Okay, so my PC has been dead for like...forever now. I need a new one. What is a good gaming PC to get? It doesn't have to be able to run Destiny or the new MGS or anything, but it should be able to run current-gen games at least on low settings. Where should I look for the best bang for buck, out of the box?
I would wait for the Intel Broadwell architecture, but from what I am reading it is not going to be out until early 2015. It was supposed to be released Q3 or Q4 of 2014. If you need something now, get a haswell i5, unless you need a ton of processing power. To be honest if you need that much processing, you should probably be looking at a high end AMD octo core. With that said, for gaming, I would go for a Haswell i5, 12-16GB of RAM, 700W+ PS, SSD and a standard HDD, and the best video card you can afford. I personally like AMD, but either nVidia or AMD will do fine as long as your are staying on the mid to high end.
4th gen I5's are great for regular gaming, and they're not expensive at the moment. The big thing you should budget for is the video card. On a gaming pc, the video card should make up about half the cost of the computer.
^this. Motherboards, RAM, HD's and chassis' are dirt cheap. Find the video card you want/can afford and build the rest of the computer around it. As far as waiting for a new technology....NEVER do that unless it's coming out within the next couple of weeks. Trying to gain the upper hand on PC technology is a dirty, nasty game you will NEVER win. If you have the money to get it all now, do so. If you are going to be acquiring parts as you can afford them over the span of a few weeks, my only piece of advice is this: Buy the static pieces first. I.e. Get the chassis, power supply, hard drive, DVD etc first. These items have very long product cycles and don't lose their power/price ratio very fast. Then, settle on motherboard and ram. Then finally, get the best video card you can for the money. I constantly check Toms Hardware. They usually have a monthly update reviewing best video cards in particular class/price range. Good luck!
check out www.pcpartpicker.com for really good up to date prices and comparables. Not sure if you are going to build your own or go through Dell or others but if you are building one this is the place. I put together a machine last fall that can run MWO at medium to high and Warthunder at high for about 800 bucks. If you are going to buy from dell or best buy prepare to spend more for less but it has the convenience of tech support, easy warranties, and ready to go out of the box. Also have drivers and a ton of programs ready to go. Building your own is fun and not super hard these days if you do your homework. Down side is no tech support, you have to handle individual warranties, and can be overwhelming if you are not into it. Drivers have to be installed manually but there is not a ton of junk programs installed slowing everything down. From my research last fall AMD processors are cheap but have less power than intel. Intels are the best but cost more. You dont need the latest i7 intel chips for gaming. Video card dont skimp, power supply dont skimp(Good quality vs cheap ones), SSHD are awesome but spendy for not much storage. If you go a SSHD route get what you can afford and put your operating system and main games on it but buy a decent regular HD with lots of storage space for everything else. 8 GB of ram is the sweet spot for gaming as less starts to hurt and more starts to lose value for the bucks. If the above paragraph does not make sense go to Dell/Bestbuy or your preferred store and buy what you can afford
The AMD is less powerful is misconception. This is actually not true. They are more powerful per core, but not overall. Typically if you need high processor intensive applications, you want to go for a high end AMD processor as they have overall more proccessing. The issue is most applications will only use one or maybe 2 cores, so intel procs end up being better for the majority of gaming. Keep in mind, AMD has their mantle system which I think is going to make a pretty big difference in games that support it. On the other side nVidia has PhysX.. so there is that.
Normal HDs are cheap, SSDs are not as cheap, but you should get an SSD. That's my next upgrade. After that the next bottle neck is mobo/processor (old Phenom X4 3400, still runs things pretty well on low/med with a 7850)
If you want to, you might consider buying a case mounted liquid cooler for CPU and possibly another one for GPU if you have a case that has spots for them. Also, Noctua's industrial fans are about 4x as effective at moving air as normal retail case fans.
Made this post on Saturday. Sunday my HD died. Monday I had an SSD. Tuesday my boot times were great. Wednesday I had a BSOD, so I installed all my windows upgrades. Thursday my games run better.
