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In need of a new PC
blakenorris2004
Member UncommonPosts: 5
in Hardware
Hi guys, I've followed this site for years, to keep up with my favorite games, but just today discovered the hardware section of the forums.... Anyway to jump into it I've gamed since I was around 16-17 starting with Ultima Online, and now I'm 28 playing GW2. Recently my gaming PC up an died on me, and I am now in the market for a new one.
In the past I have always bought pre-built computers, but after reading up on it, and seeing experienced builders saying how much further your money goes, I am seriously considering trying a build on my own, albeit I am a bit intimidated by it
With that being said, if you guys think I would be better off buying a pre-built I am certainly open to that idea, and if so please provide a link to what you think would be good for me.
My gaming primarily consists of MMO's with GW2 being my current, but I want a pc that will be able to run some of the upcoming releases such as Camelot Unchained, and Crowfall while getting good FPS. Also I would like it to be able to play RTS games such as Rome Total War II without lagging if such a thing is possible (I blame that game for the death of my old pc.)
Anyway my budget is $2250, and I need that to include a Monitor, speakers would also be a plus, but not a necessity as I have a nice headset that I use most of the time anyway. I have all the other stuff that I need as far as I know (Mouse, keyboard, and headset). So yeah, all help would be appreciated.
And thanks to everyone who reads, and takes the time to respond to this thread!
Sincerely,
Blake
In the past I have always bought pre-built computers, but after reading up on it, and seeing experienced builders saying how much further your money goes, I am seriously considering trying a build on my own, albeit I am a bit intimidated by it
With that being said, if you guys think I would be better off buying a pre-built I am certainly open to that idea, and if so please provide a link to what you think would be good for me.
My gaming primarily consists of MMO's with GW2 being my current, but I want a pc that will be able to run some of the upcoming releases such as Camelot Unchained, and Crowfall while getting good FPS. Also I would like it to be able to play RTS games such as Rome Total War II without lagging if such a thing is possible (I blame that game for the death of my old pc.)
Anyway my budget is $2250, and I need that to include a Monitor, speakers would also be a plus, but not a necessity as I have a nice headset that I use most of the time anyway. I have all the other stuff that I need as far as I know (Mouse, keyboard, and headset). So yeah, all help would be appreciated.
And thanks to everyone who reads, and takes the time to respond to this thread!
Sincerely,
Blake
Comments
I would start off with - what do you want for monitors? That will kinda help determine the rest of the build.
How Many? What Size? What Resolution? Any specifics (144Hz, wide format, G-Sync/FreeSync, 4K, etc)?
Your budget is great so no proble there. As for speakers, just buy a cord in your stereo store ($5 as well) and jack it in there, no computer speakers can match that.
As for screen, I think a 2K screen is the best bang for the buck right now. High resolution, large and nice to an accepatable price. This 27" Acer would do fine for $470: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009769
Then we need a good CPU. I think an Intel I7 5820K Hasswell-E will do nicely (have it myself) $390http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117402
Motherboard: Gigabytes GA X-99 SLI is a good card for $210: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128829
Memory: 16 gig Corsair Vengance LPX DDR4 $125 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233698&cm_re=ddr4-_-20-233-698-_-Product
PSU: A Corsair gold plus modular 850W $155: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139138
HDs:
The SSD is hard, plenty of good ones there, like this Crucial Mx100 256 gig for $190: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA5MR1T36882
Add a 3gig Seagate Barracuda for $85: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA5AD2TW2217
That is $1625. Add $200 for a case and OS, leaving us with $425 for a GFX card.
Here is a factory clocked Zotac Gefoerce 970 GTX for $375: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500372 The last $50 could be used for a good mouse/tracball or be sunk into a better case.
With case: get something you like the look of but get something pretty large. Extra fans are good.
With OS: Up to you (still prefer 7 myself but 8.1 or 10 works as well, just get a 64 bits.
Good luck.
http://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/437928/new-computer-time/p1
(What I actually bought is near the bottom of the first page.)
That's way, way too much to pay for that SSD. You can get double that capacity for less money.
A run-of-the-mill 24" 1080p monitor (what I think is about "standard") is less than $200 and I wouldn't really feel comfortable recommending anything less. You can get some gaming-specific features on there if you want, or if you want a larger size or better resolution.
All in all, including monitor and peripherals, your looking at well under $2k, and probably a lot closer to $1k than $2k by the time you trim all the components (i5 instead of i7, dropping from a premium PSU, etc)
I certainly wouldn't go down below I7, I wouldn't get anything slower than a good Haswell I7, but a Haswell-E like the 5820K is an awesome choice for for the price.
If you can't afford it then fine, but a good computer will actually not be that much more expensive for the time you can use it until it is upgrade time.
As for the screen, the 2K screens are really cheap right now and a good screen can outlive your PC. You will be looking on that screen for a long time so that is one thing you don't want to cheap out on. Now, quizz 3 screens is overkill for most users (but they are very popular with flight and car sim people) and I don't think OP needs that but he can get an awesome computer or just an average one.
Yeah, maybe so. I have to admit that SSD prices changes so fast that I have a hard time keeping up at times (and they tend for some reason to be far more expensive here in Sweden while most other components are just slightly over the US prices). Crucial are very good though. Then again, so is Samsung, Corsair and OCZ.
Anything 250Gig + with a speed over 500 Gb/S would be adequate except ones from suspicious brands and no-names. You might even go down to 128 gig if you don't play that many different games and certain games (like 4X games) don't really need to be on a SSD even if it never hurts.
If OP doesn't require that much hard disk space, it might even be good idea to buy 500GB SSD and no HDD at all. It won't cost that much: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA12K2GN1590&cm_re=samsung_evo-_-20-147-373-_-Product
SSDs I linked are just example of what's available, not recommendations that someone should buy those models.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.2086640
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202157
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207034
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129191
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226689
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148834&ignorebbr=1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236466
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832588528
That comes to $2248.87, including shipping and before rebates. You said $2250, which sounded oddly specific, so I figured I'd better come close to it.
The hard drive is optional, depending on your personal storage capacity needs. The monitor and video card together will support adaptive sync, so that your monitor can refresh in games when it makes sense, rather than at fixed intervals. That can help quite a bit for smoother animations.
There's no optical drive. The OS comes on a USB stick, though if you've got a lot of stuff on DVDs that you still want to use, you'll need an optical drive. Or you could steal the one from the old, dead computer.
Just going to an i7 your adding a bit over $100 to the price, jumping to an E-series will add a lot more than that. If your doing renders or encoding or something, you can see a difference, but just for gaming, and especially at single-monitor 1080, your just throwing money at it for nothing.
The OP has a large budget. I'm saying don't throw all that at a computer just because you can. Get what you need for the computer, and use the rest of that money into something more beneficial - a nice hardwood desk, a nice sound system, something nice for the wife, etc.
Though with the stated budget being what it is (who gives three significant figures on a computer budget, anyway?), I somewhat suspect that the original poster either:
a) has his eyes on some prebuilt and wants to know what he could build for the same price, or
b) is in a situation where someone else will pay some particular amount of money and not a penny more.
That's just guessing, and it wouldn't be surprising at all if I'm wildly wrong there.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
Higher end boutique sites like Digital Storm implicitly charge hundreds of dollars to screw the computer together for you. That does make a lot of sense for people with a lot of spare money and not a lot of spare time. But not that many gamers are in that situation.
Another thing you might want to consider is an uninterruptible power supply. If the electricity supply where you live isn't that stable, a UPS can keep power weirdness coming from the wall from ever reaching your computer and causing trouble. If you can't remember the last time you had a power flash or outage where you live, then maybe you'd rather not spend $150 on a nice UPS.
With OPs budget getting something like an I5 isn't good enough unless you plan to use an insane amount of cash for the GFX card (like a Titan card) or want 3 screens. Also, I dont see why he should limit himself to 1080P.
Quizz and I went 2 different ways, he went for a better GFX card while I went for a faster CPU with DDR4 which means his will be better (for gaming) out of the box while my build would require a new GFX card 2-3 years from now but lasts longer. Those are 2 good ways to go and either makes sense and makes an awesome computer that will last and max out anything. Getting a crap CPU for a high end computer doesn't make sense. Don't make me showing off the Toms hardware CPU charts...
You seriously need to be really short on time for that, for an untrained user that needs to check the manual it should still not take more than 4 hours including installing windows and fiddle a little with the reset or on switch (it is easy to set them wrong the first time).
When your GPU is bottleneck it doesnt matter what CPU you have, something that a lot of people dont comprehend. And with dx12 CPU matters even less, with tendency to not matter at all.
Unless he has specific needs for i7 outside of gaming i5-xxxxk is more than enough. Even overkill, FX6300/FX8300 would be enough (since if you dont take ix-xxxx-k and OC AMD is just better choice, cheaper and faster than alternative i3/i5 non k).
If you want it in details, unless youre buying something like titan (or close) and play in low res/details youre fine with FX6300.
Yeah, its pretty much all about GPU, excpencive CPU only makes sense if you pair it with top GPU/dont play at ultra high res/details.
This is pretty much the picture you see in 95%+ cases:
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/core_i7_6700k_processor_review_desktop_skylake,16.html
And Witcher 3 (which actually uses more cores, on Titan X, use anything less and it will look just as graphs above)
http://wccftech.com/witcher-3-cpu-benchmarks-fx-63008350-i7-4790ki5-4690ki3-4130g3258-oc/
Now look at this graph and tell what is better combo: i7+960/280/380 or i5/FX83xx+970/290/390
http://gamegpu.ru/images/remote/http--www.gamegpu.ru-images-stories-Test_GPU-RPG-The_Witcher_3_Wild_Hunt-game-new-1920_h_off.jpg
And remember that those GPUs are far away from Titan x and there will pretty much be no difference in CPU youre using.
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And yah, such prebuilds charge premium price for what most shops will do for free(if you buy main components from them)/you can easily do yourself. Unless you just want their sticker of course.
This test shows how i5 4690K can be a lot faster than even AMD's FX 8350, and using 1080P graphics: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2014/07/03/intel-core-i5-4690k-review/5
But I agree with you that getting and i7 over i5 is in most situations pointless. I think those people who recommend i7 are more guessing it might give faster performance some years down the road on games that aren't yet published, because the performance gains for most of the games released today isn't worth the extra costs of i7.
In that case, G3258 is best choice. It performes right up there as i7/i5 in those games.
but sacrificing performance/eye candy in ALL games across the board by getting worse gpu over sacrificing performance in few select old games (which run in magnitude of 100+FPS anyway) - which one is better?
Anyway, i didnt see OP saying that he wants to OC stuff, so getting k variants or FXes might be a waste anyway.
As for the monitor I would like something that looks good, but again I don't know much about them, so i will most likely just go with something that has been recommended here.
The pc I was looking at buying was http://www.digitalstorm.com/apollo.asp Level 2 it was priced at 2200. Then I ended up talking to a friend who mentioned these forums and said I should ask here about what could be built for a similar price so I just threw 2250 out because it sounded right at the time being I didn't look it up again to verify
With all that has been said, based on my game choices is there one particular build that has been linked that would suit me better than the others? Specifically one that wouldn't need to be upgraded anytime soon.
For instance that monitor is pretty expensive and u might not need it, but it's such good buy, that it's probably gonna last u a decade with the specs.
But as demonstrated here, you get a bigger SSD, a HDD and a great great screen for the same price if you put it together.
One thing the Level 2 has got going for it, is the $200 Corsair case. Instead of the cheap (ugly) Antec that Quizz proposed. Quizz don't care for cases, and he always lowballs here, but at the end of the day, especially if you put it together yourself, the bling of a high quality case just adds to the fun factor of owning a self-build system. An alternative could be Corsair Air 540.
So personally, I'd happily take Quizzs build, but ditch the 2tb HDD and get a great case. If it costs $2250, then make it look like $2250.
Edit: Fixed link.