PC Gamers, I need your help.

[Strain42]

I am going to be getting a new PC soon. I will still be using my old desktop (the one I'm on right now) for internet stuff, photoshop, various and sundry.

BUT

I'm finally getting myself a gaming PC. Something that can run games without falling to like 12 frames per second even when I set them to the lowest settings. I want something that can run my El Gato software without crashing, something where Fraps won't fail me (on my laptop, Fraps brought my FPS down to 2...no joke...2 frames per second...) a device where my Steam Library can finally be let free from its prison and roam my monitors with polish and finesse!!!

But here's the thing...I'm...well...dumb. I know barely anything about computers. I only have a very vague idea of what's considered good or bad, and even the stuff where I am like "Oh, that's good." I don't know if it's necessarily good for a gaming PC.

So for a decent gaming PC, what are some specs that you all think I should keep an eye out for? What's a good processor to get/avoid? How many gigs of RAM should I shoot for? Just what are a few basic tips you've got for someone wanting to get a decent (doesn't have to be astounding, just a fairly decent) gaming PC?

And I know many PC gamers are probably thinking and suggesting "Just build your own." well...as we've established, I'm dumb. Maybe I'll build my own PC way in the future when I have a better handle on things, but I'm going for the now.

Suggestions and advice are highly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

 

[Supernova1138]

Okay, I'll explain some things to look for in a PC, just be aware you are going to pay through the nose to get a system with a decent graphics card if you buy a prebuilt from the likes of Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer, etc. If you're not going to build yourself, you may want to look at sites like Cyberpower which give you some customization options and won't force you to overspend in some areas to get decent components in other areas.

CPUs: There are two brands for CPUs, Intel and AMD. Intel is the performance king, but they tend to be more expensive, at least as far as up front costs go. AMD offers cheaper CPUs, but they don't perform as well as Intel's even with higher clockspeeds and core counts. Part of AMD's problem is they haven't released a high performance desktop CPU in 3 years now, and have been focusing exclusively on low end APUs which are CPUs with an integrated GPU. Ideally, you'd generally go for an Intel Core i5 on a gaming build, it offers the best gaming performance for the lowest price. There are better Intel CPUs like the Core i7, but they generally don't offer any better gaming performance so spending the extra money on the i7 typically isn't worth it if you're not running heavily threaded productivity software.

RAM: Any new gaming build should have 8GB minimum, 16GB is nice to have but isn't really essential unless you want to keep a lot of stuff running in the background while you play. Most systems these days will have DDR3 1600MHz RAM. There are faster modules out there like DDR3 1866MHz or 2133 MHz, but those don't offer any appreciable performance gains unless you're running an AMD APU system, in which case the faster RAM will improve the performance of the integrated GPU.

Graphics Cards: The most important component in determining gaming performance. There are two major players in this field, AMD and Nvidia. Nvidia is like the Intel or graphics cards, they will often have the performance crown, but they will be more expensive. Unlike their CPUs, AMD's graphics cards are still fairly competitive performance wise compared to the competition, and are usually cheaper than the Nvidia equivalent, but do tend to run hotter and consume more power. With the graphics requirements increasing due to the new console generation coming out, it's best to avoid the lower end graphics cards entirely when making a gaming build unless you aren't really interested in the triple-A titles. You should be aiming for a graphics card with at least 2GB of Video Memory and a reasonably fast GPU, eg. AMD R9 270x or Nvidia GTX 760 or better. I wouldn't recommend going much lower than those two as most cards weaker than those examples are likely to struggle with newer games.

Hard Drives: With games ballooning up to 50GB in size each, you probably should have at least 1TB worth of hard drive space, though more is certainly better if you can get it. For mechanical hard drives, look for a drive with a 7200RPM speed, there are the slower 5400RPM drives which are cheaper, but they're meant more for storing files and not for running an OS or programs off of, and you will suffer from lengthy bootup times and slow load times on a slower hard drive.

There are also Solid State Drives, which use flash memory instead of a magnetic disk. SSDs are much faster than mechanical drives, allowing for very quick bootups and fast loading times, but they are a lot more expensive than mechanical drives, with SSDs costing about 50 cents per gigabyte right now. A common practice is to buy a smaller SSD, say 120GB or so and install your OS and smaller programs on that to speed up your boot time and overall system responsiveness and have a mechanical drive for mass storage eg. media files and very large games. SSDs are nice to have if you can afford one, but they're not essential.

Power Supply: A component you do not want to cheap out on, the Power Supply Unit delivers power to all of your components. Unfortunately there are a lot of rather poor quality power supplies out there that cannot deliver the power they promise, or deliver the power while falling out of spec a lot potentially leading to hardware damage and possibly a small fireworks display. Do not under any circumstances use a no-name power supply you got for $20 off of some seller on eBay.

Generally speaking a good quality 550 Watt power supply is sufficient for a single GPU gaming system. If you are looking to run multiple GPUs or do extreme overclocking, you'd probably want to go for something in the 750 to 850 Watt range. Some good quality power supply suggestions include pretty much anything made by Seasonic, XFX Core series (rebranded Seasonic) Corsair TX, HX, and AX series (CX and VS series aren't that great) Avoid any power supply that comes bundled with a case, any power supply Best Buy sells eg. Rocketfish, and don't touch any power supply Coolmax makes with a ten foot pole.

 

[Strain42]

Wow, thank you for all your advice, Supernova. I will certainly take these into consideration. I'll keep these things in mind when I'm looking.

One of my friends actually suggested a computer they thought would be good for me and they gave me all the specs. Would you mind if I PM'd you about it to get your feedback on the matter?

 

[someguy1231]

Pretty much everything Supernova said is all that you need, but I'd just like to reiterate one of them: make sure your hard drive is at least 1TB! I foolishly decided to get a 500GB hard drive to save money, and this was just before the new game consoles hit. Now that PC Gaming is no longer held back by 2005-era hardware, game sizes have been skyrocketing, with GTA V being 60gb and the upcoming Batman: Arkham Knight being 45gb, to name only two examples. I've been frequently uninstalling and reinstalling games in order to keep at least 10% of my drive free (any lower than that and performance starts to suffer). I'm seriously considering getting an external hard drive to remedy this.

 

[fenrizz]

On harddrives:

There are some new hybrid drives (SSD/HDD) now, called SSHD, which offer 80-90% of the speed of an SSD and a price point that is not much higher than a regular HDD.

I reccomend it highly.

 

[Rattja]

something where Fraps won't fail me (on my laptop, Fraps brought my FPS down to 2...no joke...2 frames per second...)

Just a note here. I highly reccomend you get Nvidia so you can run ShadowPlay. It is a whole other world if you want to record stuff. Switched over myself when I got my new 980 card and the difference is quite staggering. Fraps really tanks your FPS and the files are MASSIVE, much larger than you ever need them to be.

 

[WarpedMind]

Supernova has already explained basically everything a layman needs to know about the various components, but really, you don't even need to understand that much.
There's a lot of sites out there that are constantly updated which lists various builds, what they cost and what they can run.
PCgamer did a few solid builds for Buildweek back in March, and pcpartpicker.com is reliable community driven and the Staff builds usually includes complete video guides of the computer being built.
PC gaming has never been easier to get into, and things like PCgamers Build Week articles contain basically everything you need to know in one spot http://www.pcgamer.com/build-week-2015/

 

[Leon Royce]

Anything with a GTX970 and you will be set for the next generation. Especially with Windows 10 and DirectX 12 coming up.

The most important part of any gaming PC is the graphics card. The GTX970 is currently the best graphics card for value per dollar.

I have one myself, and my greatest problem with it is cooling. With a better cooling solution, I could run any top of the line game at max at 1080p 60 frames per second, which is all you will ever need, unless you are loaded with cash.

If money is an issue, here is what I recommend in general as someone who built my first gaming rig 3 months ago.

For 900 euros I was able to get the following (I had to assemble it myself, but the whole thing came in one package):

An Nvidia GTX970 graphics card
8 Gigabytes of RAM
An Intel processor (4 core, 3.2Ghz)
One terabyte of hard drive space
A good Asus motherboard
Computer case, cables, DVD drive etc...

If you can spare a little more, spring for a monitor, but if you want good value for your money don't bother with 3D, Ultra HD, 144Hz frames per second, Gsync or any of that:

Go for a BenQ monitor, 27 inches, at 1080p (screen resolution), with 60Hz (60 frames per second). That will cost around 200 dollars.

Building a gaming PC will require a time investment like any large purchasse. Take time to research components. There are plenty of great sources on youtube (like LinusTechTips) that explain in simple terms what all the components of a PC do.