what computer should i get?

[gravitate]

i'm not big on these things, but i know i want it to be perfect for gaming, and multitasking. i don't know if i should buy a PC or build my own. building my own is an option, but I'd really prefer buying one, since I'm not so good with those things. if i am going to build one though, what do you recommend? and do you know any good gaming PC's?

 

[Pakkie]

You will save a lot of cash if you build it yourself, its really best not to buy pre-built PC's. A few shops that sell PC parts also offer to build them for a set price, normally from my experience they charge around $50 (Sometimes they don't charge anything, it depends). That way you could get it custom-built and not have to build it yourself, you would need to check with shops around your area.

If you want some help with what parts to get its best if you give us a certain price.

 

[JochemDude]

There are more than enough "small" companies out there that'll just make it for you, I had my PC made for me. Just went there told them what I wanted, select some nice parts and a week later it was made. Just look around if there's a store like that near your place. This is by the way a nice site to browse through some parts. http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/

 

[gravitate]

i have a pretty big budget, and there is a pretty good store nearby you can custom-build in. im not sure what parts to get though, accept for a 4-GB ram.

 

[Johnnyallstar]

If you're confident, I'd suggest building your own. Unless you want a laptop, then I'd suggest prefab.

There are some websites that can help you build your own, and give insight on how to not screw up.

If you're building, I suggest you look at a few websites and just get straight with what you want before you buy.

Here are 2 very helpful websites for parts

http://www.newegg.com
http://www.tigerdirect.com

 

[Wrists]

It really depends on how much you plan to spend, when you say "perfect for gaming" is there anything more specific you can say? Do you want to play KOTOR or Crysis 2? The computer you want to buy will differ depending on your answer to that question.

Nvidia recently put up a guide about building a sub $600 rig to play Crysis 2, admittedly they did it to plug their latest GPU but it could be a good starting point.

http://www.geforce.com/#/Optimize/Guides/how-to-build-a-kick-ass-crysis-2-pc-for-under-600?cid=GTX550Ti

I'll admit, however, that I'm not the expert on this kind of thing so I'll let everyone else give more detailed and/or helpful advice.

 

[auronvi]

www.cyberpowerpc.com

^^ Great place. It is hard to build a computer cheaper than they can. You have lots of control over what goes in it and I have 2 machines from them. The first one just recently crapped out on me after about 10 years and the one I currently have is still going strong after 3 years. I heard customer service is a pain but that is with almost any computer company. Give em a try, you won't regret it. If you need help you can call them to place an order and they will help you decide.

 

[gravitate]

well i cant get into details about my budget, since i live in israel, which means shekels, not dollars. a dollar is worth about 4 shekels. any way i want the computer to be less focused on graphics and more on the gameplay itself, i want it to be fast and not as laggy is my shitty PC is being right now. i want to play stuff like mass effect 2 without lags.

 

[gravitate]

oh and one more thing, PURCHASING ANYTHING ONLINE IS NOT AN OPTION. thanks.

 

[lacktheknack]

i have a pretty big budget, and there is a pretty good store nearby you can custom-build in. im not sure what parts to get though, accept for a 4-GB ram.

Get a powerful processor for multitasking. Intel's i7 ought to do it.

Just remember that you get what you pay for.

EDIT: <link=http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/af150/The_FalconO6/CurrentLogicalPCBuyingGuide/Guide.png>Use this.

 

[Hoplon]

ok, rather than specifics i will go very general.

Main board/Mother board67 Chip set equivalent, how much you spend will define what connectors you will have to play with.
CPU: i5 equivalent with not less than 3ghz clock speed
Ram: 4 gig will do you proud.
GPU: Nvidia 560 or better, ATi 67xx or better
System drive: OCZ Vertex 2E Bigfoot 120GB equivalent, the vertex 3 is on the way so these are dropping in price, the big foot because is it is standard 3.5" and 120 gb is the smallest system drive size that will not annoy. (i have smaller, it annoy's the smeg out of me)
Storage drives: pretty much what ever floats your boat, but less than a Terra byte seems like poor value for money.

 

[manythings]

If you have to buy new (because you really, really don't want to build your own) don't buy alienware, is just a plain rip-off. I'm talking a 300% markup just for the alienware stamp.

My other recommendation would be buy from a real store rather than online. It'll cosst more but at least you can take it to a person and probably deal with it in a day while the online stuff could end up taking weeks.

 

[Danzaivar]

If you want fast loading/performance over graphics then make sure you get RAM with a good bus speed (1300mhz+) and for a hard drive get a SSD (Solid State Drive rather than a normal Hard Disk Drive). A quad core processor is also preferable. Those 3 will make your computer responsive and fast loading, though not necessarily pretty graphically, that's all down to the graphics card.

Solid state drives are pricey though, and have very little space on compared to a normal Hard Drive, (I.e. a 2 Terabyte hard drive is £80, a 128GB SSD is £150, twice the price for 1/16th of the space) a common way around that is to install your operating system and most common games/apps on the SSD, then put low performance stuff and files on a larger normal hard drive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDA9tB17Wio

^- Demonstrates pretty well.

 

[StBishop]

i have a pretty big budget, and there is a pretty good store nearby you can custom-build in. im not sure what parts to get though, accept for a 4-GB ram.

I had a small budget ($500.00) and I have 4 GB of RAM.

I wouldn't say you need more, but you don't need to have a nice GPU with direct X 11 support, or a core i7 processor, or a 22" screen, or a 2 TB hard drive.

But that's the point of gaming PC's. You don't get what you need. You get what you want and can justify affording.

I'm not saying have liquid cooling and UV lights with invisible ink stencils air brushed on the perspex case and glowing zip ties and hydrolic stands and gates for the thing.

But if you have a large budget then at least go big with the insides.

Edit:
Ummm, so it seems that spending time with my brother has skewed my idea of a "Normal" pc.

He's currently running 16 GB of RAM, no I'm not exaggerating, not to mention his other specs but at least where memory is concerned I seem to be well off base.
He needs a beefy set up in general for rendering shit and compiling code for uni so he's an exception, he's got massive fans to keep everything cool when he's making the CPU work.
I'll be honest, I'm not really well versed in tech, I know what everything does, I know how to put it together but that's the extent of it.

 

[BENZOOKA]

Build it yourself. Pre-built PC's unfortunately often contain bottlenecks. At least everything can't be optimal.

If you don't know your stuff in building a rig, then go to this shop you mentioned and negotiate with them to build you a system to fit your needs. I bet they'll help you and don't think they'll charge much for assembling it, and that's the simplest process anyways. Nothing is as important as picking the right parts in relation to each other.

Oh, and there isn't too much sense in getting a SSD yet.

 

[AceAngel]

For companies, I suggest Asus. Honestly, I can OC my Laptop from the get-go, but I think they also sell Desktop parts? I'm pretty sure you can for an assembly and 3 year warranty with it all for under 1K (pending on parts ofcourse).

 

[Hoplon]

Oh, and there isn't too much sense in getting a SSD yet.

believe me, having switched between having one then not, it is a world of difference between the two, all positive bar the size issues.

 

[BENZOOKA]

Oh, and there isn't too much sense in getting a SSD yet.

believe me, having switched between having one then not, it is a world of difference between the two, all positive bar the size issues.

I know. But it's not something you necessarily need. Sound card is higher on my list, but that isn't necessary either, since the integrated ones on motherboards are nowadays more or less adequate, depending on personal needs. Still, it's a world of difference between the two. As it is between a high quality gaming-latency RAM and cheap generic RAM...

I forgot the OP said he has a big budget, whatever that means in practice. Sure he can get an SSD if the budget allows, but it shouldn't take away from the focus on the rest of the parts, especially when it seems like he needs to get all the peripherals as well.

 

[Hoplon]

I know. But it's not something you necessarily need. Sound card is higher on my list, but that isn't necessary either, since the integrated ones on motherboards are nowadays more or less adequate, depending on personal needs. Still, it's a world of difference between the two. As it is between a high quality gaming-latency RAM and cheap generic RAM...

I forgot the OP said he has a big budget, whatever that means in practice. Sure he can get an SSD if the budget allows, but it shouldn't take away from the focus on the rest of the parts, especially when it seems like he needs to get all the peripherals as well.

Honestly, it's way better than better ram or a sound card in the difference it makes to everyday usage. Sound cards, creative ones anyway, usually more trouble than they are worth thanks to terrible drivers that make getting them to work way more work than it should be, uber ram is so marginal in anything but the most extreme tests of the computer (rendering large images for instance) that it tends to be very border line unless it is simply not working at all.

Really good headphones/speakers can make a big difference however, These [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Grado-SR80i-Headphones-2009-Model/dp/B000G3LCQC/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1300566437&sr=1-1] give good sound compare to headphones 3 times the price.

 

[RanD00M]

Spoiler: This should help you. Warning, picture is fucking huge.

Or you could consult someone you might know in real life who really knows what he is talking about. But that picture is good for references.