[PC gamers pls help] First gaming PC

[Ishal]

I'm almost ready to take my first step into PC gaming.

I don't know much about PC parts, and I'm on a budget. But with Xmas around the corner I started browsing Neweggg. The first thing that caught me eye was this.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227537

That's around my budget, considering I'll need to buy a monitor and wifi for it. I'd eventually like to get another monitor for a dual set up. From what I can tell that is a decent machine, but it's got a few weak components. If I got it, I'd want a bigger hard drive and a better GPU, plus a power supply suited to the new GPU. I'm not looking to run all games on high settings, but I'd like to be able to play the new ones and ones coming out smoothly.

I've been reading around and everyone says building your own is always better. I'm inexperienced, but I'm open to the idea. Can anyone suggest a build that equals or improves upon that? I'd like to keep it around that price if possible so I can maybe get those two monitors.

 

[Madkipz]

Well. For starters -the escapist is probably not the best place to discuss builds. Try http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc or /r/pcmasterrace

something like this:

http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/PDcssY

Is ultimately going to be better, but comes without an operating system, and no repair plan.

 

[Ishal]

Well. For starters -the escapist is probably not the best place to discuss builds. Try http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc or /r/pcmasterrace

something like this:

http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/PDcssY

Is ultimately going to be better, but comes without an operating system, and no repair plan.

Thanks for the quick reply. I tried posting on /r/buildapc but it wasn't going through. Must be busy or something.

I'll post there and the other place as well, thanks.

 

[asdfen]

tomshardware website also has pc building advice/guides for any price point

 

[Morgoth780]

What exactly is your budget and in what currency?

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

That's a pretty good price for that PC, it would be only a bit less to actually build it yourself. The only bad thing about it is the 300W power supply.

 

[Ishal]

What exactly is your budget and in what currency?

Budget is going to be in the 500 to 600 dollar range. It's going to be in Dollars since I'm from the states.

I'm looking for something that will play most newer games smoothly on high settings. I don't mind turning things down to get better performance. I'm not looking to power game here. It's my first build. Far Cry 4, Planetside 2, Star Citizen when it comes out. Things like that. I'd like something reliable that won't overheat or crap itself if left on a lot.

I've been doing some searching on the suggested sites and found this.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/XM8Ct6

That looks appealing. Decent price too, since I still need to get a 1080p monitor and an OS.

I've heard going with Intel is better than AMD. Any reason why?

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

An Intel CPU is better than an AMD CPU if they are both the same speed and cores. However, you are not going to get more value per $1 out of an Intel CPU vs an AMD CPU as AMD CPUs are so much cheaper. If you're on a budget, going AMD is a no brainer.

 

[Morgoth780]

What exactly is your budget and in what currency?

Budget is going to be in the 500 to 600 dollar range. It's going to be in Dollars since I'm from the states.

I'm looking for something that will play most newer games smoothly on high settings. I don't mind turning things down to get better performance. I'm not looking to power game here. It's my first build. Far Cry 4, Planetside 2, Star Citizen when it comes out. Things like that. I'd like something reliable that won't overheat or crap itself if left on a lot.

I've been doing some searching on the suggested sites and found this.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/XM8Ct6

That looks appealing. Decent price too, since I still need to get a 1080p monitor and an OS.

I've heard going with Intel is better than AMD. Any reason why?

Intel has better raw performance in gaming, better power consumption, also the platform is a lot newer. The AM3+ platform is several years old at this point.

There is this: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/d6ZmWZ

It will be weaker on the CPU side of things compared to the FX 6300, but in most games it will perform pretty well. A few games that require a lot of threads will suffer, and there are a few games that refuse to start on dual cores - so that's definitely something worth considering. However, it does allow for an easy upgrade to an i5 if you want to do that later. Also, the R9 290 is significantly more powerful than the R9 280 for only ~$70 more. Definitely worth it in my opinion. (if you're interested, here are some benches comparing the two: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1332?vs=1068) The 280 is definitely a good card, it's a rebranded 7950 (which I own) and I can definitely say it's a very good card. I haven't had to turn settings below high on any games I've tried to get good FPS (60+) except for maybe Crysis 2/3.

 

[sneakypenguin]

Hmmm I'm not the best help at picking parts but I will say from the going from a 500 dollar budget to a 700-800 dollar one will yield substantial gains for the money. Honestly right now is probably not the best time to buy a budget system. In another year once we see what next gen games really require for recommended settings it would be easier to make a choice on gpu/cpu's.

 

[psijac]

The sum of my advice is: Run away while your wallet is still intact! We will call you the lucky one.

 

[TRSS]

Looking aside from some fanboy talk, let me give you technical advice on "gaming" machines:

If you are after good a CPU, choose the one with the least number of cores that is over two due to these reasons: Most games do not support multicore CPUs natively so they need good single core performance AND there are games that will not even start if only two cores are detected (like Farcry 4 from what I have heard). Therefore a core count of four or six should be fine (also known as quad or hexa core).

Now looking at the major CPU brands like Intel and AMD, you cannot say which one is better for gaming but instead equal models perform differently per game.
It is the same for graphical processors in cases of AMD, Intel and nVidia: In many benchmarks, it depends on the game they test if a GPU overtakes the others if the compared models can be considered to have equal performance.
This is a result of games that are in fact intended to run on certain rigs since some game developers partnered with AMD, Intel or nVidia to optimize performance for one of these or even make computational features exclusive for one (for example: Grid 2 has graphical features only for Intel HD, Battlefield 4 with Mantle for AMD, or nVidia made PhysX exclusive to CUDA cards however AMD could run it too)!

In conclusion, it is about the games you play. But if you are on a budget, a machine with AMD processors will be fine since these are cheaper per performance.

But primarily of course, we do not know what you expect from gaming. Do you want to play games on ultra settings with UHD displays or are medium settings coupled with simple HD (720p) fine?

But if I had your budget, I would go with such a setup: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883258078 or even this one which is low on price right now: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883102038.


Hope this helps and regards

 

[votemarvel]

$600 USD is around £384 British Pounds. My graphics card (GTX970) and PSU (Corsair TX750) cost me more than that.

In all honesty I'd really consider banking the money and saving for a while longer.

The systems recommended in this thread are good ones but I think Penguin above has it right. Even an increase of $200 would increase your options by so much.

 

[Gladion]

$600 USD is around £384 British Pounds. My graphics card (GTX970) and PSU (Corsair TX750) cost me more than that.

That doesn't say much, considering that the price of components rises indisproportionately as soon as you've reached mid-level. Sure, you can spend 2500$ instead of 500$ on a PC, but that doesn't mean its performance is going to be five times higher.

Though I do agree that you might want to increase your budget by 100-200$.

I found a decent money-saver was to utilize a server CPU instead of a desktop CPU. Intel at least (don't know about AMD) sells server CPUs that are basically identical to their desktop CPUs, only with the GPU removed, which you won't need since you'll have a dedicated graphics card for that. Saved ~80? on a processor due to that. Sure, you also can't really overclock them, but I suppose that you're not going to want to do that for your first PC anyway.

 

[seris]

The pc you posted is pretty good for medium/low settings on cutting edge games, i run a fx8320 (8 cores) and i can play almost any games at medium, i could go higher if i upgraded my gpu though.

The main reason Intel is the go-to for high end gaming pc's is because intel has a substantially increased amount of transistors vs AMD cpu's. This allows intel chips to do more in one cycle than an AMD, but it increases the price quite a bit. AMD is still very good for their price point, i got my 3.9ghz 8 core for $140 and thats including the motherboard.

 

[Signa]

It's an excellent starter PC, so you can get comfortable with PCs and what it takes to run and maintain them. Just be aware that the system isn't without criticisms, and you could get a better setup once you know how to piece one together yourself.

 

[Signa]

As to the question of AMD vs Intel, I find that AMD is great for gamers because they offer a lot of power for a pretty affordable price. The problem is, they fall flat when trying to do any CPU intensive tasks, like decompressing a file, or converting a video file to a different format. Conventional PC building wisdom says to go Intel i5, which probably is a better idea in the long run due to being affordable and powerful. The i5s are mid-range, and that puts them on a similar price point as the higher AMDs. The top AMDs might still out perform in a few gaming tests, but the i5 will have better general performance.

Personally speaking, I always go Intel, because I expect a lot from my PCs. Also, in all the computers I've handled on my job, I've never even seen an AMD in my professional environment. AMD just isn't keeping up in a lot of avenues.

 

[Signa]

Sorry for the triple post, but if you're coming from console gaming, and you have any Xbox360 wireless controllers, you might want to look at this:

http://www.amazon.com/Wireless-Receiver-compatible-Controllers-PC-Platforms/dp/B0096PLB9O/

A lot of PC gamers will scoff at the use of controllers, but as long as you are comfortable, that's all the matters. Though, I will argue that if you are playing competitively, you probably should learn to use the mouse and keyboard. Controllers rely on software autoaim to be functional. On top of that, you are limited to how fast you can turn around in a FPS because of the nature of stick control. Many online games will leave you at a disadvantage if you are using a controller while everyone else has a mouse.

 

[EvilRoy]

What exactly is your budget and in what currency?

Budget is going to be in the 500 to 600 dollar range. It's going to be in Dollars since I'm from the states.

I'm looking for something that will play most newer games smoothly on high settings. I don't mind turning things down to get better performance. I'm not looking to power game here. It's my first build. Far Cry 4, Planetside 2, Star Citizen when it comes out. Things like that. I'd like something reliable that won't overheat or crap itself if left on a lot.

I've been doing some searching on the suggested sites and found this.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/XM8Ct6

That looks appealing. Decent price too, since I still need to get a 1080p monitor and an OS.

I've heard going with Intel is better than AMD. Any reason why?

The options you've posted generally look good, but there is some stuff to consider longer term.

When it comes to upgrading down the line, changing out the motherboard and CPU is typically more arduous and expensive than other components, in particular because OS licenses are usually tied to the motherboard the OS is installed with. That is, new motherboard = new computer in the eyes of Microsoft. For that reason I suggest you make sure that the CPU and motherboard combo you have selected are a reasonable step over what is needed for the games you want to play - this way, you don't have to worry about repurchasing the OS for a longer period, and compatibility issues with new components can be avoided for a longer period.

Something that happened to me when I finally did upgrade my motherboard, in fact, was that suddenly I needed new RAM, I couldn't keep my CPU cooling unit because of a plug issue, and I had a performance drop with my graphics card.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

If you are after good a CPU, choose the one with the least number of cores that is over two due to these reasons: Most games do not support multicore CPUs natively so they need good single core performance AND there are games that will not even start if only two cores are detected (like Farcry 4 from what I have heard). Therefore a core count of four or six should be fine (also known as quad or hexa core).

With the PS4 and Xbone both having 8-core processors, I think there's going to be a move to utilizing cores much better for current gen games. To get the most out of the PS4/Xbone, developers will have to utilize all the cores thus PC games will utilize more cores as well.

Personally speaking, I always go Intel, because I expect a lot from my PCs. Also, in all the computers I've handled on my job, I've never even seen an AMD in my professional environment. AMD just isn't keeping up in a lot of avenues.

Are you talking about workplaces that need high-end computers for things like CAD and video editing or just workplaces in general? Workplaces in general could use either Intel or AMD processors just fine for normal office purposes like Office, accessing databases, etc. You can use low-end chips from either Intel or AMD and be just fine. Intel just must make deals with the companies or the computer companies like HP, Dell, etc. that make business models. Intel definitely has the edge in laptops though. Most companies could use Linux and OpenOffice for free instead of Windows & MS Office and not even need anti-virus software but they don't, it's not because Linux isn't capable. AMD is simply the way to go on a budget, you'd probably have to spend $100 more on an Intel chip to get the same performance. Yeah, Intel is better but AMD's value per $1 is much better.

Controllers rely on software autoaim to be functional.

That's a lie. Metal Gear Online had no aim-assist and required headshots to kill and the game played awesome on a console, all the great players (including me) could headshot players from across the map with no assistance. In fact, aim-assist only makes aiming harder just because I instantly auto-correct myself. Most console shooters just have very light aim-assist that only helps a touch with staying on a moving target.