Help me join the glorious PC master race!

Recommended Videos

Lvl666Blastoise

New member
Jul 31, 2013
8
0
0
I posted this in another section as well but given how varied this community is, I wanted to post it in here too so I could get a bit more feedback (hopefully this is okay and not breaking any rules <.< ) Anyways.

Hello all, this is my first attempt at building a rig from scratch and I want to be 100% certain of what I'm getting myself in to. My goal is to run Guid Wars 2 and Total War 2: rome (when it releases) on high to ultra, but I'd love to play Skyrim and Witcher on high settings as well. I am on a budget however (600-800$) so I realize this may not be possible. I originally started with this:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1lqUg

But after some feedback on other forums, found that I had too much in the PSU and memory and not nearly enough in terms of GPU. So I did some research to try to better understand what these parts do and how they interact and came across what seemed to be a pretty solid budget guide on forbes which included the following:
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/jevangelho/saved/1sse#combo_deal_list

Both of these setups are nearly identical in price but it seems as though I'm getting a lot more for my money in the second one. I feel fairly confident in choosing it, but I want to run it by a few other people and make sure there are no obvious flaws I'm missing. Essentially, I want to know if this has any obvious bottleneck issues, if I would be able to run WvW in Guild Wars 2 at high to ultra without much framerate issue, and anything else that I would likely miss as a first time builder. Thanks!
 

The Madman

New member
Dec 7, 2007
4,404
0
0
While the SSD card is nice and will definitely improve startup times and general performance, it's also not really necessary for a more budget minded PC. That's money which could be put towards something like a better graphics card or processor which could prove a bigger boost in game performance. Still not a bad purchase by any means mind you, just one that's also not strictly necessary.

Beyond that however it looks good, that computer will easily run all the games you mentioned if not at maximum then close enough most people wont even be able to tell the difference.

A good idea is to go here and look up PC being built in a similar price range, then read the feedback and see what they're using.
 

ResonanceSD

Elite Member
Legacy
Dec 14, 2009
4,538
5
43
Lvl666Blastoise said:
Both of these setups are nearly identical in price but it seems as though I'm getting a lot more for my money in the second one. I feel fairly confident in choosing it, but I want to run it by a few other people and make sure there are no obvious flaws I'm missing. Essentially, I want to know if this has any obvious bottleneck issues, if I would be able to run WvW in Guild Wars 2 at high to ultra without much framerate issue, and anything else that I would likely miss as a first time builder. Thanks!


The second one has a far superior graphics card, and processor (unlocked multiplier for overclocking). So GW2 will run fine on it. If overclocking, consider an aftermarket cooler.


Rome Total War will be incredibly CP/GPU intensive, so you'll probably be looking at medium settings at a smooth framerate on either machine.
 

BloodSquirrel

New member
Jun 23, 2008
1,263
0
0
I haven't looked up any benchmarks on the parts, but I'm of a mind to agree with The Madman; at your budget, putting that SSD money into the CPU might be a wise move.

ESPECIALLY since it's a lot easier to pick up an SSD later and image your OS onto it than it is to upgrade your CPU.
 

Lvl666Blastoise

New member
Jul 31, 2013
8
0
0
BloodSquirrel said:
I haven't looked up any benchmarks on the parts, but I'm of a mind to agree with The Madman; at your budget, putting that SSD money into the CPU might be a wise move.

ESPECIALLY since it's a lot easier to pick up an SSD later and image your OS onto it than it is to upgrade your CPU.
I've been getting similar answers on other forums as well so that's definitely something I plan to do. However, I will also be playing on a TV instead of a typical monitor (as I've said, I'm on a budget.) It's a Toshiba, model number 24L4200U. I don't suppose any of you know if there would be any screen tearing or input lag or anything else to inhibit playing on it do you? I've heard that may be a possibility which is worrisome. Thanks for all the replies.
 

Kaymish

The Morally Bankrupt Weasel
Sep 10, 2008
1,256
0
0
from the looks of it that second one is a good set up i would get a bigger cooler on it myself the stock coolers just don't cut it i had an equivalent CPU in my old machine and the stock kept it no cooler than 32 at normal seeds it would climb all the way to 65 when pushing it i run a cooler master liquid cooler and ive not been over 25 no matter how hard i pushed even at the height of summer when cooling is at its least effective

and i concur with the other posters an SSD is nice to have but not critical especially if you are on a budget

as for plying on a TV there shouldn't be a problem at all i have the upgraded version of that card and the HDMI port is good for TV you may even find that because PC are so far superior you will have better experience than console it should just be a matter of using the correct settings on your drivers and OS
 

AnthrSolidSnake

New member
Jun 2, 2011
824
0
0
Weeellll...I'll assume you don't want to take risks and are willing to buy used or refurbished parts. I mean, I took the risk, and I have a GTX 670 and an 8-core CPU and I barely spent $700-$800.
 

SpAc3man

New member
Jul 26, 2009
1,197
0
0
If anyone tells you to get Windows 7 over Windows 8 you should laugh in their face and ignore them.

The CPU is no good. It will bottleneck the GPU. Pick a nice Intel i5. Even an older Sandy Bridge i5 will be a hell of a lot better than a Phenom.
 

mitchell271

New member
Sep 3, 2010
1,457
0
0
[a href="http://www.tigerdirect.ca/"]Tiger Direct[/a] and [a href="http://www.newegg.ca/"]New Egg[/a] are you friends. You can get stuff for really cheap, especially if you live in North America. Just remember to make sure everything is compatible with your motherboard first.

I'd also recommend sticking to an HDD or a hybrid. Start times are faster on an SSD, but they also cost waaaaaay more and with your budget, you have to trim where you can to get a decent CPU. Have a look at some of the Intel i5 or i7 because a lot of them come with a built-in Intel HD 4000 (which has 512MB of vRAM). That's enough to play Borderlands 2 on medium settings and Starcraft II on ultra.
 

wfieldb

New member
Mar 25, 2011
20
0
0
That second build is almost my pc exactly, same CPU same GPU (except mine has dual cooling fans). If you're ok with overclocking (if you do, you NEED an aftermarket cooler if you're going over 3.6 Ghz, I recommend Corsair's hydro series, mine works great) you should be able to get 3.8Ghz easy out of the CPU, mine is running at 4.1Ghz and the GPU is overclocked a bit too. I'm able to Max Skyrim even with graphical mods but I'm also not part of the "60 FPS minimum mandatory" crowd, the framerate seems smooth to me and that's all I need.
 

PoolCleaningRobot

New member
Mar 18, 2012
1,237
0
0
SpAc3man said:
If anyone tells you to get Windows 7 over Windows 8 you should laugh in their face and ignore them.
I second this. I recently helped my friend buy a laptop and it came with Windows 8. The first time I tried it all could think was, "this different but not hard to use, so where's the whining coming from?" it's better optimized so it's quicker than Windows 7 and if you want it so bad, you can download a windows 7 skin for it if Microsoft doesn't add one in their big update coming out for it