Alright, ladies and gents.. I'm in the market for a new gaming computer, and figured I'd see if any of my fellow drunken vikings have some recommendations. I don't need anything fancy and don't have the time to build one. Was looking at Falcon Northwest's Tiki, but that may be a bit out of my price range. Ideally, I'd like to spend no more than 800, but I could potentially swing a grand if its a great deal.
I would recommend GTX 970 with Windforce cooling. It's cheap as dirt and really powerful, doesn't even use much power. h100i is nice alternative for CPU cooling. SSD drive is a must at this point. Also try to go for 16gb of ram. 4670 CPU, decent motherboard. You don't have to assemble a custom build, you can tell the shop to assemble and install everything. I did that and it didn't even add much to the price. I ended up paying 1050€ for my build so it might be a bit off the budget but then I had water cooling for CPU and 500r Corsair casing and stuff that upped the price a bit. They're saying btw. that Win 7 won't be getting dx12. Just a heads up. I went with W7 because fuck W8. If you're going for a shop spec comp, try to pick one with GTX 970 and make sure the Ram is 1600mhz, that they didn't skim on it and that it has at least 128gb SSD. I think 970 and 4670 and 16gb of 1600mhz ram + SSD drive is pretty badass combo. (though the CPU can be better or a little bit worse, don't suppose it makes a ton of difference that easily)
OK, I was looking into building a new gaming rig, since this one is 5 years old (but still doing pretty good!) and I'm thinking I want something for Star Citizen. New Egg has this deal. I built a rig similar to that one that was $1,054.94 in my shopping cart. I got refurbished parts and some other things that were cheaper but showed the same stats or similar. I'm not a big fan of Intel, but I don't care one way or the other as long as it's something that's going to be able to hold its own for a while. Does anyone have any suggestions who knows more about this stuff?
A few things I would like to point out. Rosewill is well, crap in my honest opinion. Also if you are going SLI or cross fire I would get a Full size case, a mid size can be very tight and can cause over heating issues when running that much stuff inside. I would also get a 800w to 850w instead a 700w. That's bordering the max output of the PSU which is not good because it can cause a slew of other relating to overworking the PSU. When driving you don't keep the tachometer at 6k RPMS all the time do you? why would you do the same to your PSU. A few things I would do, get a modular corsair PSU of about 850watts in silver rating. A full size case. A better CPU cooler. I also cant stress this enough, RAM that is sold in pairs or full sets. I noticed that the ram in the kit are just two singles put together. They sell them as sets because they have been tested to actually work together and don't have issues like just putting singles of the same RAM. Their is just some crazy issues sometimes that even though the ram is the exact same thing, they just don't want to work together. Also I would wait and just get one video card now, and wait a year or so and get another one then. Two reasons, most games wont need both cards or comes close and the card would be a bit cheaper by then making the overall purchase cheaper.
Oh, I already have a full sized case. I forgot to remove that. After I got a full sized, I just can't go back to mid. And I'll be sure to put an 850 watt PSU in there. I'll keep in mind the RAM sets. Is 16 Gig what I should be aiming for? I'm planning on getting into recording and editing game footage with my buddy later, so I'm not sure what sort of RAM I need with that. And I've come to learn I don't know shit about CPUs and MOBOs. You're suggesting having two GBUs? Yeah, I'm of the opinion that I should wait toward the end of the year to get stuff.
For the GPU's ill explain a few things. crossfire and SLI are good but will only ever achieve about 80% of the power of a single card of similar stats. The real power that comes from crossfire and SLI is taking the very top of the high end cards and putting them together. Basically this means 2 cards that are 2 gigs will never equal a single card that is 4 gigs. but if the biggest card that is out is 4 gigs, and their are no 8 gig cards to compete with so going SLI with 2 cards that are 4 gigs is the best solution. you generally want to get the highest card your money can buy and just buy another one a year or two later because that's when the GPU requirements start to rise again. its also cheaper this way but some people like having everything here and now. I hope that explains it a little For the intel chipsets I believe their are 3 and 4 channel motherboards but those can get expensive. The mother board in your kit is a 2 channel, which it has 4 ram slots. Each channel supports 2 rams slots and acts as a high way for information from the CPU to the HDD and so on. so the more channels the more information that can be processed at the same time. I would see about looking for a 3 channel mother board and skip the two channel entirely since you normally build CPU for future upgradability. Just remember you don't have to get the highest of everything right now for things like RAM, the GPU, sound cards if you want one, or extra HDD. The important thing for me is the CPU, Case, Motherboard, and PSU. Those four things you normally keep throughout the life the computer, everything else can be upgraded over time easily and cheaper because the technology advances faster and old stuff becomes cheaper quicker.
That's some solid advice. I second this. Also, CPU's don't age as fast as GPU's do. If you get CPU right now, it could be ok 4-5 years from now, so for a CPU you could easily use up 2 GPU's and double or triple Ram and HDD space.
Thanks, fellas, this is a great help. I'll probably get more in-depth with understanding the actual nitty-gritty behind the stats as the end the of year comes closer. In the mean time, if anyone sees any really good deals, post 'em here. I'm not knowledgeable enough yet to know when something really worth it comes along.
For all that is holy get an SSD. I suggest a Samsung 850 EVO. I just bought one for $94. You also do not have to have a Core i7 for gaming. If you need a ton of heavy lifting, sure. But most games are not going to make use of a hyper-threaded quad or 8 core PC. I think Core i5s will do just about anything you want, unless you just want to have the best you can get.
It'd be nice to future-proof some as well. I don't generally like to get new computer stuff for a while. The rig I'm using right now is 5 years old and it's still doing pretty good for something that old. I'd like another rig that can stand the test of time as well.
How future proof though? Haswell-Es are out with the LGA 2011 socket and DDR-4. That is future proofing. That CPU is also $1000. If you look at single core performance of Core i5's vs i7's I do not think you are going to see much difference. The only benefit you will see is applications that will take advantage of more than 2 or 4 threads. I think if you have a budget, splurge on your GPU, memory and SSD hard drive.
PCGamer.com every Monday posts Weekly Deals that they find for hardware and software, like this PNY GTX 970 for $290. Check it every week if you don't mind taking time to find the best bargains. Just from my experience I can tell you that a Core i5, middle of the road mobo and 16gb RAM is a great starting point. Add a GTX970 and SSD and you've got a system that can run damn near everything on at least high settings at 40+ FPS. I'd be shocked if I had more than $1000 in my whole system and I can play ARMA 3, Star Citizen and Shadow of Mordor on high (or better) and usually get 45-55 FPS. Star Citizen drops down into the high 20s or 30s but it also isn't optimized yet.
