So i need a new computer. Any tips/suggestions?

[uchytjes]

So i just got home today and decided to sit down at my computer to play some games. Much to my surprise, my computer would not start. So i looked up the cost of repair at a local shop only to find the cost to be over $500 in the best case scenario. At this point, i said to myself "well fuck it" and decided it was time to get rid of it and get a new computer.

So i pose a few questions for that i would appreciate being answered.

1. How much does a good, mid-high range PC with a good graphics card and processor cost?

2. Should i get a premade pc or build my own?

3. If i do build one myself, what parts should i use?

4. If i go with premade, what should i get?

Also, for those who are bound to ask, (put in caps for attention) I AM USING A PHONE TO POST THIS

Oh and my current pc is an aspire x3810. Also, my price range is about $750 - $1250, so keep that in mind. As far as power goes, i would like the ability to play a game like skyrim on about medium-high graphics.

Thank you for any and all suggestions!

 

[thesilentman]

Also, my price range is about $2000 - $2500, so keep that in mind.

2000 to 2500 dollars is your budget?! With that much, you can build a nice PC that demolishes everything at 60 FPS and 1920x1080 resolution.

Okay, let's take off the elitism hat and actually give some advice.

1) Should cost around 1000$ or above. You'll get a good processor (check for it being around 2.4 GHz and above), but prebuilt PCs have some really bad graphics cards.
2) If you're willing to spend the time to build one, go build. You get more bang for your buck if you build. If you can't be arsed, go buy a tower desktop. I say tower as the Windows 8 desktops are quite the iMac copiers (in a really bad way).
3) No clue how it actually breaks down, but here's the basic outline of a build that I think would work. Since you have a budget of 2000$ (assuming here), I try to be a little future-proof.

Processor (CPU)-Intel i7 Quad Core. Depends on you to pick the specific model
Graphics Card (GPU)- Either the NVidia GTX 480 or the AMD HD 6750. Personal preference here, and I'm going for a good price/quality ratio as the graphics cards get expensive rather fast.
RAM- 8 GB RAM. Since RAM is dirt cheap nowadays, 8 is the standard. I personally think 16 is overkill.
OS- Depends. It HAS to be 64-bit, though. If you want a usable computer and have no tolerance for Windows 8, just go with Windows 7 Professional. If you want to be very slightly faster, go with Windows 8 Professional. I personally would say to go for Windows 8, but it depends on if you like the funny interface the Start thingy uses.
Motherboard- ASUS has some quality motherboards that you'll need to investigate further into after you pick the CPU.

4) If you're going with premade, go with HP. In my personal experience, their desktops are really, really good. Just upgrade the video card and you'll be fine.

Feel free to ask more questions if you need.

Hope I helped and have fun with the PC after it's built.

 

[uchytjes]

Thank you for the advice! It will be incredibly useful for when i do go buy the pc. Also, yeah i overbudgeted at first thinking that computers were more expensive than they are. So as of now, my budget is around 750-1250. Also, do you know of any good tech sites? The last time i bought a computer, it was from tigerdirect.com and i've also looked at newegg.com. are there any others you recommend? I already miss my physical keyboard. If digital keyboards and touchscreens are the future, LEAVE ME OUT.

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[Occams_Razor]

I agree with everything thesilentman outlined, that would be a more than solid rig that is going to kill most games without breaking a sweat. I would say go for the nVidia GTX 480 for the video card, I've always found nVidia cards to be just a little ahead of AMD. That may just be my personal bias however.

Another thing you might consider, if you're willing to spend the money, is to get a 128GB or a 256GB Solid State Drive. You'll find your computer boots infinitely faster, open programs faster, load times improve. Its a fairly dramatic difference. OCz has some good prices on SSD, but you can also go Intel if you want a more 'name brand' option.

 

[uchytjes]

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thank you both for the help so far. I would like to have your opinions/ask one another question to the both of you. First of all, I came up with this PC(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883256203) and this graphics card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130827) for what I plan to get. I would like to know your opinions on these products. If you find any problems with them, please tell me. Also, I'm not too certain on whether the graphics card will fit inside the slot or whether it will work correctly with the computer. Do you have any insight as to if it will fit/work and if it does not, could you point me in the direction of one that would fit. Also on the topic of the SSD, I don't really care about speed of loading, I mostly care about space and as far as I can tell, a HDD has more space than most mid-range SSDs.

Thank you again for this help.

 

[Occams_Razor]

Its a good solid machine for the price, not a bad choice at all. I'm not the biggest fan of AMD processors, but that is more of a personal preference than there being anything terribly wrong with it.

As for your video card, again, solid bang for your buck. Not the best card in the market, but should handle just about any current game no sweat. It will definitely fit in that tower, what you look for in the tower is 'Expansion Slots' where it lists 1 PCI Express x16 (available), which is the Interface listed on your video card Interface PCI Express 3.0 x16. That tower has a AMD 7660 video card in it already, a fairly low end card, so just make sure you take that out before you swap this card in.

And ya, the SSD is nowhere near the storage capacity. Its mainly as an drive to install your Operating System and any programs, as you get a dramatic increase in performance, since all disk access times are cut down by a lot. Most people have a secondary data drive on top of that, to store movies and whatnot. I'm running a 128GB SSD and then an extra 4TB of regular HDD space. But that can always be added later, just something to think about.

 

[uchytjes]

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So it doesn't matter that the expansion slot on the computer doesn't say "PCI express 3.0" exactly?

 

[Occams_Razor]

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So it doesn't matter that the expansion slot on the computer doesn't say "PCI express 3.0" exactly?

Not at all. PCI Express 3.0 is the new protocol, but everything is backwards compatible, so all PCI-E 3.0 cards will work with a PCI-E 2.0 slot. Very few motherboards are being rolled out with a PCI-E 3.0 slot yet, probably another year before you start to see that as the standard.

 

[AlwaysPractical]

Check out this suggestion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP2lNZqPyG8&feature=plcp

or maybe this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAYR3Q17_8g&feature=plcp

Or check out their channel for other suggestions.

For $1200, you can get one that runs skyrim on ultra in 1080p at 60 fps, don't worry.

 

[Hazy992]

Are you planning on doing anything other than gaming with your build? Video editing for example?