Wondering about pc.

[Pulse]

I stopped pc gaming around....6/7 years ago now. Back when 512 MB ram was pretty adequate for most new games. I stopped for a variety of reasons, but that's not the point.

It looks like there are a quite a few games I'd like (day z, coh2, wasteland..) so I'm just wondering about desktops (i'm guessing they're cheaper). What would be the minimum to have those running at fairly decent settings? When it comes to "building" a rig are there things you need to look out for (incompatibilities etc)? Is it worth looking at laptops. et cetera etcetera. Educate me!

I'll also be looking at what the steambox has to offer, but that piston thing seemed a bit overkill at first glance.

 

[synobal]

I stopped pc gaming around....6/7 years ago now. Back when 512 MB ram was pretty adequate for most new games. I stopped for a variety of reasons, but that's not the point.

It looks like there are a quite a few games I'd like (day z, coh2, wasteland..) so I'm just wondering about desktops (i'm guessing they're cheaper). What would be the minimum to have those running at fairly decent settings? When it comes to "building" a rig are there things you need to look out for (incompatibilities etc)? Is it worth looking at laptops. et cetera etcetera. Educate me!

I'll also be looking at what the steambox has to offer, but that piston thing seemed a bit overkill at first glance.

Not much in the way of incompatibilities these days. Just make sure your motherboard is an AMD or an Intel motherboard depending on your processor type. If you get an intel processor get an intel compatible motherboard. For gaming I'd suggest 8 gigs of ram minimum. Ram is pretty cheap these days so ya no biggy.

Don't go cheap out on a power supply either a lot of people just building a PC are tempted to cut corners on the power supply but in my experience that just costs you more money in the long run. I'm a fan of the Antec modular powersupplies cuts down on cable clutter in my case and generally allows for better airflow.

 

[Christopher Fisher]

Yeah, you need to make sure the CPU and RAM is compatible with your motherboard. The motherboard's website will have a list of all compatible CPUs and RAM (you rarely ever have any compatibility issues with the GPU). Don't look at laptops. For the price of a mid range gaming laptop, you could get a super decked out desktop. If you don't want to build a rig, there are a ton of great sites that don't charge too much of a premium for building your system for you like iBuy Power, NCIX, and Digital Storm's pre-built systems. However, if you want to build your own system (it's not as hard as it seems and it's good to know in case you want to upgrade it later), check out Linus Tech Tips on youtube; he the best explanations on every aspect of building a system imo http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCE36E40EA38A54C5