After a few years of having laptops and playing the odd pc game I'm thinking of taking the plunge and getting a decent gaming rig.
I've had a look at some sites where you can pick components and the prices are coming out quite high (between £1400 and £2000) and well I'd like to spend less and I'm not sure if the sorts specs I'm going for are a bit overkill so looking for some advice.
The sort of thing I've been looking at are:
6 core i7 Sli motherboard 16fb ddr3 ram 120gb ssd 1tb 10000rpm hd And either nvidio gtx6600, 2xgtx6600, gtx 7800 or gtx7800ti
The 2x 6600 sounds like would give decent gaming power but have read can cause judder in some games.
Is this sorts spec massively overkill and if so what sorts spec would you recommend. Also, am I right looking at Intel and nvidia or are amd worth a look?
I'd like to be able to run most games maxed out and be future proofed for a while so won't need to upgrade again for a bit and am just after a base unit, no speakers, monitor etc.. have no idea about building my own so ideally a pre built one or store that build it for you from the components you pick.
I could prob stretch to £1500 but cheaper the better.
1. Buy the parts and assemble yourself. There really isn't all that much to it, watch a few videos and follow some basic rules and you'll be fine. 2. Get an i5 4670K. 3. 8GB is enough 4. 240GB SSD + 2TB HDD is well within your budget. Don't bother with a massively quick standard HDD, there is little point. 5. I presume you mean 660, 780 or 780Ti. Not sure why you've included the 660. You'll want either a 770, 780 or 780Ti. The 780 Ti is massively expensive, but you can put a machine together with one for under £1200. 6. Don't bother with SLI.
If you don't need it asap, you should consider waiting for the new processors and graphics cards to come out over summer. At the very least, it will make current processors and cards like the 770 and 780 cheaper.
The build below will serve you very well for the future. Speaking of the future, you should use the PC Hardware sticky thread for all PC hardware related queries. That thread, and the video below the build, are literally all you need to put your PC together. It's all I used two years ago and I'm typing on that very PC right now.
Cheers all - I had a nosy round earlier, building own is sounding might be the way to go but have found this on offer which would get a (potentially) better specced one than above for similar money and prebuilt..
Looks like a decent spec but it's AMD processor - I was looking at switching the preset drive to a 250gb SSD with a secondary 2TB drive, the graphics card to the 780TI, the processor to the 8 core 4.2ghz and the memory to 16gb.. this comes out at a total of: £1181 Is the 780Ti worth the £130 or so above the 780 too?
Does that seem reasonable? I could potentially go for the 780 and 8gb ram which would drop it down to £1005.. not sure how the AMD processors compare to the intel ones?
As for the processor, the FX-8320 won't be as good as the i5-4670K under most gaming circumstances, which isn't to say its terrible. But its not what I'd pick.
As for the processor, the FX-8320 won't be as good as the i5-4670K under most gaming circumstances, which isn't to say its terrible. But its not what I'd pick.
Ah ok - might leave it and have a think and a proper look at the above bits then, just saw this one was on offer and seemed a reasonable price. I've been 80% console gaming last few years so bit out of touch with the pc hardware side of things but now the missus has moved in and hogs the tv a lot i though having a PC might be a good option as can play that whilst she's watching her soaps and stuff.
I've got a semi decent laptop that'll run most things just not amazingly (i5 2430m, 6gb ram, nvidia gt555m) so just want something a fair bit more powerful than that if going to do it - assuming the upgrades worthwhile.
Need to get a new monitor at some point, going to use current one to start with (flatscreen philips 1280x1024 4:3 model) - guess most pc games still support 4:3?
If you are worried that the desktop being an i5 means its not that much more powerful than your laptop then don't.
The laptop CPU you have is really a completely different beast, its only got two physical cores compared to the 4 on the desktop model and those cores aren't as powerful either. The desktop CPU is basically twice as powerful as the one you have in your laptop if not more.
As for the RAM, you really won't get anything out of extra memory. You'd be better off getting the best 8GB of RAM you can and spending the extra on your GPU which is where you will see the biggest performance boost in a new PC. Something like a 770 will be significantly more powerful, it should be able to run most games at over 30fps on their highest settings at 1080p, something your current laptop couldn't hope to achieve.
I will be doing re: monitor - have got a 32" 3DTV upstairs (got replaced in lounge by a bigger one) so might hook it up to that via HDMI but ultimately want it in the dining room/office bit behind the lounge so don't have to go upstairs to play it all the time so the old monitor might be a bit of a stop gap depending on where it ends up once get one.
Also, what games are worth grabbing? I've got a few on Steam like Witcher 2, Tomb Raider, Arkham Asylum amongst others.. guess Crysis 3 is one to try, has anything topped it yet?
Yeah Crysis 3 is probably still the game to push a new PC the most.
As for others, it really depends what you are looking for, there's no shortage of quality games available on PC at the moment. There's obviously Titanfall if you are in to a bit of multiplayer FPS action, there are a bunch of great strategy games if that's your thing. Lots of really good indie titles around too.
Then there's the big AAA titles that have been released on all platforms but that are significantly better on PC (see Far Cry 3 etc.).
Listen to these people. I don't think a game exists where it recommends 8gb ram, and when they do need something like that, ram is very easy to upgrade.
My PC must be just about 3 years old now, and the only bottlenecks I get is the graphics card and HDD being piss slow. So definitely put any extra money towards the Graphics card and a SSD over a better CPU or memory.
I would just start with the games you already have, and then just wait for a Steam sale. Also Watchdogs is coming out soon, and might be worth a look (if it gets okay scores) due to its ridiculous system requirements.
from personal experience, you don't need more than an i5 and you most certainly don't need 16gb of RAM (get 2x4 and then you can expand later on if needs be with another 2x4).
I went for the pc from overclockers in the end but with the 8gb of ram as suggested. Got the 780ti card.
Turned up today, suprisingly quick service.
Tried crysis 3 and it runs great with everything maxed out. Also tried Tomb raider and Witcher 2 both of which also look lovely.
Waiting for a few other games to download from my steam library to try out now. Cheers all for the advice, really happy with what I ended up with and wasn't as scarily expensive as I feared it might be.
The processor, whilst I know not as good for gaming as say an i5 or an i7 kept the cost down and nothing I've thrown at it yet has troubled the machine. Also, read that it's mostly not as good currently as not many games are designed to make use of it's 8 cores etc.. but over time as more start to use it, should improve the situation - Crysis 3 for example does take advantage and from some benchmarks I saw, actually runs better on it as a result.. though that's a rare one but even then, it's still good enough to run anything.
I've got it hooked into my 32" 1080p 3DTV upstairs via hdmi for the timebeing, eventually will get a decent monitor - the 1280x1024 wasn't an option as the card only has DVI/HDMI and some weird port that looks like as lightly bigger HDMI port, no VGA
Tomb Raider I had to drop the anti aliasing down a notch to keep it around 60fps with TRESSFX enabled but everything else maxed - though I'm not sure which anti aliasing method is the "best", they all looked pretty much the same.
Also tried an older Tomb Raider (forgotten it's name but the last one they did before the new one) and it looks awesome for an older game.
Witcher 2 also runs fine maxed out.. as does Elder Scrolls Online, though that ran fine on my older laptop too and doesn't exactly look amazing.
The new Carmageddon is a bit sluggish when maxed out but it's pre alpha so i'm taking that as poor optimisation rather than anything else..
So yeah, really pleased with it so far - got some more games downloading but mostly older stuff I've had on steam for ages like Portal 2, nothing that's likely to make it break a sweat. Tempted to try Titanfall or Battlefield 4 but already got them on Xbox One so probably will resist unless see them dirt cheap in a sale. Got Crysis 3 for £7.99 with Crysis 2 included on Origin, quite chuffed with that.
Tbh, most high end chips are about the same for gaming. You might give up a frame here or there but nothing is properly threaded these days and nothing is likely to be properly threaded for a while yet.
