SlyCoopersButt Posted June 29, 2016 Posted June 29, 2016 I bought this game because it was half-off and I wasn't really expecting it to run on my laptop (I was correct) so now I'm looking for a gaming PC. I don't mind running the graphics on low or medium. I just want one that can run it smoothly. Is this a realistic price for a starter PC?
Lozeak Posted June 29, 2016 Posted June 29, 2016 http://pcpartpicker.com/list/QMkzM8 This is $320 ish without OS and GPU The new (releases on 29th of June) RX 480 is $200 and is a insanely good GPU for that price and would likly run skyrim on Ultra without lighting mods. That said for $50 more you could get a FX 8350 which would be a push buuut will most likly run all games on ultra/high 60fps/1080p
Acornus Posted June 29, 2016 Posted June 29, 2016 More then realistic, the popular Potato Masher PC is around 350 by todays price standards, what Lozek posted + this should give you an idea on what to get or could be looking at. Not sure about prebuilts and what kind of price range you could be looking at, but I heard MicroCenter and CyberPC usually run good deals on quality prebuilts if you keep your eye out for them.
Lozeak Posted June 29, 2016 Posted June 29, 2016 Second hand market would be "could" be good too. Either way, best way is to research as much as possible honestly if you don't know what your buying or how good it is your likely gonna lose and at $500 you really have nothing to spare. (Toms hardware is a good start) At this moment in time for $500 the PC you'll probably get is not going to be very future proof (even my suggestion). If possible i'd say aim for the 700-750 area, with that you could get a decent i5 with the new RX 480. Ofc i know money doesn't grow on trees but if it takes you 4 months to get another $200, your building a PC that will easily last 3 years and at a push 5. As a side note about the AMD RX Series of cards is what you need to build your PC around there price/performance is honestly on another level. Atm, only the 480 is out on 29th june for $200 but the 470/460 is due out in the next month or so. That said, by Oct/Nov there will be the new gen of AMD Cpus, more budget cards from both AMD(470/460) and Nvidia (1060) so it may be better to buy a PC then. A good way to save some money is get what you can for free, like if you know a friend with an old Case and maybe PSU you could save $50-60 right there. Certain website sell OEM versions of windows for $20-$30 and while is frowned upon, and the websites are dodgy as hell as far as I know if your building a PC it's not illegal. Also if you go prebuilt or second be very, very wary there are so many PCs built with AMD FM2 socket chips which are terrible but boast high clock speeds ect. AM3+ is the socket you want to look for if ya going AMD.
AsariX Posted June 29, 2016 Posted June 29, 2016 Currently running this on an ALDI PC that cost me 500 european dollarts, so yes, it's very possible. Might have to fiddle a bit with graphics settings, and put them on High instead of Extreme or whatever. And you have to be picky which ALDI PC exactly you're going to get. The good ones for gaming have the AMD 290 graphicscards, the bad ones (which funny enough are sold as gaming models) have an older NVidia card which actually performs less. Don't bother with models that come with a Solid State Drive (SSD), just get a big normal harddisk and buy an external SSD some other time.
cabron777 Posted June 29, 2016 Posted June 29, 2016 build it yourself mate , i build my pc (buying parts ) 5 years ago for about 1000 euros (without the monitor and peripherals) and still runs almost everything with the right settings. everyone said to me back then :DON'T BUY ASSEMBLED .people also advised me on putting some more hundreds (which i did) , meaning waiting a couple of months. put 500 now and play fallout 4 on medium or puit 1000 later and build yourself a very good 1080p pc. but your cash your rules
CanadianBlueBeer Posted June 29, 2016 Posted June 29, 2016 I'm making a new PC this week, and trying to keep it under 3K. Mind you, that's including monitors etc, and it's top end stuff. (I upgrade about every 5 years, so not so bad) You can do it for around $500 that will play the game. Just going to take some research. Try for 16GB mem at the least though. If you go with cheaper motherboards, you don't want to have to scrap the memory down the road if you've maxed the slots. CPU/Motherboard: check for specials. AMD is cheaper than Intel. Can probably skip the SSD and just get a decent HD (2TB min I would suggest) GPU is the sticky bit though. I prefer Nvidia, but they are more expensive for sure. (I also dual boot Linux, and sorry, AMD/ATI drivers still stink there) Cases are cheap, but make sure the power supply is good quality and has enough for now. Those can easily be replaced. (and they do burn out, even good ones) Monitors, well, those are cheap, look for what is on sale. (actually, check all the parts to see if someplace has the part you want on a special. You'd be surprised how much you can save that way) Keyboard/mouse: meh, stupid cheap there for something that just works. Speakers/headphones: can be stupid cheap, or disgustingly expensive. (got my Logitech speakers over 10 years ago, and they still work just fine. They were the stupid expensive 5.1 set. got 2 of'em. one for comp, other for home theater) oh, and yeah, don't buy assembled. You pay for that part. If you get the cheap ones that way, you WILL end up replacing the power supply quickly. That's where a lot skimp. That and the amount of memory. (don't need the super fancy speedie stuff, ,just lots of it) Never ever skimp on the amount of RAM. Been saying that since the 80s.
AsariX Posted June 30, 2016 Posted June 30, 2016 Never ever skimp on the amount of RAM. Been saying that since the 80s. Heh, that's usually the first thing I skimp on, since it's so darn easy to replace. Prices of those things also fluctuate a lot, so I just keep an eye out for the bargains. Fully agree with you on the SSD drive. I'm actually convinced that PCs with an SSD as their main harddrive are a bad decision, for a very simple reason: SSDs suffer a LOT from write/delete operations. And where does your swap file end up? Usually on your main hard drive, either directly or on a partition that's still actually part of your main hard drive. So, I got into the habit of running with 2 physical hard drives. The first is where I have the OS installed and general stuff, the second is for games and data. I install games on the second one, I put mods and save-files there, but I rarely alter or delete stuff there, other than game patches. So effectively, I minimize the amount of write/delete operations on that drive. If ever my computer burns out or I get some fatal hard drive crash, the main hard drive may be a goner, but I can just take the second hard drive, and move it to a new computer. Might have to re-install the software, but the data is still there. GPU: do try to get a GPU that you're okay to settle with long-term. GPUs are easy to replace, but if you plan to get a much better GPU later down the road, then you'll probably have to replace the powerunit as well If you're really unlucky, you'll also have to replace the cooler. So even though I tend to skimp on the GPU, I don't skimp too much on it. CPU: Intel i5 or i7 doesn't make as much of a difference as the salespeople like to tell you. i5 is generally more than enough to run games on maximum settings. What's more interesting, is whether it's a dualcore or a quadcore (any more cores is overkill for now and for at least 3 more years). There's also some stuff about BUS-speeds, but things get really techy there. I never really investigated that part, but when in doubt, I just ask a cousin of mine who's a system engineer. Funny enough, I used to be a programmer, but that's really an entirely different discipline within IT. People who know *everything* about computers simply don't exist! Even if I know way more about computers than most people around me, both the software and the hardware part, the software is "my thing", and about any hardware professional will beat my hardware knowledge.
Guest Posted June 30, 2016 Posted June 30, 2016 The new (releases on 29th of June) RX 480 is $200 and is a insanely good GPU for that price and would likly run skyrim on Ultra without lighting mods. That said for $50 more you could get a FX 8350 which would be a push buuut will most likly run all games on ultra/high 60fps/1080p have you seen the EVGA 1080 FTW?
CanadianBlueBeer Posted June 30, 2016 Posted June 30, 2016 Can't find a 1070 or 1080 in stock for love or money. Skimping on ram is when you get too little, not too much. 4 GB is too little 8 GB would probably be ok, but.... 16 GB is a good sweet spot. 32 GB is good extra spot. 64 GB is shiny. 128 GB is 'hey y'all, lookee what ah kin do!" (64gb kits are still too hard to find, and too expensive, otherwise I'd have gone with it!) Just bought the bits for my new system (with streaming/vid capture) in mind. just short of $3200 CDN no SSD and no vid card. (going to put the 980ti into it from current system and put the 660ti back in. Will grab a better card later, probably when the 1080ti comes out) 6800k CPU and Asus mobo (this was almost 1k alone) 32gb ram (they only had 1 kit in stock, I'll get a second one later) 2x4tb drives. (I forget, but couplethree hundredish) gaming keyboard and mouse (ouch) (250ish) gaming headset (ouch) (don't ask) 2x 144hz monitors. (650 ish, 1 was open box display model) case (cheap) (about 80 I think. had to be large enough for the 980ti) win7 pro (no windows 10 while I can avoid it) (190) and of course, 13% tax on all that. umf. vid capture and webcam to come later. (really don't want the cam anyway) Aside from the vid upgrade earlier this year, it's the first upgrade in about 4 yrs. (which is about right from a reliability standpoint. 3-5 years. after 5, things do seem to start getting weird. I've got older systems that still work, but will occasionally get... stupid) SSD really isn't that useful for me. So it takes a few seconds longer to boot up. big whoop. Almost 2TB used already for gaming stuff (includes mod developement tools) so storage is what I wanted. No way I was shelling out $400+ for a 1TB SSD, then doing the fiddling with steam for library locations. I just saw the bit about the 480, and yeah, for budget, that's a really good card.
Lozeak Posted June 30, 2016 Posted June 30, 2016 1070 and 1080s are good cards but really have no place in a budget rig. 1060 will most likely fill that roll. As a side note i will upgrade my PC to a 1070 once they reach the RRP because atm stock shortages mean retailers are adding an extra $50-100 to the card. With SSD there are decent and just having a HDD is kinda slow these days, that said Hybrid Drives are really good for games like Fallout/Skyrim, I used to use one before I went full SSD and the difference was very small after the first load.
Zor2k13 Posted June 30, 2016 Posted June 30, 2016 Ram is really important now, remember a few years back how call of doody had people upgrading to at least 8gb of ram to play their game? You need... Good motherboard that can overclock enough to be stable at 4GHZ so if you get a cpu that is say 3.2ghz you can up it a bit during turbo boost sessions to 3.84 or 4.0 GHZ for intel or just stay at 4GHZ for amd. If you go with new stuff for board and cpu then you have to deal with the latest designs like intel has that quad channel memory so more memory is needed etc. If you go with used you could get away with an old 2600K intel setup which is something that came out after the X58 series and still runs great. Hell X58 is still good with tri channel memory setup at say 12gb or 16 gb ram running at 1600mhz with 4GHZ turbo boost overclock? the 2600k is a little faster though. I hate the gpu market it sucks to be a consumer right now, only two choices to make almost like internet providers and driver issues all the dam time of some kind it just depends on what you play. Gonna have to make a good decision on gpu but not $500 decision if you check out used market or even new stock just never sold still available market. Whatever you do don't go cheap on the power supply and you can get a good 700 watt or 800 watt psu just depends where you buy. Don't buy corsair they are junk get cougar or evga somebody like that from a really good review. Get two ssd drives, one for the OS so only needs to be 120gb and the other can be 256gb then if you want big storage get a regular hdd big size for that. Sandisk has those 120gb ssd plus drives at $40 now and the 256gb drives are not much more. Regular 1TB western digital black series drive is maybe $60 tops? never buy seagate just trust me on that one. Crucial is good for memory or even corsair just depends on what you want to do with it. Those $50 to $80 cpu watercoolers work great from corsair and coolermaster. You need one of those if you want to overclock a little bit. You don't have to overclock but it does make a difference and the fun part is to overclock safely while spending the least amount of money possible. Case and other stuff is up to you if you want the thing to be butt ugly there is a case for that or really kick ass lookin there is a case for that etc.
CanadianBlueBeer Posted July 1, 2016 Posted July 1, 2016 Well, had to go back to the store, I didn't realize there was no cpu cooler included with the K models. oops. grabbed another 32gb ram (2 x 16 gb kits. turns out they were a penny less than the 32gb kit. go figure) Have to go back AGAIN, as the new chips, the pins are on the mobo, not the cpu. stupid design. Asus board, and their cpu installation tool thing is a cheap piece of junk. Followed the directions, put chip in, make sure it clicks on both sides, insert into the socket part, and lo and behold, as lowering it down to lock, the chip falls OUT, and bends a couple pins. Who in their right mind, designs a holder with the chip going in from the BOTTOM like that. (triple checked to make sure I was doing it the right way. I was. put the little cover back over the pins, tried 3 more times to lower the holder with the chip in. It fell out every single time) Gonna be an arguement at the store tomorrow I can see. Can't go today, Canada Day, all stores closed. So all these new toys and I can't play with them.. waahhhh
Zor2k13 Posted July 1, 2016 Posted July 1, 2016 You have just fallen victim to asus good luck getting your money back because they won't do it with bent pins. What you have to do is hold the center of the chip with your finger while closing the bracket don't just expect it to stay flat and level on its own. Also you should have bought a nice gigabyte board with dual bios and all that fancy stuff. If they tell you at the store you have to send it to asus you might as well throw it away because asus will just send it right back and not fix it. They have been doing this for years now and people are griping about it on almost every hardware forum for years now.
SlyCoopersButt Posted July 2, 2016 Author Posted July 2, 2016 Would this be a good starter gaming PC? I have my eye on it right now. Installed memory: 8 GB ram Graphics processor: NVIDIA GPU Feature: For Gaming Processor speed: 3.7 GHz Operating system: Windows Drive capacity: 1 TB Drive
AsariX Posted July 2, 2016 Posted July 2, 2016 Would this be a good starter gaming PC? I have my eye on it right now. Installed memory: 8 GB ram Graphics processor: NVIDIA GPU Feature: For Gaming Processor speed: 3.7 GHz Operating system: Windows Drive capacity: 1 TB Drive 8 GB is starting to be a bit on the "mediocre" size for ram, but, it should be enough to run Fallout 4. And it's relatively easy to replace, so you could upgrade it sometime in the future. (if in doubt, ask a friend to replace it for you and show you so you can do it yourself next time, but opening the case takes longer than replacing those memory banks) Processor speed is definitely high enough, so I'm guessing it's a quadcore, which should last you long enough. Hard to comment on the GPU, NVIDIA is a manufacturer with the nasty habit of releasing a new set of several graphics cards about every year. It's probably a model that's less than 2 years old. But, when in doubt, look at how much memory it's advertised to have on the graphicscard, it's probably 2 GB, which is very normal. It depends a bit on that graphicscard whether you'll be running Fallout 4 on High or on Ultra settings. Drive capacity is enough. If you ever run out of HD space, you can always get an additional external harddrive sometime later.
CanadianBlueBeer Posted July 2, 2016 Posted July 2, 2016 You have just fallen victim to asus good luck getting your money back because they won't do it with bent pins. What you have to do is hold the center of the chip with your finger while closing the bracket don't just expect it to stay flat and level on its own. Also you should have bought a nice gigabyte board with dual bios and all that fancy stuff. If they tell you at the store you have to send it to asus you might as well throw it away because asus will just send it right back and not fix it. They have been doing this for years now and people are griping about it on almost every hardware forum for years now. ahh, but 2 hours with the magnifying glass, micro screwdriver and tweezers and.. IT'S ALIVE! heh. yeah, found out you REALLY gotta hold on to it on both sides while lowering. (wanted the gigabyte board, I prefer them, but none avail. real dearth of parts lately)
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.