A call to PC gamers!

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DovaChiief

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Jan 10, 2013
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EDIT: Yes, I`ve noticed the overabundance of PC gaming threads. No, I don`t care.

Alrighty my Escapist brethren, I've a confession to make; I have long been peering into the realm of the PC game. Like a child who wanders the toy store, I've looked at websites, played around on my cousin's Alienware laptop, have stunned by the mods, the graphical superiority, and above all the testicle-shrinking PRICE! But, owing to a lack of know-how (and funds), I've always walked away. Now, with a little over a thousand (Canadian) dollars squirreled away, I feel ready to take the plunge; I would call upon the knowledge of the Escapist's PC contingent to aid me in my quest to join their ranks. Any advice or knowledge you could share would be greatly appreciated.

(I'm looking for something that has good bang for buck, building it myself isn't my first choice (but still an option), doesn't have to be top of the line, but should be able to handle current-gen games at higher end settings)

Thanks!

-DChiief
 

Bonecrusher

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Nov 20, 2009
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I see America only knows Alienware as PC, and always buys from there, however it is better to buy a customizable PC, you can select cheap hardware for some of the parts, and select strong models for the important parts.
You can buy from NCIX if you are in Canadia, I guess they build the PC themselves and ship it directly to you, you don't have to build the parts yourself.

for example, you can buy this model:
http://pc.ncix.com/ncixpc_new/ncixpc.cfm?uuid=37A17FB7-EDA0-4373-95EEF550A938D8E5-5038590

You can select a low CPU, at least 8gb RAM, nvidia 660ti. I also like to buy ASUS motherboards and Cooler Master cases.
 

Windcaler

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Nov 7, 2010
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The easiest way to join PC gaming is to just buy a prebuilt PC which is what ive did with my first couple of machines. There are two companies that Ive had a really good track record with and those are Hewlett-Packard and Alienware. In my experience they have extremely good customer service and Ive only had 1 problem with Alienware. Just be aware that when you buy a premade PC your usually paying more for the name then the machine

The other option, which is more complex and cheaper, is to build your own PC. Theres a certain amount of pride in completing a PC build and seeing it run perfectly. I really cant teach you how to build a PC though nor can I give you a good resource since I havnt used them in the longest time. Maybe someone else can point you in the right direction for building your own PC
 

ohnoitsabear

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Feb 15, 2011
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A few pieces of advice:

I know you're probably not going to like hearing this, but your best bet, especially if you're on a budget, is probably going to build your own PC. You will get more bang for your buck, and you're not going to be wasting your money on things that you don't really need. If you do end up buying prebuilt, at least don't get an Alienware, as those are horrible as far as money to performance ratio goes.

There is no reason to go for an i7 processor if you're only going to be using your pc for gaming. If you're going Intel, go for an i5, and you will probably get similar performance for less money. Then, you can spend that money on stuff that is more important for gaming, like a graphics card.

Don't get a solid state drive unless money is no object. They're expensive, they really don't substantially improve performance in games, and they're unreliable (I had one that lasted less than a year). Basically put that money into other things.

Other people should be able to give you better advice than me as to what specific parts you should get.
 

Joccaren

Elite Member
Mar 29, 2011
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Basically what ohnoitsabear said.

If you're on a budget, build it yourself. You can buy a premade, its ALWAYS a relative waste of money. As an example I finished building what was, at that point, my current rig [It still is my current rig, but I've added a ton to it] a couple of years back. It cost me $1250 for massive overkill. Alienware send me an email; basically the same rig I built, with a bit more harddrive space and a worse CPU for $3.8K. And that's normal. Alienware are among the worst [Apparently there are other companies that are as bad in America, thankfully I haven't seen them here down under], but they also have some of the better performing machines.
Build it yourself and you'll get better performance, and a lower cost. This should be your first choice assuming you are able to, and are willing to go to places like www.overclock.net or other dedicated PC building enthusiast sites and asking for help on how to do so.

Whether you decide to buy premade or build yourself though, always go for an i5 processor by Intel. Don't know the AMD equivalent, they're cheaper, but personally I don't like them. There are people that like them and don't like Intel, so take whatever you like. Intel is more expensive, IMO has easier naming conventions [i3, i5, i7. Guess which is the most powerful and the least], and in my experience are more reliable. The highest CPU you'll want to be looking at is an i5 3570. Do not buy anything with a K on the end. That just means its overclockable, which is not something you'll need and costs extra money. An i5 2500K is good as well. Dependent on how much you want to skimp you can game fairly well on some i3s, but you'll want to ask specifically what they are as most i3s are built for more Internet, Movies and Photos stuff.
RAM you will not need more than 8Gb. Well, you might if you leave every window you ever open open like my sister does, but 12Gb is what I have and its excessive. 8Gb is more than any game will require by itself, covers windows, and'll still give you 2-3Gb to spare for Internet, Antivirus, and whatever else you might want to run whilst gaming.
Motherboard... If you're building yourself ask for a build and take the motherboard given in that build, otherwise don't worry about it. Buying premade its not something you'll need to worry about - enthusiasts will look at them and go "That's crap, that's ok, that's great", but being able to tell the difference is something you're unlikely to want to bother with, and there isn't a ton of difference most of the time anyway.
Power Supply is similar, just make sure its from a reputable brand and not anything that sounds Russian or Asian - companies with those sorts of names generally give powersupplies that'll die and kill your whole system if you're not lucky. Can get some that work, but its like going to a casino and trying to win money.
Graphics Cards... You'll want at least a 560Ti. It is better than a 650 according to my Internet research. If you still have money left over, go for a 660Ti instead. If you STILL have money left over go for a 670. Anything higher and your wasting your money unless you have 3 screens at 1440p [Exaggeration sure, but you won't need it]. Also, that's for Nvidia cards. Again there is another brand, Radeon, that are cheaper. They can offer better performance per dollar, and in some ranges their cards outperform Nvidia ones [Though the difference in outpeformance is negligible for both companies], but I don't like them. Some do and prefer them to Nvidia, I don't, and everyone admits their drivers are a mess.

After that you shouldn't need to bother with a screen if you have a TV, and hopefully you've got a mouse and keyboard already.
Solid State Drives [SSD]s you'll want to stay away from unless you have a lot of extra money to buy a reliable one from a good brand, and really value loading Windows in a couple of seconds [3-5 instead of 30-60]. Otherwise there is no benefit 99% of the time.

If you're looking for a build to build yourself, I'll give you a skeletal outline here that I or others can research and flesh out more if you're interested;

CPU: Intel i5 3570
Graphics Card: Nvidia 660Ti
Motherboard: ASROCK Z77 Extreme4 [Some people don't recommend ASROCK, some do. Your choice as to whether to take this or the P8Z77 though]
RAM: 8Gb. Shouldn't matter too much the brand. Preferably 1600Mhz, 1333Mhz is fine too.
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 1Tb
Power Supply: Seasonic S12II 520W Bronze Certified [Around 500-600W should be fine, brand doesn't matter too much so long as its reputable]
Case: NZXT Tempest 410

Other than that there's the cost of Windows 7, Cost of monitor, Cost of KB+M. For what's listed though, that should come to about $900 or so. Could search for cheaper or more expensive dependent on what you'd want, and actually refine the list a bit better seeing as I mostly just grabbed them off logical increments 'cause you're not yet sure if you want to build one.
 

Solo-Wing

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Dec 15, 2010
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You are in Canada like me. If there is one near you I recommend going to a Memory Express. Those guys really know what they are doing and have ALL of the parts.

I do have tips also. Don't get an i7. It is absurd amounts of Overkill for a gaming PC. The difference between a i5 and an i7 is that the i7 has Hyper threading. Not needed for PC gaming.

Next The Graphics card. You really do not need anything over $200 if you want to play most modern games on high with over 30 FPS. I personally have a Radeon HD 6670 which is a great budget card. I play Bioshock infinite on high with no issues and this card only cost me like $110. I personally have the most experience with AMD and I recommend any thing that is HD x7xx or higher (Replace the x's with any number, they are pretty irrelevant. First one means the generation of card the others are grade for that level of card.)

If you are going for Nvidia I would say anything GT-GTX x60.

For power supply give about 100W more then your graphics card says for minimum requirements. Just to be safe.

Harddrive should be like 1TB or more. It would be good if you had a Solid State for your operating system or something and have the TB drive be your secondary for all your game installs.

And 8GB ram. Good solid amount.

Also avoid Windows 8 like the Plague. I am serious don't touch that shit. I would rather you have Vista over it for PC gaming.
 

Danceofmasks

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Jul 16, 2010
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A few tips (that aren't already covered):

1) Shop around.
There are countless vendors for parts. Countless. The difference between computer parts and consoles, is that the pricing is not standardised.
For example, I got my Radeon HD 6850s (4 of them at once) when they were on sale, for $100 each. It happens 'cos vendors are always trying to undercut each other, or getting rid of older stock to make room for a new line, trying to get people to shop with them when there's an influx of demand (i.e. during seasonal shopping), etc etc.

2) Economic perspective.
No console gamer counts their TV as part of the cost. 'cos that's stupid.
Gaming PCs are also computers. You should be subtracting the cost of what a computer can do, from the price of your rig.
Assuming you want to do some basic stuff like, say, editing home videos, the cost of the "gaming" component of your PC can be low.
Such as with those HD 6850s I meantioned earlier, one of those and possibly a more powerful power supply, is usually all it takes for new-ish PCs to run games on ultra.
Heck, if you do some of your work from home, you might even be able to write some of it off on your taxes.
So, in terms of "furnishing your house," for some people the actual cost of gaming PCs is so low, it's a negligible expense.

3) Parts are reusable.
If you already own a monitor, or a keyboard, even a mouse (though I cringe at the prospect of using anything under 1000 dpi), you can usually use those.
Heck, if you know someone who is upgrading, there's often parts you can scavenge.
I mean, core2quads may be what, 7 years old, but stick in a decent video card and possibly more RAM, and one of those will still make a PS3 look rubbish.
Keep an eye out for when big businesses discard old hardware. Some places have hundreds of computers, and they replace them out every 3 or 4 years. You could probably buy some of those for pocket change. I don't indulge in this myself, but I know people who built supercomputer clusters on shoestring budgets.

Just pointing out ... there are enormous benefits for having a little knowledge, and dealing with an open platform.
 

Auron

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Mar 28, 2009
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I echo the general feeling of building your own and checking for prices on different parts before you acquire them. While some can find it stressful I find the experience of assembling a new computer extremely fun, probably a bit scary at first but as long as you follow the manuals it's allright nothing can blow up and every slot is different enough that you wouldn't connect stuff in the wrong place to begin with, all you need is a philips screwdrive and a free day, getting intimate with your system will also allow you to easily upgrade it yourself in the future which is very convenient.

As far as places to shop people covered it pretty well, I'm not in North America but newegg looks nice if you wanna check online. The ideal configuration is tough to nail down. I use a 6-core AMD Opteron and a 460 Nvidia card myself, some people hate AMD because they're not Intel, others prefer Radeons instead of Geforce, they all work pretty well though and it boils down to personal preference or bad experiences with some brand or another(that is random and can happen with any part of any brand but scars us for life! =p) I believe a more detailed resource for benchmarks comparisons and what-not would be tom's hardware the best is to research on what's relatively new and make a good informed purchase
 

barbzilla

He who speaks words from mouth!
Dec 6, 2010
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Bonecrusher said:
I see America only knows Alienware as PC, and always buys from there, however it is better to buy a customizable PC, you can select cheap hardware for some of the parts, and select strong models for the important parts.
You can buy from NCIX if you are in Canadia, I guess they build the PC themselves and ship it directly to you, you don't have to build the parts yourself.

for example, you can buy this model:
http://pc.ncix.com/ncixpc_new/ncixpc.cfm?uuid=37A17FB7-EDA0-4373-95EEF550A938D8E5-5038590

You can select a low CPU, at least 8gb RAM, nvidia 660ti. I also like to buy ASUS motherboards and Cooler Master cases.
Define what you mean by low CPU? Honestly CPU is one of the most important parts, you are likely going to be stuck with it for the lifetime of the computer (or at least the motherboard). Honestly I wouldn't go with a CPU anywhere below 3.6ghz at this point. That isn't anywhere near the high end of the spectrum, but it will hold you out for a couple of years anyway.
 

EvilRoy

The face I make when I see unguarded pie.
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Jan 9, 2011
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Solo-Wing said:
You are in Canada like me. If there is one near you I recommend going to a Memory Express. Those guys really know what they are doing and have ALL of the parts.
As another Canadian, seconded. The cool part about these guys is if you buy your processor, ram and motherboard at the same time, they'll mount the processor for you, and test the board and ram so no worries about having to return bad ram or whatnot. You would have to ask, but I bet if you buy a higher quality thermal paste, I bet they would use it for you then and there.

They do it right in the store at time of purchase too, its about a 10 minute wait.
 

thiosk

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Sep 18, 2008
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Don't buy!
Part together!
EEEK

Newegg.com

overclock.net

those will be the place you buy and the place to find advice, respectively.

I'm not sure what chip to buy, i got an i7 3 channel when it was bleeding edge brand new and now they sell i5s and i3s, not sure whats the best. All of them are now 2 channel. Weird.

Never buy bleeding edge videocards. Buy ~2 generations old for ~180 bucks, that typically gives you TWO SOLID YEARS of HOTNESS in the video area. 2 years later, new card.

CORSAIR brand power supply. CORSAIR ONLY. And get the 500 watt. Its gorgeous.

Never buy AMD and ATI cards. If you must have an ATI card, buy an AMD processor. Its like a matched set. Totally unnecessary, but I'm one of those nvidia\intel fanboiz and I feel like they are the green team, and amd/ati are the red team.
 

afroebob

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Oct 1, 2011
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DovaChiief said:
(I'm looking for something that has good bang for buck, building it myself isn't my first choice (but still an option), doesn't have to be top of the line, but should be able to handle current-gen games at higher end settings)
Take it from me, you DON'T want to buy Alienware (it is way overpriced, your literally paying $500 or $600 for a logo) and you DO want to build your own PC. It is more than just noticeably cheaper and it is literally just like putting together IKEA furniture just with smaller parts. After that it is just a matter of getting your hands on an operating system. Anyhow, I would buy either at Microcenter's on sale catalog or on Neweggs (Microcenter is better 95% of the time, though). Unless you're planning on spending over $800 on your rig (I think that's about 500-600 in Canadian dollars, but I'm not sure what the US/Canadian exchange rate is) I would go with AMD, get

CPU: AMD FX-4100 (or the 4300 version if you want a little more juice) http://www.microcenter.com/product/376784/FX_4100_Black_Edition_36GHz_Quad-Core_Socket_AM3_Boxed_Processor

Motherboard: 970DE3/U3S3 770 AM3+ ATX AMD Motherboard http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.aspx?sku=401083

HDD: 1TB 7,200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive DT01ACA100 - Bare Drive http://www.microcenter.com/product/400847/1TB_7,200_RPM_SATA_60Gb-s_35_Internal_Hard_Drive_DT01ACA100_-_Bare_Drive

RAM: Ballistix Sport 8GB DDR3-1600 (PC3-12800) CL9 Dual Channel Desktop Memory Kit (Two 4GB Memory Modules) http://microcenter.com/product/382101/Ballistix_Sport_8GB_DDR3-1600_%28PC3-12800%29_CL9_Dual_Channel_Desktop_Memory_Kit_%28Two_4GB_Memory_Modules%29

Graphics Card: GV-R777OC-1GDR2 AMD Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition 1024MB GDDR5 PCIe 3.0 x16 Video Card http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.aspx?sku=820845

Power Supply: ZU-700B 700W Modular ATX Power Supply http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.aspx?sku=284000


For the case its up to you, if you want to overclock you might want to get a more expensive case with cord management if not any case that will fix your motherboard (its pretty universal) will do.

Without the case this adds up to 410 USD plus tax, with the case it could go from 440-490 depending on how flashy it is and if you have cord management. Either way, its the same as a new console and with all the Steam Sales your going to save money in the long run. Anyways, good luck and I hope you build your own rig (and have a good time doing it) and any game you get you should be running at max graphics (I'm still running Far Cry 3 at just below max on a 3 year old graphics card I got on sale for $60, don't think that you have to upgrade every 2 years).

BTW, my policy on where people get hold of their operating system is don't ask don't tell. If you buy one new you might be able to find Windows 7 for $90(Tigerdirect.com is the cheapest I found), just make sure you get the 64 bit otherwise your system isn't going to run at its full potential and if you buy off Craigslist or the likes you have a chance of getting a pirated copy. Just a heads up.
 

DoomyMcDoom

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Jul 4, 2008
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DovaChiief said:
EDIT: Yes, I`ve noticed the overabundance of PC gaming threads. No, I don`t care.

Alrighty my Escapist brethren, I've a confession to make; I have long been peering into the realm of the PC game. Like a child who wanders the toy store, I've looked at websites, played around on my cousin's Alienware laptop, have stunned by the mods, the graphical superiority, and above all the testicle-shrinking PRICE! But, owing to a lack of know-how (and funds), I've always walked away. Now, with a little over a thousand (Canadian) dollars squirreled away, I feel ready to take the plunge; I would call upon the knowledge of the Escapist's PC contingent to aid me in my quest to join their ranks. Any advice or knowledge you could share would be greatly appreciated.

(I'm looking for something that has good bang for buck, building it myself isn't my first choice (but still an option), doesn't have to be top of the line, but should be able to handle current-gen games at higher end settings)

Thanks!

-DChiief
Go to www.ncix.com build a decent pc, pay assemble(it's easier than a fuckin lego set, should only take you like 10 mins tops once you get the parts) game... you can also pay them like $50 to assemble it for you as well, but with a lil over a grand you should be able to build a fuckin monster. Hell I have a rig that runs all the latest shit on high and it cost me like $400... of course I already had a hard drive and a monitor, so yeah... but still, you can get really decent stuff for cheap. I would suggest looking into AMDs new APUs or just using one of their CPUs and jamming a low-mid range card in there, you can get some really decent Graphics cards in the $150ish range, decent mobo for $60 decent CPU is anywhere between $120-$200 if you want a good dose of power, without going "top of the line"(I know top of the line is tempting, but it's not worth buying shit when it's still on the top, cuz the stuff right under it is half as 'spensive, and almost as powerful). drop some dough on 8-16gb of ram and you'll be set. oh and a power supply and case, but that's obvious.