What's a good "control" game for a PC-gaming rig.

[Azaraxzealot]

I'm soon going to embark on a quest to build myself a gaming computer. if all works out right, i will be able to finally and unbiasedly proclaim if PC gaming is too much of an inconvenience or if it is REALLY worth the hassle.

i will gather a budget of around 800 dollars (which is more than 4 times what it would cost to just buy a refurbished console, and even then i could probably still get a good game or 2) and set forth by following one good set of instructions (which i'll ask for when i have the money).

hopefully, if all goes well, i will have built the computer successfully and it will not die from a mistake.

but what's a good "control" game i should build the computer to run, meaning, what is the most recent game i should be able to run on the highest specs without any lag or framerate drops to know if the computer is any good? (quick note, i want to be able to run Starcraft 2 on it at least)

some games i was thinking of:
Half Life 2: Episode 2
Portal
Left 4 Dead 2
Grand Theft Auto 4
Prototype
Dragon Age: Origins
Fallout 3/New Vegas
Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion
Fable: The Lost Chapters
Unreal Tournament 3
Gears of War
Bulletstorm

but what would any of you suggest? because i just want to know what game i should really build my computer to run well so i know i can run any game with lower specs than it with my 800 dollar budget.

 

[MeatShieldMan]

Mass Effect 2 is a pretty good graphical standard if you can run that on high then you can pretty much run anything (cept maybe crysis) on medium to high

 

[Stavros Dimou]

Will you buy with those 800$ things like a monitor,keyboard and mouse too ?
If you have an old monitor you can spend more money on a graphics card.
With less than 500 I build a tower with a phenom 2 at 3.2 ghz,2gb ram and an ati hd 4850.

I can play Crysis Warhead with everything at the "enthusiast" setting.
If you have more money to spend,invest in a good graphics card,as it's what counts most in gaming.

 

[Vhite]

Unreal Tournament 3

You should rather get any older UT,preferably UT 2004. From what I heard UT3 is worst of the series.

Also get Orange Box. You will get HL2,E1,E2,Lost Coast,Portal and Team Fortress 2 for less than buying any of those games separately.
Another edit because I use to forget stuff. If you ever going to try any MMORPG, try WoW free trial unless you have weak willpower and you are afraid of addiction. It has best tutorial for MMORPG game I have ever seen.

 

[Azaraxzealot]

Will you buy with those 800$ things like a monitor,keyboard and mouse too ?
If you have an old monitor you can spend more money on a graphics card.
With less than 500 I build a tower with a phenom 2 at 3.2 ghz,2gb ram and an ati hd 4850.

I can play Crysis Warhead with everything at the "enthusiast" setting.
If you have more money to spend,invest in a good graphics card,as it's what counts most in gaming.

i have a monitor, mouse, and some pretty high quality speakers (as well as headphones) so those won't be going into the budget, just the parts for the computer.

i'm just wondering about a "control" game for now

Unreal Tournament 3

You should rather get any older UT,preferably UT 2004. From what I heard UT3 is worst of the series.

i'm not planning on buying the game, just downloading the demo and running it on the highest specs to see if the computer can handle it. it's a "control" game meant to see the limits of my computer so i know if i can run just about everything else

(my primary concern is being able to run Starcraft 2 at decent settings and use Unity 3d to its fullest graphical capabilities)

 

[Stavros Dimou]

Will you buy with those 800$ things like a monitor,keyboard and mouse too ?
If you have an old monitor you can spend more money on a graphics card.
With less than 500 I build a tower with a phenom 2 at 3.2 ghz,2gb ram and an ati hd 4850.

I can play Crysis Warhead with everything at the "enthusiast" setting.
If you have more money to spend,invest in a good graphics card,as it's what counts most in gaming.

i have a monitor, mouse, and some pretty high quality speakers (as well as headphones) so those won't be going into the budget, just the parts for the computer.

i'm just wondering about a "control" game for now

Then make sure it can run Crysis.
If you can run Crysis at good settings,you can be sure you can also run every other game out there at the best availible settings,except Metro 2033 with dx11.
Since you have 300 more to spend than me,it will be easy.

 

[RSGstyle]

Since you sound like your biggest reason to create a rig is to play Starcraft, I really wouldn't think about using an FPS as a control game since Starcraft chugs more processing power (CPU) and modern FPS rely more on graphics (GPU).

I'd use GTAIV and Supreme Commander as benchmarks since I'd prioritize more on the cpu since they are harder to upgrade down the road.

 

[RSGstyle]

Will you buy with those 800$ things like a monitor,keyboard and mouse too ?
If you have an old monitor you can spend more money on a graphics card.
With less than 500 I build a tower with a phenom 2 at 3.2 ghz,2gb ram and an ati hd 4850.

I can play Crysis Warhead with everything at the "enthusiast" setting.
If you have more money to spend,invest in a good graphics card,as it's what counts most in gaming.

i have a monitor, mouse, and some pretty high quality speakers (as well as headphones) so those won't be going into the budget, just the parts for the computer.

i'm just wondering about a "control" game for now

Then make sure it can run Crysis.
If you can run Crysis at good settings,you can be sure you can also run every other game out there at the best availible settings,except Metro 2033 with dx11.
Since you have 300 more to spend than me,it will be easy.

Crysis is a good standard for testing out your GPU, but it really doesn't stress out your processor (It can run amazingly fine on a dual-core). So this means that even though you can play Crysis just fine, you might not be able to play games like Supreme Commander or Total War:Shogun and other CPU intensive games.

 

[BENZOOKA]

Just build the best balanced rig you can with the budget.

I don't see any point in building a rig solely thinking about a certain game it could run. That makes as much sense as buying a car with a specific highway in mind. It's the budget and the skill to choose the best (value for price) parts, with no overkills nor bottlenecks, that determine how good the system is going to be. Game specifications have absolutely nothing to do with that.

 

[olicon]

I'm using a 550$ laptop, and I can play SC on medium setting perfectly fine.

You might want to look up the $600 Crysis machine...lemme see if I still have the link http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/17/crysis-2-can-run-on-a-600-pc/
There you go.

Of course, if you already have a monitor, you can probably build a $500 desktop that will play pretty much everything. If you have an old case and a PSU lying around, I expect that you could do it in under $400.

If you really want to push the envelope, go for an AMD-ATI machine. That will save you a hundred dollars easily.