PC gaming THE COST

[WouldYouKindly]

That's not a bad setup for the price. Furthermore, the nice thing about PCs is that they are easily upgradeable as you get the money. Instead of buying a couple games, you can get a better graphics card(which is really the biggest shortcoming of your rig).

A favorite money saver of mine is a PC with an HDMI port and a modern TV. You turn your TV into your monitor.

Also, welcome to the PC gaming master race. The world of Free-to-Play awaits you eagerly, it's my favorite thing about PC gaming.

 

[The Eupho Guy_v1legacy]

Wow, OP, that's a nice find. That should last you a fairly long time without having to touch it. My last full rebuild was last year, which set me back about $2500 AUD (Hardware prices down under are stupidly high), but that should last me a good 5-6 years now (Graphics fidelity isn't that important to me, so while I can max out games atm, I don't mind dropping back to medium settings when I need to up the framerate). Thats not including monitor, keyboard, mouse, ect. as those are still in good working order and so i didn't need to replace them.

On building your own: Yeesh.

Like I said, I built mine, but it was one of the most stressful experiences ever. I was nervous the whole way through, but in a careful, acceptable sort of way. The real trouble was when I thought I was done putting it together and yet the computer wouldn't start. After troubleshooting long enough for a bunch of cable exchanges, unplugging and re-plugging my computer to take a peek at anything I might have missed about 5 times, and taking a taking pauses to hold back my tears, I finally realized that both my RAM cards weren't 100% inserted into their slots. As in 1/20 of a millimeter sticking out. I had noticed it but since I couldn't push it in any further before without fear of snapping my motherboard, I had told myself it was alright. Sure enough, after double-checking for the 6th time, they slid further into place without a fuss (?!). 6 hours after I had started unboxing and assembling, I had it done.

I still recommend to everyone to build it themselves, since I'm sure I'm a unique case, but I don't blame anyone for not wanting to do it.

Yeah, the first time building my PC was nerve-wracking. The whole process took about an hour and a half, only to have it start up for a few seconds and shut down again then start up and shut down. Turns out I had a minor short on the motherboard, so I had to pull it apart and start all over again. That wasn't fun. I'm a lot better at it now, so it doesn't take quite as long and I don't make accidental connections from the mobo to the case .

 

[Silly Hats]

Just an example, you can always get a card later

 

[Sewer Rat]

I paid about $1250 for my ASUS G75VW and I couldn't be happier, has the odd stability issues since it is a laptop rather than a tower but other than that its served me well and is able to run just about everything I throw at it at High to Best quality. Run Starcraft 2 on it right now at max settings and it never dips below 40 fps which while not perfect is fine for what I need it to do. The only upgrades I've done to it is upgraded the Memory to a whopping 16gb, which is a little overkill in hindsight but hey, why not. I'm probably going to get myself a SSD next though at a decent size it will probably set me back a pretty penny.

 

[JemothSkarii]

About 2 or 3 years ago I paid $1400 (Australian) for a computer with the following (assembling it myself):

AMD Phenom 2 X4 @3.4Ghz
AMD 1GB 6870 HD
4 GB Corsair RAM
20" LCD Monitor
650W Power Supply
ASUS EVO Motherboard
1 TB Hard-Drive
Some random shitty case my friend picked out

and since the graphics card is dying AND I'd lost the screen in the post so I had to shell out an extra $200 for a screen. I'm planning on upgrading it which will probably cost me a further $800...considering I've never been able to play a game without having to go online and find out what is wrong with it.

EDIT: I forgot to add I'm starting to not see the value in it since K+M bug me for most games and compatibility issues up the wazoo.

 

[Do4600]

I also need to buy a monitor

Do you have a HD TV for your console? If so, just connect it your computer

 

[Lunar Templar]

I was lazy, gotta Dell.

its 2 or 3 years old now, but still runs most everything i care to throw at it

 

[Snotnarok]

I built mine ages ago, maybe 5 or 6 years ago I don't really recall, still runs the new games at higher settings if they're optimized properly by devs, ran lower settings on Crysis 2's DX11 extreme mode but I'm pretty sure that's highest settings for the standard version.

The price...uh...hm. 1100 with two monitors I think. The cost jumped a bit when I got my tablet monitor, let's not go into that though.

 

[Joccaren]

Heh, pretty good deal you got there actually. Though I've got to ask why you need a wifi card? Don't have normal cabled Internet or...?

Me, I am the type that loves to have excellent graphics and an excellent experience. If I can, why the hell should I not?
The tower part of my PC cost about... $1350 I think. $300 for the CPU, RAM, Liquid Cooling and Motherboard [i7 2600K, 12Gb Kingston HyperX, Corsair H60 and ASUS P8P67 respectively], $250 per graphics card with 2 560Ti 2Gb graphics cards in SLI, 200 for my 1000W OCZ 80+ Gold Certified Modular Power Supply [Mostly got it for shits and giggles, seeing how much overkill it is], $100 for my case [Chaser Mk-1] and a full outfit of fans and LED lighting for it with a fan controller, and another $200 for my 240Gb SanDisk Extreme SSD.
From there I pumped another $300 into a Yamakasi Catleap 2560*1440 LED SIPS 27" monitor.
$250 into a Corsair Sp2500 speaker system.
$90 into a Steelseries Sensei Professional mouse.
And I've recycled 3 hard drives, a 1280*1024 monitor and my keyboard for use in my PC.

Not exactly a cheap PC, but the initial cost for it was $300 - everything but the CPU + cooling, RAM and Mobo I recycled from my first rig. Been upgrading it year after year since though. Next year I'll swap up to an 800 series Nvidia graphics card. Would swap to a 700 this year but I've got a massive holiday at the end of the year that'll send me completely broke if I do so... yeah...

 

[verdant monkai]

I know you don't really care about PC hardware but honestly the graphics card that your computer comes with is pretty week.

I seriously seriously don't. The graphics card is ok it can even run stuff like Crysis 3 on some sort of setting, and as long as it can do that it doesn't matter how 'weak' it is I'll do for me. Thanks for the advice though if I really feel the need I can always upgrade.

Personally though you should try for this setup in terms of hard drive management.

1. One hard drive for Operating system/Storage.
2.One hard drive for games
3. One hard drive for dedicated storage.

Sounds like a great idea mate. Are you willing to lend me a spare £500 so I can get started with that?

Ahh it is good to see another have seen the light.

Planescape Torment

Thanks your avatar is rather blinding but I'm still glad to be here.

This game' sequel which should be out in a couple of months is one of the things that got me interested in the PC.

 

[Ickorus]

Welcome to the PC gaming ma- oh, we're not doing that? Ok.

Mine cost me about £500 and was bought just over a year ago, it uses some older components but I made sure it was built extremely efficiently and makes use of the resources it has at hand so theoretically it could keep going for another 5 years before I need an upgrade.

 

[The White Hunter]

So how much did you guys pay for your rigs? that is what you call them yes?
Also please don't make any PC gaming master race comments, they churn my stomach and make PC gamers seem terrible.

Thats apretty sweet rig for the money, one thing I'd say though is to enquire about the motherboard, make sure it isn't cheap and nasty. Preferably something from gigabyte or asus with plenty of expansion options.

Also make sure the PSU (Power brick) is 80+ certified. SEriously, if they skimp you with a cheap russian 350W PSU it could make it all go bang.

Otherwise thats a nice rig for the price. I'm looking at around £700 for my new rig.

My current one is shameful .____.

 

[EstrogenicMuscle]

Uhh.. No thanks mate you can keep your Falcons guide. I'm told you certainly don't need to spend over £1000 to make a decent gaming pc

But that's what the Falcon guide is for.

Following the Falcon guide is the best way to get bang for your buck. It has a lot of the best parts at each price range. There are even computers around the $200 price range.

Why the lack of interest? Is it the best guide to owning a PC meant for gaming anywhere on the internet if you want to be money smart. I think you should give it a second thought before outright dismissing it. It would give you a much better PC for the money than any prebuilt in the world. It also isn't "my" guide. It is a PC building guide put together by some of the most intelligent and experienced in the hobby.

There is no reason to dismiss the Falcon guide. It is the best for getting into PC gaming at any price range.

 

[Arina Love]

i spent 1000$ on my I5 + 660ti (don't live in US) but i'm still primarily a console gamer.

 

[Lliustril]

I brought my computer 2 years ago. It cost me approximately $2500 NZ (£1100 or US$1700). As The Eupho Guy said "Hardware prices down under are stupidly high".
I was going to build it my self, and had a $3000 budget (it had to last me, without upgrades for the rest of uni) but I found a refurbished Alienware Aurora R3 on sale. It was better than I was planning and cheaper .
So I ended up with Nividia GTX580, Intel i7 2600 @ 3.4 Ghz and 8GB Ram. I started with 1TB but now have 3.5TB over 3 hard drives, with the 500GB handed down from a friend.

One of the key things of PC gaming for me is the ability to upgrade or replace parts. When people with consoles are forced to get the next gen, I can just get a new graphics card or mother board. Also if one part of a console breaks, your generally going to new a whole new one. If something on your PC breaks you replace that part. Its often about the same price but it feels less traumatic. Its like the difference between old cars and new ones with computers controlling everything.

You will end up with quite the catalogue of games on steam. I have 40 steam games, which in my flat alone is very few.I have 15 games just sitting there that I haven't played yet. Why? Because I don't have the time atm, but I picked them up cheap, like $2 US cheap. Some of them are Humble Bundle sales, which I brought for just one game.

To miss-quote Phil Plait:
Welcome to PC gaming, you're gonna like it here.

 

[Dryk]

I spent about $1100 to build this computer, and I already had everything except the computer itself and my current mouse. It's served me pretty well and the only reason I'd need to upgrade it in the next few years is if I can't handle having to go down to low settings on newer games.

Thanks!
Really? Steam seems like a good guy to me :s his sales are nice and everyone I've talked to sings its praises.

That's the problem. I can't tell you how much money I have spent on steam sales, just because I kind of wanted the game. You can tell EA wants your money, but valve is like oh a sale, don't you want it. I still love them but they are manipulative(and I still prefer their way over EA's).[/quote]
I can tell you how much I've spent on steam sales... but I really don't want to. Averaging about ~45% of the current value of my library though so that's a win... maybe...

 

[Petromir]

Personally though you should try for this setup in terms of hard drive management.

1. One hard drive for Operating system/Storage.
2.One hard drive for games
3. One hard drive for dedicated storage.

You CAN combine the OS hard drive and the game hard drive into one but personally I'd say it is better to just give the OS a standard hard drive and use it for some storage while getting an SSD(assuming the extreme here) for games you currently play. Any games you aren't playing are probably better just uninstalled.

I'd recommend a small SSD as a system drive, not a place for bottle necks and windows works a lot better with one. Unless your packing a lot of software that you also install there a 60GB SSD for the System drive will improve boot times and prevent it becoming a performance bottle neck. Hell it improves performance of games not on it in many cases, if its the system drive.

 

[Pinkamena]

I believe the total value of my PC is about 2500 quid. Most of that is invested in CPU and RAM since I work with 3D, and it's completely overpowered to only be a gaming PC.

 

[Rastien]

People say it's expensive but I put my current rig together about... 4.5 years ago now and it still runs anything i throw at it intial cost was about £500 so it works out about the same as a console really admitedly i can't run this years games at ultra/max settings but most of the games still look great so i'm not to fussed.

 

[MrTub]

Personally though you should try for this setup in terms of hard drive management.

1. One hard drive for Operating system/Storage.
2.One hard drive for games
3. One hard drive for dedicated storage.

You CAN combine the OS hard drive and the game hard drive into one but personally I'd say it is better to just give the OS a standard hard drive and use it for some storage while getting an SSD(assuming the extreme here) for games you currently play. Any games you aren't playing are probably better just uninstalled.

I'd recommend a small SSD as a system drive, not a place for bottle necks and windows works a lot better with one. Unless your packing a lot of software that you also install there a 60GB SSD for the System drive will improve boot times and prevent it becoming a performance bottle neck. Hell it improves performance of games not on it in many cases, if its the system drive.

Ssds does not improve performance in games.

They shorten the load times. Nothing else.