Advice for a new PC?

[AKChickabee]

I've had consoles for years and my first games ever were on consoles, but with the announcement of the new generation of consoles I've decided to get out. I hate subscriptions of any kind with a passion, so the xbone is out straight away, and I don't really want a social-media machine *cough* PS4 *unconvincing cough*. Nintendo's consoles are looking good but I've never been a fan of the classic Nintendo series so I'm not buying one of those either.

For the past few years I've been using my (fairly) old laptop more and more, so I'm about to make the switch over to a full PC gamer. I've saved up about $800 to build my own desktop that will do a decent job of carrying me on. I'm not too desperate for many new titles so the computer doesn't have to be a supercharged monster, but I'd like it if it was fairly reliable and capable of playing most current games.

Can anyone give me an idea or list of what I should get?

 

[kingthrall]

buy a really good PC. Spend a lot on it, you get your moneys worth (of course look around ect and get value for money). Then just update the components as they age, it will be a cheaper long term investment.

 

[Alfador_VII]

The GTX 780 is expected to launch May 23, 2013; the GTX 770 is slated for May 30, 2013. The GTX 760 Ti will launch during Computex. (June 4, 2013)

Since they are only a few days away you might want to wait for them to come out and either get a GTX 770 or GTX 760 Ti instead of the older models.

It might also be an idea to get a GTX680, as the price will come down dramatically once the new cards come out. With video cards, if you want the best value for money, never get the absolute top of the range, look a model or two down, or even at the previous top-end card right after the new version comes out.

oh and GTX 700 series isn't a substantial improvement on the 600, despite it's name, it's not really a new generation.

 

[Substitute Troll]

While buying the parts separate and building it yourself might be cheaper, if you don't have the technical know-how you could ruin the hardware. Since you probably don't know how to build one yourself, you should find a store or a friend who can. In the long run, buying parts separate will be cheaper (as in, value for money) even if you have to pay someone to build it for you.

 

[Avaholic03]

buy a really good PC. Spend a lot on it, you get your moneys worth (of course look around ect and get value for money). Then just update the components as they age, it will be a cheaper long term investment.

I can't tell if you're kidding or not.

But for someone coming from console gaming, even a moderately priced PC will perform better by comparison. I got pretty mediocre hardware 5 years ago (2.4GHz dual core, 2 GB RAM, 8800 GT graphics), and I've only upgraded my RAM (to 4 GB) and graphics card (460GTX 1GB...which required me to upgrade my power supply) and that machine still runs most games on medium to high settings.

The more important thing with a PC is keeping it clean. Don't install a bunch of useless bloatware, don't download a bunch of questionable crap that comes with spyware and viruses. Pretty much just common sense stuff, and it will run just fine for years. It's not like you need the top of the line hardware.

 

[Rob Robson]

Can anyone give me an idea or list of what I should get?

Yessir, I would be happy to:
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Lofty/saved/1F58

Some elaboration:
The BitFenix Shinobi [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDVCiZCo454] is a great case to build in, lots of room for cable management behind the motherboard tray, nice rubber pads for the PSU to sit on to reduce vibrations (thus also noise) and an extremely premium-feeling finish on the outside (BitFenix Soft-touch) - it's cheaper than equivalent cases from Corsair (the mainstream) and better build quality in some places.

The Corsair Power Supply I choice is enough to escape the 'danger zone' of bad cheap PSUs and is a great value. It is also semi-modular, so it lets you pack away the cables you don't need, thus not having them in the case which is good both for air flow and a clean look. Note: If you ever want to use more than one graphics card in the future, I suggest upgrading the PSU to 650W-700W instead of this.

Only one stick of RAM, but it's 8GB. This gives you room to chuck another in there when you have the extra money. And no, using only 1 stick on a dual-channel motherboard does NOT come with a performance penalty as some will try to convince you.

The Nvidia GeForce 650Ti Boost. I chose this for one reason. Most of the top graphics cards right now (Radeon 79XX and Nvidia 670+) will be a bad purchase because in a year or less we will start being hit with a lot of games that will start to bring those GPUs to their knees. Thus, if you're not buying a Titan card (which you shouldn't) or expensive multi-GPU setup (which you definitely shouldn't, as recent advances in benchmarking found SLI and Crossfire to produce worse artifacts and worse frame times than single GPU configs) - you should really just "cheap out" a little bit. In raw performance, the 650Ti boost is slightly lower than the GTX 470 and 560Ti, and is able to play NEAR MAX (emphasis on 'near') on all new games in 1200p or 1080p excluding Crysis 3. (Should do the latter on medium+)
The AMD Radeon 7790 is pretty much exactly as good, so if you prefer, you can get that instead. The 650Ti Boost from PNY is at an unbeatable cost right now though, but that might change by the time you go shopping.

The CPU cooler from Cooler Master is good for a soft overclock. These days, overclocking is brutally simple and as such anyone should do it. Go for a better cooler for higher clock speeds. Noctua, Phanteks and Be Quiet! has the best CPU air coolers these days, and their top models will match water cooling for hitting any CPU's dielectric barrier before it's thermal barrier. So watercooling CPUs is obsolete these days (people still do it though, old habits etc)
***If you don't want to overclock (why wouldn't you) just don't get this cooler.

The list does not include an SSD drive. Your budget wasn't cut out for one. But you can add one whenever extra money opens up. I strongly suggest NOT downgrading any other parts in this list to afford an SSD! This is by all accounts the minimum PC I would suggest for HD gaming. If you downgrade just one step, you'll be better off downgrading all the way down to super-budget. (AMD APU processors on FM2 socket with integrated graphics- type budget)

Good luck!

Edit: I left a $100 buffer for your choice of peripherals. These tend to be better to decide yourself.

Edit 2: you will need to buy an extra 120mm intake fan, these are fairly cheap though. When/if you get the Shinobi, move it's exhaust fan to the front as an intake instead. You should have positive air pressure in any case to eliminate dust problems (more intake air flow than exhaust)

 

[Zac Jovanovic]

ASRock Z77 Pro3 Motherboard [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157297] :95$
Intel Core i5-3570 Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115233]:215$
SAPPHIRE HD 7870 2gb GHz Edition [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202025] :240$
Kingston HyperX Beast 8GB kit 1600 [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104362]:65$
Seagate Barracuda 500Gb SATA 6.0Gb/s HDD [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148767]:60$
COOLER MASTER eXtreme Power 600w PSU [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171039]:55$

That leaves you about 70$ to get a decent case ( I recommend one with PSU on the bottom) and a mouse and keyboard.
This machine will run any game in HD with perfect ease, there is plenty of room for upgrading but at about 200$ more I would say you'd be starting to waste money.
Later you could add a small system SSD though it's hardly needed.
A good idea would be changing the motherboard for a slightly more expensive MSI one that is a bit more Xfire friendly, so you would have a relatively cheap but massive upgrade possibility in a few years when it starts falling behind.

 

[Rob Robson]

1. Don't get an Nvidia, get an AMD graphics card.

For a good time now, Nvidia makes inferior graphics cards. They're not bad (anymore), but you get more performance (or the same) for less money when going with AMD.

Not quite true AT THE MOMENT. The 650Ti Boost is slightly better than a 7790 and is cheaper AT THE MOMENT. Normally and generally I would agree, but you have to look at prices there and then, here and now.

Also do NOT wait for Haswell, as any Intel i5 is worse than an AMD FX 8 core processor for future games. (The Intel is better right now, but also more expensive with more expensive motherboard options, and future games are leaning towards more cores used instead of higher clock speeds)

 

[CaptQuakers]

This is a pretty good site that is updated regularly and will show you everything you need to get for a PC at a certain price range: http://www.logicalincrements.com/

If I were to go for the Superb level in that site could anyone give me an idea as too what my Fps would be and what I could and couldn't play on high graphics ?

I know it's a big ask

 

[Zac Jovanovic]

If I were to go for the Superb level in that site could anyone give me an idea as too what my Fps would be and what I could and couldn't play on high graphics ?

I know it's a big ask

It varies wildly from game to game, I can tell you you'd be able to play everything in HD at 60+ FPS on at least normal settings, most games on high settings.
A couple games you wouldn't get great FPS on high settings are Witcher 2, Crysis 3, Metro:Last Light but they would still be playable.

 

[SecondSince]

If I were to go for the Superb level in that site could anyone give me an idea as too what my Fps would be and what I could and couldn't play on high graphics ?

I know it's a big ask

Really hard, if not impossible to say. It depends on the game, what graphics card you decide to have (nVidea of AMD), optimization of drivers for that card, etc etc. I can however pretty much guarantee that you will have a much more than adequate system with that 'Superb' build.

Between the nVidea GTX660 and AMD 7870 i would advise to go with the 7870 though. Unless you get a 660Ti the 7870 outperforms the 660 with quite the margin.

Anyways, welcome to the PC Master Race! Enjoy your stay (and free to play games!!!)

 

[Rob Robson]

This is a pretty good site that is updated regularly and will show you everything you need to get for a PC at a certain price range: http://www.logicalincrements.com/

If I were to go for the Superb level in that site could anyone give me an idea as too what my Fps would be and what I could and couldn't play on high graphics ?

I know it's a big ask

You would be able to play anything but Crysis 3 on max. Might have to slightly curb some of the less impactful settings in games like Metro: LL. The GTX 660 is around the exact same performance as my GTX 470 (and 560Ti) and I get over 60 FPS in Metro: LL without the pre-programmed antialiasing, and forcing FXAA through the Nvidia control panel instead. Crysis 3 you're looking at 40-50 FPS somewhere between medium and high. (I believe it's called "high" and "very high" in Crysis 3)

This-generation medium graphics games like BioShock: Infinite will be pushovers and probably run at 80-120 FPS if you want it to at max. Though with an Nvidia card I would use Adaptive Vsync.

I think an Nvidia GTX 650Ti Boost or Radeon 7790 would be better, it will allow you to get a K processor (overclocking unlocked) instead because of the saving, and the performance isn't too different. Also save on the case and get a much better BitFenix Shinobi than all the three cases in that superb tier. Well, it's not better than the Fractal Design R4, but the R4 is silence optimized rather than air flow optimized and the saving is IMO making the R4 not worth it unless you NEED the silence.

 

[CaptQuakers]

Pressed the wrong button there.

Cheers for the help guys, I want a pc that will play any game at a decent fps(60+) so I am just looking for a ball park figure.

 

[rbstewart7263]

I've had consoles for years and my first games ever were on consoles, but with the announcement of the new generation of consoles I've decided to get out. I hate subscriptions of any kind with a passion, so the xbone is out straight away, and I don't really want a social-media machine *cough* PS4 *unconvincing cough*. Nintendo's consoles are looking good but I've never been a fan of the classic Nintendo series so I'm not buying one of those either.

For the past few years I've been using my (fairly) old laptop more and more, so I'm about to make the switch over to a full PC gamer. I've saved up about $800 to build my own desktop that will do a decent job of carrying me on. I'm not too desperate for many new titles so the computer doesn't have to be a supercharged monster, but I'd like it if it was fairly reliable and capable of playing most current games.

Can anyone give me an idea or list of what I should get?

with a grand I got a nice motherboard(asus z77 pro) and a nice gpu and cpu(intel i5 3570k) (asus nvidia 660ti) and 8 gb ram for 950 including my sweet haf xb case which was 100 by itself. just remember this.

in terms of cards asus is the best. your buying quality and something that will last you a good while and is not going to overheat or have the fans or heatsinks quit. lets just say that above the other card makers theres a difference. this is opposed to msi etc;

so heres what I got for your budget not including op system and case. you could have all this for 800 pretty much. at this time I can run hawken and metro at the highest (ultra) no problem so I expect to keep this card for 6 to 8 years.

also dont buy into the rhetoric that some pc gamers will give you about the next best thing. got a friend he was running 2 660 tis just fine and then someone fills his head in with stuff about the 700 series and the series after that! the 700 wont be necessary for another 10 years and the next card 15. they will have to make some serious changes to the way they make games before you have to worry and since game makers tend to stick by consoles in terms of what they push graphically. You see what Im saying.

I got another friend who bought a 800 dollar gpu back when half life 2 first came out and it still runs hitman absolution and darksiders 2 on high settings. So yeah someone says this or this card sucks just check its performance benchmarks thats the only way youl know.

but you wanted a list so here we go.

asus z77pro motherboard.

asus nvidia 660 ti gpu

corsair vengence 8 gb ram

intel i5 3570k cpu

the hard drive I got from another computer that I scrapped and it is TINY but it serves till I can buy another.

no disk drive cause I dont need one. My friend used his to put the operating system on and then took it out. havent needed one or thought(dang I need a disk drive) since.

unless you pirate the op system for windows is 100 dollars for god awful windows 8.I dont know if you can still get 7 64 bit but I would.

 

[Rob Robson]

Eight Cores will not be used in the lifetime of this PC, period.
Surely, there *might* be a technical revolution that will make Octacores better in games, but I wouldn't count on that. Especially not since this won't make Quadcores shit in games and games are much more GPU focused anyway.

Lots of ignorance. Lots and lots.

1. Crysis 3 and Battlefield 3 already use 8 cores. No, it's not a perfect usage. Yes, it will get better.

2. Technical revolution? The fact that both upcoming consoles are 8-core (6-7 effective cores with AMD architecture compared to Intel) realistically guarantees that optimization will go towards 8 cores in gaming.

3. CPU dependent exist, in case you haven't noticed. Skyrim and similar sandbox games will always need CPU power to draw all that near and distant geometry. Object references alone will be a handful for CPUs of the now and the future. The only reason why Skyrim didn't go whole hog with CPU load is because the amount of RAM on the Xbox and PS3 made it impossible. Also, some games are simply CPU heavy by design without necessarily being open world. Natural Selection 2 is a good example of a game that uses up to 6 cores and where you will see tangible FPS benefits simply from overclocking your CPU. (I went from 65 to 110 FPS by overclocking to 4.8 Ghz.)

I would get deeper into your studies.

in terms of cards asus is the best.

Inept generalization ahoy! Sure Asus is a quality manufacturer, but they are not "the best" and neither is any other AMD/ Nvidia partner. Truth is, it varies from card to card and from intended system to intended system.

A triple-slot DirectCUii won't fit in a mini-ITX build for example. Use your brain.

Also the best overclocker of all GTX 6xx series the past generation was the MSi Lightning 680. So either you need to define what you deem 'best' to mean, or take your blind fanboyism out of here. This thread is for advice, not sabotage.

Not saying Asus isn't good mind you. MSi, EVGA, HIS, ASUS and Gigabyte are the top-quality partners and usually the ones that will make the best cards.

 

[rbstewart7263]

Eight Cores will not be used in the lifetime of this PC, period.
Surely, there *might* be a technical revolution that will make Octacores better in games, but I wouldn't count on that. Especially not since this won't make Quadcores shit in games and games are much more GPU focused anyway.

Lots of ignorance. Lots and lots.

1. Crysis 3 and Battlefield 3 already use 8 cores. No, it's not a perfect usage. Yes, it will get better.

2. Technical revolution? The fact that both upcoming consoles are 8-core (6-7 effective cores with AMD architecture compared to Intel) realistically guarantees that optimization will go towards 8 cores in gaming.

3. CPU dependent exist, in case you haven't noticed. Skyrim and similar sandbox games will always need CPU power to draw all that near and distant geometry. Object references alone will be a handful for CPUs of the now and the future. The only reason why Skyrim didn't go whole hog with CPU load is because the amount of RAM on the Xbox and PS3 made it impossible. Also, some games are simply CPU heavy by design without necessarily being open world. Natural Selection 2 is a good example of a game that uses up to 6 cores and where you will see tangible FPS benefits simply from overclocking your CPU. (I went from 65 to 110 FPS by overclocking to 4.8 Ghz.)

I would get deeper into your studies.

in terms of cards asus is the best.

Inept generalization ahoy! Sure Asus is a quality manufacturer, but they are not "the best" and neither is any other AMD/ Nvidia partner. Truth is, it varies from card to card and from intended system to intended system.

A triple-slot DirectCUii won't fit in a mini-ITX build for example. Use your brain.

Also the best overclocker of all GTX 6xx series the past generation was the MSi Lightning 680. So either you need to define what you deem 'best' to mean, or take your blind fanboyism out of here. This thread is for advice, not sabotage.

Not saying Asus isn't good mind you. MSi, EVGA, HIS, ASUS and Gigabyte are the top-quality partners and usually the ones that will make the best cards.

I already did define it you just didnt keep reading. its the part where I talked about the fans and heatsinks wont go out near as quick as an msi or evga. But one with such great knowledge such as you cant be expected to read the whole post before responding to the post I guess.lol

 

[Rob Robson]

Lots of ignorance. Lots and lots.

Ignorance on my side, assumptions on yours. I'd call us even.

1. Crysis 3 and Battlefield 3 already use 8 cores. No, it's not a perfect usage. Yes, it will get better.

How many games do you know that only strive to have the best graphics? I know 2; the 2 you mentioned.
Don't forget that not every developer has the money or, in fact, even wants to push the consoles to its limits. Crysis 3 is a nice example though. Throughout the last patches the performance got better and now the difference between one AMD octacore (don't remember which one exactly, sorry) and an Ivy Bridge i5 was ~3 FPS in benchmarks.

2. Technical revolution? The fact that both upcoming consoles are 8-core (6-7 effective cores with AMD architecture compared to Intel) realistically guarantees that optimization will go towards 8 cores in gaming.

Here you can find said assumptions.
"realistically guarantees[...]". No, just no.
The PS3 effectively had a hexacore, since it was able to run 6 threads parallel for games. The 360 had a tricore, and yet many games don't even use 3 cores.
A new console generation doesn't magically expand every developers budget. In fact, they'll even have less money for this. Look at the broken AAA games industry and the constant problem of making your money back because your games are getting so expensive. Even without writing new engines that make efficient use of those cores the costs will simply raise by making games catch up to the graphics quality of modern PC games.
Of the entire games industry, the AAA games are only one fraction. Of this AAA games, only a fraction pushes the consoles to its limits.
So no. The PS4 and XBone having the cores won't make 8 core games the standard. It will just increase the number of said exceptions. Do you honestly believe that the majority of game developers will jump from 2-3 core optimized games, straight to 8 core optimized games?

3. CPU dependent exist, in case you haven't noticed. Skyrim and similar sandbox games will always need CPU power to draw all that near and distant geometry. Object references alone will be a handful for CPUs of the now and the future. The only reason why Skyrim didn't go whole hog with CPU load is because the amount of RAM on the Xbox and PS3 made it impossible. Also, some games are simply CPU heavy by design without necessarily being open world. Natural Selection 2 is a good example of a game that uses up to 6 cores and where you will see tangible FPS benefits simply from overclocking your CPU. (I went from 65 to 110 FPS by overclocking to 4.8 Ghz.)

AFAIK Natural Selection 2 is a poor example, because it's less a game that is optimized to use 6 cores, but more a game that is poorly optimized in the first place. Planetside 2 would have been a much better example. It's a CPU-killer by design.

It's nice of you that you mention Skyrim and its problems on the current-gen consoles in this context though.
By the time the PS3 came out, it was a processing power monster. They even build supercomputers out of PS3-clusters. And yet, what brings the PS3 to its limits, doesn't make a quadcore CPU you'll find in gaming PCs from years ago sweat a bit.
The PS4 and XBone launch with CPUs that are already underpowered by standards from years ago.
I believe (and you are very well within your rights to believe otherwise) that there won't be any game that won't run on a powerful gaming PC with a quadcore CPU, considering that the i5-4570 eats the CPUs from both consoles for breakfast.

I intentionally said "believe", since I want to wait and see what the PS4 can actually do. As of now, it looks like its CPU won't be powerful.

I would get deeper into your studies.

I would stop reducing the entire games industry to the few developers who can actually afford this kind of stuff.


That being said, if I wanted to be sure to run those games, I still wouldn't get an AMD octacore, but an overclockable Haswell i7. While a true octacore CPU will outperform a quadcore with HT (given that they have no other difference) in a game that makes efficient use of all of them, we are still far away from those.
I'd much rather have the better performance in most games and lower temperatures that the Intel CPUs have over a benefit in very few games.

We obviously don't differ as much as originally perceived. Just our prediction logic branches off in different directions and both have merits. Your guess is as good as mine I'll admit, but it's still a guess. I stick to my original opinion, and most of that I think is that you are of the opinion that games coded to use more cores in processing require more money in their budgets. While it might be true to a very small extent, it's not nearly as big an impact as you seem to make it out to be.

I'll keep using Natural Selection 2 as an example. It was made by a tiny team of indies. It is obviously very very solid. Yes, it had it's optimization problems early at launch, but right now it is definitely solid. That's where I see your logic failing, it is not as expensive or time consuming as you think.

Lastly, you mention that current PC CPUs 'eat the upcoming console CPUs for breakfast' and while that may be true, that just gives developers more incentive to leverage all of that CPU in 60%+ of games.

Remember that most developers are funded by their publisher, or on contract with a stated budget. Initially, new games may not use all that much as publishers try to keep costs down, but all it takes is one publisher to want to use graphics and/or sheer size as their selling point to make other publishers panic and ramp up their budgets to "compete". They are THAT irrational.