated. Color richness and view angles FTW.
OS - ya win 7. You can go OEM (systembuilder license) if you want to save a bit of cash but then your license is forever tied to that computer- or at least is supposed to be.
Newegg keeps doing those Kaspersky Antivirus free after rebate deals, could be worth it. Saved me from a couple flash-based trojans this year that windows defender let through.
Other things? You probably won't need extra fans or heatsinks unless you're doing something advanced or get a weird CPU. A decent set of headphones can give a bit of lift to music and such in games that cheap desktop speakers can't do, even if you're on your mobo sound card.
Wow that was long. Hope some of it was helpful at least, I'm sure once you decide on things more you can post a list and people can help more. In the end, after all that, some of the prebuilts aren't all that horrible in price or performance. Just depends on how much time you want to put into looking around and building vs how much you'll save. Good luck!
WOW. Thank you all.. I have a lot to think about now....
I consider computers long term investments that need to be able to handle everything for quite some time. It does not have to have 16 when purcased if one feels up to changing it out, but it should be able to handle at least that much.
And sound cards are something to add in later if you are unsatified with the built-in card as they are not nessicary to the systems operation.
-------------------------
Becase I have them on hand here is what I was considering from Newegg (list does not contain the items I mentioned in a previous post):
GIGABYTE GA-870A-USB3 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard ($95)Sunbeam PSU-ECO750-US-BL 750W ATX12V 2.3 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply - OEM ($70)LIAN LI Lancool PC-K63 Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case ($100)**AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ965FBGMBOX ($135)Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive ($90)Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM ($12)*COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 "Heatpipe Direct Contact" Long Life Sleeve 120mm CPU ($50)
* Not needed, but I would prefer the CPU to last as long as I need it to. However I do not need to purchase it as recently ordered comps my family got came with the extra from their constuction.
** Highly recommeded, especially if ordering from Newegg.
Note: Prices are rouned up and do not include shipping & rebate.
It might very well be worth spending more on the Motherboard and Power Supply, as having good ones will allow you to upgrade everything else later on. While I did look for that, I was also shooting for a low cost. The plan was/is to get a functional comp be go cheap on somethings and use it as a print and backup server till later.
I wouldn't argue that its a bad idea to plan for the future, but c'mon... unless you are planning on owning the same rig for like 10 years... I really doubt 16 gigs of ram is going to be a deal breaker. I'm a fan of the items you suggested btw and think they are quite reasonable and good advice. I just think the plan to have 16 gig or ram is a bit over the top and certainly wouldn't make that a requirement for a build. Of course, I generally build a rig, use it for 6 months, then sell it off for newer parts... so I'm pretty much not typical. But then again, 16 gigs is pretty damn far from typical as well. And that said, what are the odds that even better motherboard tech will be released over that duration that will prompt an upgrade in that prior to needed 16 gigs? Pretty good odds, I'd think.
Most of the motherboards I looked at support that much anyways, so it is not a big deal... just that any that does not support that is below average (for AMD, with the latest Intel it seems to be 32 GB is standard because that is what the CPU can use). So an expanded version of the requirement is get a MoBo that supports as much RAM as the CPU can use... if it does not then it may be the the MoBo and CPU are not meant to work together.
Just get two sticks of 4 GB RAM (being able to by just one stick of that size seems to be hard to do... at least for the RAM used by the mobo I picked out) and get the rest later. The latest Intel boards/processors can use 32 GB of RAM; however they only have four slots and I have not seen any 8 GB sticks (though I did not really look specifically for them).
Once game developers can reasonably expect users to have 16 GB, games will use that much. It is easier to keep everything in memory than it is to not do so. And the MoBo will last until you need more RAM or a better CPU that it cannot handle. RAM is easy to upgrade so it is good to have space for more.
Also while the game may not use all your RAM, having extra can give better proformance background processes also use RAM and the extra will reduce the amount of swapping that is needed. Which is somewhat more of a concern on 64-bit systems (which cannot be recommened enough) as having a larger default integer size increases memory usage.
Well I don't have much experience with building PCs (only fully built one from scratch), but here are the things I'll be focusing on when I build my next one:
When purchasing the processer I'd keep an eye on the maximum heat it can cope with - I've found with one of my PCs (admittedly one that was mostly pre-built for me as opposed to being self built) that even after getting some decent fans the most common bottleneck is the temperature! Similarly make sure you've got a case which can support decent cooling.
Also check your processer and motherboard are compatible.
I'd recommend Corsair for the power supply. Normally in life I avoid brands since I feel like I'm just paying for an image, but the cheap PSUs really don't last long - I had one which lasted a matter of minutes before giving up, and with the corsair ones you get a nice long warranty on them (can't remember if its 3 or 5 years) which should be more than enough, and since I've switched my computers to use them I've not had any issues with the PSUs.
In terms of price for performance for processors+graphics cards I favour AMD and ATI, but as others have mentioned NVidia can give you some extra features on some games.
RAIDMAX RX-850AE 850W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply ($120)
CPU - Phenom II X4 965BE, i5 2500K or i5 2600K. i5 2600K is the strongest but you a premium price for it! Phenom II X4 965BE has good performance and is very cheap.
Motherboard - No idea. WAY too hard for users to recommend. Check hardwaresites. Users tend to recommend what they got themselves which is NOT reliable. You must also know if you plan to use 2 graphiccards down the line.
Graphicscard - Nvidia: GTX 570 Phantom, Gigabyte GTX 570 Windforce 3x or MSI GTX 570 TwinFrozr III. I believe that the MSI TwinFrozr III is ultimately the best.
Since your not wellversed in computers, GTX 560Ti is middleclass and best performance for its price. GTX 570 is performance class but you pay a little more than its worth. GTX 580 is the enthusiast model. You pay through your nose but the performance is unbeatable!
Personally I'd recommend a GTX 570. It will last you several years.
Just a heads up on that Raidmax PSU, its not 80+gold at all. Its a rebranded Andyson E series (Raidmax sent in a higher end unit to get the certification, then used a lower end part to actually sell). Its not a horrible PSU, but its not all that good. Raidmax isn't a "Known for being good" PSU maker. The 850 is really about the equivalent of a 750 watt bronze certified (or less) of a good manufacturer.
Take a look at reviews on Johnny Guru's site if you want to get a great quality PSU, though you might have to figure out who rebrands what, or check their forums. I'd also check someone other than newegg's psu calculator as they way overestimate compared to most independent sites.
I'd think something like the Corsair 650 tx v2 would be more than enough, even if you go SLI. Its probably even then overkill.
I think a lot of this depends on overall budget and expectations (gaming with very high on every setting? etc). I think most of the suggestions would get a good to very good gaming rig for 3-5 years.
I just bought a computer 2 months ago. So far it runs great, I used a barebone kit and filled in the blanks I paid almost 800$ all in all(not including monitor), but if you bought it all seperate you could save some $
AMD Phenomx6 1075t(6x3.0 Ghz)
4GB RAM(You'll prolly want 1600Mhz)
ATI Radeon HD 5700
500Gb Hard Drive(youll prolly want 1Tb or more depending)
Win 7 64bit
I used the website "First Choice Memory" I wanted to make sure everything was compatable, and they have a good selection for AMD barebones, wasnt the absolute cheapest, but not to bad. Plus they put it together and test it prior to shipping. Only thing is they were a week late on sending, but the computer was exactly what I ordered. I bought my video card and disk drive from New Egg, First Choice charged to much for them. Got a good deal on speakers and a keyboard on Amazon.
Just some more ideas/info for ya.
Actually I clicked to compair the wrong thing, and never checked the brand again. I think the one I had been wanting to compair with instead was:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139021
Go to TomsHardware =>http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum-31-322.html
Tell them what you want and what it is used for and where you will be buying it from. These guys are great at helping new people buy and build just follow the guide lines for building and watch the wonderful informed reply's come in. I went there when I was ordering parts for my I7 rig a few years ago and they were great.
My build
Corsair TX750W 750W ATX-Power Supply Western Digital 7501AALS Caviar Black 750GB-Hard Drive Cooler Master Haf 932 Full Tower BlackLogitech MX 1100 Cordless Laser Mouse6GB OCZ Gold DDR3-1600-RAM23IN 1920X1080 1080P Black LCD-Monitor ASUS P6T SE X58 ATX LGA1366-MotherboardIntel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping-CPUMicrosoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64BIT OEM DVD with Windows 7 Upgrade OfferMSI Radeon HD 4890 Cyclone-Video Card = upgrades to an ASUS 5850
Coolermaster Hyper 212
Artic Silver
Can't remember the exact price but it was around $1600 Can with shipping. It actually got much more expensive shortly afterwards.
It can play all games maxed except for Metro 2033 at 1920 x 1080
With most games being ports and whatnot you don't really need a very powerful rig to play most games on high.
cyberpower from newegg
sorry about size of type. Will this easily handle witcher II, Skyrim, and TES IV-oblivion / nehrim (open cities ram hogger) with the mods for increasing the quality of the images (Qurl's Texture pack III), and high end LODs? And a number of mods loaded at same time.
My current PC bogs down, and locks up... CTD with some of there... or 'freezes' the graphics for 30 seconds at a time, making play jumpy, jaggy, and disorienting.
I could not figure out the motherboard used in this PC from newegg.... and that makes a difference.
How would you mod.. err customize this to make it more robust? (better power supply, heat sinks, coolers etc?
Some general advice about getting a new pc: buy by components and dont get a whole new computer at once.
For example, I bought a new graphics card about a year ago, which made my computer like new. My next upgrade will probably be a new processor (which means a new mobo as well). This scheme spreads out the cost of your computer over time, and keeps your computer fairly current. If you have a huge budget for your new pc, it'll do pretty well, but it will mean another huge budget the next time you upgrade (unless you go with my phasing in approach).
oh, and I'll throw out this specific thing: I have an antec 900 case, which is really quite awesome. you got all kinds of ways of directing air around, and it comes with several fans with 3-speed settings each. It's a bit of a hassle to change them all, but when i'm on the internet or not gaming, I have them all set to low and it's very quiet. I can crank it way up there when I need the cooling power (that g-card I got is a gtx 470, which can get quite hot).
currently have AMD Athlon 64x2 dual 5200+ . 2.70 GHz, 2.00GB ram.
Case = Coolmaster 'armed with honor' tool free installation. ATX mobo, ieee1394 firewire, ubs 2.0 x 2
Could this case be used to upgrade to something like i describe above?
several people have said its not difficult to assemble your own PC IF you can follow directions. I can...
I'm just lost in what goes with what.
I would also like to take the HD out of my PC and put it in as a second HD, maybe use it as a boot drive, and keep the larger one for data, and games, etc.
Thank you all for your great advice, insight into the trade offs, etc. I have settled on someone to work with to build a new rig. All of you have been most gracious to share with me your knowledge, and experience on PCs. Thank you all for your help. Karma coming ...
Got an advice here, On graphics cards, ATI card are better buys for price vs. proformance (at least when they are new), but NVIDIA cards will give you less grief because it is easer to work around their issues. (With NVIDIA, when one card has an issue it is likely they all do, but with ATI errors are specific to the card).
--vipxxx
Got the 750W v1 from 4-5 years ago or so, and it's absolutely wonderful. The TX line, and everything from Seasonic and most from Corsair (Corsair's best lines are often re-branded Seasonics) is a great choice.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
