The Standard PC

[TiefBlau]

So I hear all the time about the "The (300-500) PC That Can Run (Crysis/Just Cause/Underwater Basket Weaving) On Highest!!!!11!1" which gets me wondering.

One huge setback to PC gaming is that shopping for a PC or any component of said PC is a big hassle, so I want you, savvy Escapist PC Gamers, to help develop the PC Gamer's answer to the console.

Post your idea for an entry-level gamer's PC that can play just about anything with at least console-level graphics.

 

[Valagetti]

How much will it set you back? And the thing why I personally buy PC hardware that I don't currently need, is for the future. Yeah its cheaper just to keep up with the times, instead of planning ahead, but its less hassle. And really shop around for a decent yet cheap machine, mine originally cost as much a car. And I got it for half that. Try not to buy online or from chain stores, I go with random specialists who are very small companies, its great especially if you can be-friend them. And if you have the money, use Alienware!

 

[ResonanceSD]

How much will it set you back? And the thing why I personally buy PC hardware that I don't currently need, is for the future. Yeah its cheaper just to keep up with the times, instead of planning ahead, but its less hassle. And really shop around for a decent yet cheap machine, mine originally cost as much a car. And I got it for half that. Try not to buy online or from chain stores, I go with random specialists who are very small companies, its great especially if you can be-friend them. And if you have the money, use Alienware!

Alienware isn't worth the money, put it together yourself, get a killer rig, and save money.


OP: Can it run Crysis *well* was the OLD on the fly benchmark.


Nowdays it's

"Can it even run Metro 2033"?


EDIT: 2GB of RAM and a 4870 will not come close to what is required to get above 10fps.

 

[ElNeroDiablo]

Around $500 AUD got me - Core i7 2600 ($295 + $12 S&H), Gigabyte HA65M-UD3H-B3 ($135. DO NOT get this if you want to max out the 4 slots to 16GB unless you're able to find 4GB RAM chips that are single-sided using 8*512MB chips, or a pair of 8GB double-sided RAM chips (even then I doubt the board would use them). I learnt that the HARD way and can't get my money back from the a-hole owner of the store I got the board at) & 4GB Transcend DDR3 1333MHz (double-sided. $75, same fucking store as the mobo).

This doesn't include the chassis (a 7 year old bastard that still stands strong, fucking cold too when you got the air cooling rigged up 'just right'), the 200GB Seagate Barracuda, the ASUS Lightscribe DVD +/- R/RW, the 120mm Antec Tri-cool 3-colour LED fan on the back of the chassis, the 80mm Antec Tri-cool LED rans (1x Blue, 1x Red) mounted in the front of the chassis over the hard drive bays with a pair of generic 80mm fans that came with the case, or the 550W Thermaltake True Blue LED PSU, as I had all those parts beforehand, and some of them (the whole shitload of fans for one) aren't required purchases or you can find newer and better alternatives (such as getting a Cooler Master HAF 392 which comes with its own set of 120mm & 140mm fans) for less than what I got my parts for originally (1TB drives are well under the $100 mark now for example).

 

[Retronana]

Coolermaster Elite 335 Black Mini Tower Case with Rear 120mm Fan w/o PSU
AMD Athlon II X4 640, Propus, Quad Core, S AM3, 3GHz, 2MB Total Cache, HT 2000MHz, 95W, Retail
430W Corsair CMPSU-430CX Builder Series, 80% Eff', 120mm Fan, Single 12V Rail, ATX, PSU
4GB (2x2GB) Corsair DDR3 XMS3 Classic, PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, 1.50V
1TB Seagate ST1000DL002 Barracuda Green, SATA 3Gb/s, 5900rpm, 32MB Cache, 12ms, NCQ
1GB EVGA GTX 460 SE, 3400MHz GDDR5, GPU 648MHz, Shader Clock 1296MHz, 288 Cores, 2x DL DVI-I/ mHDMI
MSI 760GM-P33, AMD 760G, AM2, PCI-E (x16), DDR3 1600(OC), SATA 3Gb/s, SATA RAID, mATX, On Board VGA

Total price:£359 on Scan

BAM!!!!

EDIT: spend an extra £150 on the GPU and you could murder crysis for £500

 

[TiefBlau]

Using only Newegg, I managed to make a system that can satisfy the recommended settings of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Here's what I got:


EVGA 01G-P3-1373-TR GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) Superclocked EE 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130567] $174.99
AMD Athlon II X4 640 Propus 3.0GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor ADX640WFGMBOX [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103871] $99.99
ZALMAN 9500A-LED 92mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118223] $44.99
Foxconn M61PMP-K AM3 NVIDIA MCP61P Micro ATX AMD Motherboard [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186189] $44.99
Antec EarthWatts Green EA-430D Green 430W [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371034] $44.99
Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136073] $43.99
Crucial Ballistix Tracer 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148327] $34.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811154094 [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811154094] $29.99
SONY Black SATA DVD-ROM Drive Model DDU1681S-0B - OEM [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118031] $16.99

Total: $535.91 with $45 worth of rebate.


My brother built me my first gaming rig, so I'm still in the learning process of PC-savviness, so feel free to correct my list if there's something off about it.

 

[Jordi]

I was wondering a couple days ago: if you buy a PC with specs that are roughly equivalent to an XBOX 360 or PS3, are you pretty much guaranteed to be able to play games on it that are also coming out on those consoles? It kind of makes sense to me, but is this really the case? Or do PC versions of games often have higher minimum requirements than whatever the console versions have?

 

[SnowyGamester]

I was wondering a couple days ago: if you buy a PC with specs that are roughly equivalent to an XBOX 360 or PS3, are you pretty much guaranteed to be able to play games on it that are also coming out on those consoles? It kind of makes sense to me, but is this really the case? Or do PC versions of games often have higher minimum requirements than whatever the console versions have?

Not exactly. PC games generally have much higher specs required basically because they have directx between the game and the GPU, while consoles are all identical so they don't need that additional software layer.

Also I can run metro 2033 max settings with my rig.

Specs:
Base computer: 2.1ghz core2duo/2g ddr2 800 ram/8400gs graphics - $400 (~three years ago)
+2GB ram - free (from fried computer)
+9800gtx+ graphics - $200 (~year ago)

Total: $600

Keep in mind most of it was bought 3 years ago but it would be much cheaper now. I also upgraded to a 2.66 quad core but that doesn't really count as bugger all games are optimized for that (better off with a 3ghz core2 really) so the upgrade was minimal.

 

[TiefBlau]

I was wondering a couple days ago: if you buy a PC with specs that are roughly equivalent to an XBOX 360 or PS3, are you pretty much guaranteed to be able to play games on it that are also coming out on those consoles? It kind of makes sense to me, but is this really the case? Or do PC versions of games often have higher minimum requirements than whatever the console versions have?

Ehhh...complicated question.

Yes, PC games require hardware superior to their console ports.

Take, for example, the 360. It has 512 MB RAM. Portal 2 for the PC however, considered one of the less graphics-intensive games on the market, lists as a requirement at least 1 GB of RAM. That's twice as much (and that's considered small).

But you can't really call that being "equivalent" to a console.

Since it also has to serve its purpose as a general-use computer, the technology has to be more powerful. More RAM, better, CPU and GPU, etc. Though quality-per-price wise, these components could be much cheaper.

In any case, a PC that can play most PC ports as proficiently as a console plays console ports would probably have roughly the same graphical quality, I believe.

 

[veloper]

Take just about any new off-the-shelf PC and if you can include a dedicated GPU, you're good nowadays.
You'll get a quad-core and 4 GB RAM, when an old dualcore such as a C2D 8400 and 2 GB will do.

Stick a mainstream-performance GPU from 2 generations ago in a rig, like for example the HD4850, or even a high-end GPU from 3 generations ago, like the 8800GTX and you can play anything on medium detail or better.

Tech has been very slow for the past few years.
It's become a non-issue.

 

[Weaver]

I was wondering a couple days ago: if you buy a PC with specs that are roughly equivalent to an XBOX 360 or PS3, are you pretty much guaranteed to be able to play games on it that are also coming out on those consoles? It kind of makes sense to me, but is this really the case? Or do PC versions of games often have higher minimum requirements than whatever the console versions have?

The PC must be more powerful due to heavy demand from the operating system. Consoles still have OSs but they are much more lightweight and have much less threads running (a stringent requirement since consoles are in-order processors).

 

[veloper]

Also, AMD + nvidia = full retard, all these fancy tests websites run apparently showed that you loose like 30% of power. It makes sense since AMD and ATI are closest bros (didnt AMD buy them up recently?). The same goes for intel and nvidia.

Show your sources and fancy tests, or it's bullshit.
And intel and nvidia are not close.

 

[Weaver]

Using only Newegg, I managed to make a system that can satisfy the recommended settings of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Here's what I got:


EVGA 01G-P3-1373-TR GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) Superclocked EE 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130567] $174.99
AMD Athlon II X4 640 Propus 3.0GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor ADX640WFGMBOX [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103871] $99.99
ZALMAN 9500A-LED 92mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118223] $44.99
Foxconn M61PMP-K AM3 NVIDIA MCP61P Micro ATX AMD Motherboard [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186189] $44.99
Antec EarthWatts Green EA-430D Green 430W [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371034] $44.99
Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136073] $43.99
Crucial Ballistix Tracer 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148327] $34.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811154094 [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811154094] $29.99
SONY Black SATA DVD-ROM Drive Model DDU1681S-0B - OEM [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118031] $16.99

Total: $535.91 with $45 worth of rebate.


My brother built me my first gaming rig, so I'm still in the learning process of PC-savviness, so feel free to correct my list if there's something off about it.

Not digging the nvidia graphics card. ATI drivers are known to cause trouble with games that have just been released, but as far as price to quality ratio goes they are much better. With EVGA you pay another 50 dollars just for the name. You could get an ATI with the same specs and lifetime for half the price.

Also, AMD + nvidia = full retard, all these fancy tests websites run apparently showed that you loose like 30% of power. It makes sense since AMD and ATI are closest bros (didnt AMD buy them up recently?). The same goes for intel and nvidia.

Now im not to sure about this, im no expert on this subject, far from it, so correct me if im wrong when I say this. But I reckon anyone would be much better off with an MSI mainboard. They hardly cost more and here in Germany a lot of people swear by them. Seems they make insane quality products and low(er) prices. And the power supply thingy... Not sure what its called in english but people might want to dish out a couple more bucks for XFX. It really isnt that important though.

Keep in mind I could be completely wrong about everything I said, and if I am, please correct me, but keep the flaming minimal.

The reason people buy EVGA is because they're the only reamining company with a lifetime warranty on their products.

 

[Stavros Dimou]

Any mid to budget desktop pc that came out the last 2 years is possible to give you at least the same graphic quality as consoles (if not better) if you add a 100$ graphics card to it.

I bought a 500$ pc in February 2009,witch had a Celeron Dual Core @ 2.2 Ghz,2gb RAM,and WinXP 32bit.

I added a Ati HD4850 that costed me 100$ and I could play all multiplatform games like Fallout 3 and Wolfenstein at maximum graphics at 1024x768 (better than 720p) without ever falling under 30fps which is the console standard.

Since then,I bought a new processor that costed me 100$,but it wasn't for gaming but for for running some professional programs I wanted for my work.
But the addition of a dual core at 3.2ghz allowed me to add additional 24x Samples Anti Aliasing in all multiplatform games,that made them look much better.
Now I can play Crysis at very high,with additional texture packs that make graphics even better,at a good enough frame rate.

 

[The Lugz]

if you really want a good price / pref pc then it has to be an amd, they're a little slower but they make great priced components.

you can get an am3 mobo, ddr3, phenom 2 quadcore with a 5850 little under £300

if you need a case, psu and drives call it £400
if you really want to splash out, grab an xfx 6950 2GB instead of the 5850 and spend all 500, you'll have a pc that runs any current game

### just went and built this with a 6950 2GB on overclockers uk, they want £473.70 for the whole system including hdd, dvd drive, case ###

so yes

as they say, myth busted.

 

[Cridhe]

I built mine off about a week's worth of research and $600, got the best bang for my buck and it's a damn good bang so far (maybe a ka-pow, even). The combo deals on Newegg are frequently phenomenal.

 

[Wolfram23]

So I hear all the time about the "The (300-500) PC That Can Run (Crysis/Just Cause/Underwater Basket Weaving) On Highest!!!!11!1" which gets me wondering.

One huge setback to PC gaming is that shopping for a PC or any component of said PC is a big hassle, so I want you, savvy Escapist PC Gamers, to help develop the PC Gamer's answer to the console.

Post your idea for an entry-level gamer's PC that can play just about anything with at least console-level graphics.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/diy-gaming-pc,2970.html

 

[grumbel]

One huge setback to PC gaming is that shopping for a PC or any component of said PC is a big hassle, so I want you, savvy Escapist PC Gamers, to help develop the PC Gamer's answer to the console.

The core problem with PC gaming isn't that you can't buy a cheap PC that will play current games, the problem is that that cheap PC won't last you very long. My 4 year old 800EUR PC (+ a recent 80EUR ATI HD5670 upgrade) for example is still good at render shiny graphics, but for many games the included CPU is to slow and unlike graphics, by far most games don't have detail settings for CPU intensive stuff. Which in turn leaves me in an odd situation, I can run some modern games essentially at high resolution and framerate with maximum details and other simply not at all as they would chuck along with sub-15fps. Even some old stuff like Dirt1 runs rather terrible as nobody bothered to optimize it for the PC.

So essentially, I don't think there is an entry level PC that will give you console type graphics for the life time of the console, you likely have to upgrade it multiple times along the way.

 

[mad825]

CPUual core @ 2.7Ghz or higher
GPU:9500GT or ATI equivalent
RAM: DDR2 3GB (4GB recommended)

These specs are not excessive nor are they bare minimum which leaves some room for future games. The GPU can run DX10 which surpasses the consoles although if the user wants a higher resolution then a more powerful GPU and CPU may be required to achieve the desired results however it's not necessary

 

[JezebelinHell]

So I hear all the time about the "The (300-500) PC That Can Run (Crysis/Just Cause/Underwater Basket Weaving) On Highest!!!!11!1" which gets me wondering.

One huge setback to PC gaming is that shopping for a PC or any component of said PC is a big hassle, so I want you, savvy Escapist PC Gamers, to help develop the PC Gamer's answer to the console.

Post your idea for an entry-level gamer's PC that can play just about anything with at least console-level graphics.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/diy-gaming-pc,2970.html

Always start at Tom's Hardware. They have whole forums dedicated to building PCs and even specific posts for building $500 gaming rigs. Also you can mention being interested in the ability to upgrade and they will take that into consideration.

Another bonus about using Tom's Hardware is that you will get answers from PC users not people contributing nothing but whining and steering you away from your original request.