Forums » General Gaming

• Miraak

  

  • 167 posts
   

  October 8, 2013 5:03 AM EDT

  I'm wondering if I'd be better off buying a new PC, upgrading my current one, or building one from scratch. I'm not unfamiliar with PC's, I'm just confused as to where to go with one. I could easily go out, and buy a new one when I gather the money. I don't really think upgrading the one I've got would be beneficial, but would like some info on it. Lastly I do not have immediate access to every part you need to build a new PC, so I'd have to wait a very long time.

  I'm hoping to get/make a gaming PC with the input given.

  For all who are interested, here are my current embarrassingly crappy specs:

  OS: Vista Home Premium (Worst OS ever, I know, wasn't my choice)

  Processor: Intel Celeron E1200 Dual Core 1.6 GHz

  RAM: 1GB

  Graphics Card: Intel 82945G Express Chipset Family

  Hard Drive: 300 GB

  Feel free to tell me how bad my specs are, but please also help me out with what to do.

• Miraak

  

  • 167 posts
   

  October 8, 2013 5:27 AM EDT

  I'm on a bit of a budget, so I won't be able to spend more than say... 700 dollars (434 pounds/518 euros) or so. Can't really say I can't afford to do that in the next 4-5 years (Don't have a job yet, but will in the next few years)

• Miraak

  

  • 167 posts
   

  October 8, 2013 5:41 AM EDT

  Okay, that's good. I was a bit worried I wouldn't have enough to do anything on. Do you recommend I buy or build it? I know how to do both, but don't have the most lenient of parents that let me buy stuff online, so it almost forces me to buy it. The only store I know of that would sell decent working ones would have to be staples, but that's more oriented towards office things.

  Edit: I'd also like to add that I will be able to purchase things online in the next few years.

• Ponty

  

  • 708 posts
   

  October 8, 2013 5:48 AM EDT

  My first gaming PC lasted me just over 4 years and cost $2000. It was still running stuff on medium-high settings but I started getting hardware issues, got a new one a couple of months back for just under $2000.

  Depending on your income, a good budget option is to buy something pretty alright now (using cheaper parts that would've come out about a year ago) and then upgrade one or two bits each year. PC technology gets very cheap very quickly, and newer stuff is disproportionately expensive (like double or more of the price) compared to something say 6 months old.

  I recommend doing some googling around about budget gaming PCs if you're looking for ideas on specific hardware.

• Shimazu

  

  • 209 posts
   

  October 8, 2013 6:02 AM EDT

  Do you not have any pc specialists nearby that can sell you a custom built one ? You should be able to get a low-med end pc for your budget that should be able to run every game, albeit on low settings for the more demanding games.

• Tony Maund

  

  • 111 posts
   

  October 8, 2013 6:11 AM EDT

  Well I'm certainly not going to kick a man when he's down and with US$700 today you could get something like a Chillblast Fusion Templar. Over here with taxes that comes to a little over 700 bucks but prices are cheaper in the US and Canada.
  
  How much bang do you get for your buck?
  
  3.3Ghz Intel core i5 3570k, 8Gb RAM 1Tb hard disk DVD writer AMD Radeon HD770, 23" Iiyama monitor, Windows 8 64bit
  
  And there's a load of room on the mobo and the case for expansion/upgrades
  
  Personally unless Windows 8 gets a load of PC friendly interfaces I'd go for windows 7 o/s but the boot times with 8 are a lot faster
  
   
  You could always build one yourself for the money but a deal like this does give you a back to base warranty for a year if anything should go wrong. Building yourself unless you know what you are doing is risky. 
  
  I built my own systems  from around 1995 until about 5 years ago when I bought my first custom made one for about US$1500. It's a bit outdated now but still going strong just struggles (in spite of a minor graphics card upgrade) with fps in Skyrim but everything works fine

• Sihastru

  

  • 33 posts
   

  October 8, 2013 6:13 AM EDT

  Hey-hey. I would just build mine. It's what I always did, and probably what I'll always do. It's a lot easier to keep somewhat updated with the technology, as generally speaking you'll just have to upgrade some components over time.

  In recent years I had started checking http://www.build-gaming-computers.com whenever I had to replace something. The computer builds are updated often and just for a reference, their recommended budget computer build at the moment costs 578$.

• Miraak

  

  • 167 posts
   

  October 8, 2013 6:26 AM EDT

  They're are a few technicians in the area, but I'm not sure if they sell gaming PC's. I'll have to check up on that.

• Miraak

  

  • 167 posts
   

  October 8, 2013 6:32 AM EDT

  I'm going to a Vo-Tech School at the moment for computers, so building one myself isn't really a problem. My only problem lies in the fact that I have parents that believe everything online is a scam. (Sort of stuck in the past, or hypnotized by the media. I'm not entirely sure.)

• Guy Corbett

  

  • 426 posts
   

  October 8, 2013 9:00 AM EDT

  I have just recently built myself a new gaming rig. I ended up spend about £1000/$1500 and it is sweet for running Skyrim on Ultra settings. I have even started downloading mods and have about 30 running so far all to just make it look better.

  The budget you have you should be able to get a decent setup the will def improve your gaming experience. If your current setup has the capabilities to be upgraded that might be a cheaper option to stick more RAM in, upgrade the graphics card until you can afford to splurge on a top end gaming setup.

• Tony Maund

  

  • 111 posts
   

  October 8, 2013 11:36 AM EDT

  Most parents treat the internet like they would a suspect package - they poke it around with a stick for a while hoping it will go away but it doesn't. The sad fact is that unless you know a really good local supplier who is prepared to give you a hefty discount you are going to be at a disadvantage financially when measured against buyers sourcing the internet at 2 levels
  
  Price and variety
  
  If you use well known suppliers or manufacturers like NVIDIA or AMD for your graphics cards and a good purchasing medium like PAYPAL you won't get scammed. I'm 62.  I have been buying on line since 1995 both professionally and for my personal use and have never been scammed!. I don't buy cheap products but I do get value for money. There are a number of highly reputed consumer magazines that specialise in computer products. Using their recommendations would help on two counts and may even convince your parents that on line suppliers aren't all boogey men
  
  One of the reasons I stopped building my own was that I couldn't upgrade my processor chip without having to buy a new version of windows as Microsoft took the view that I was trying to install their o/s illegally

• Jared Brandt

  

  • 1 posts
   

  December 17, 2013 11:19 PM EST

  I built one for $600 and it runs Skyrim on the highest quality very well and many other games. So you don't need a very expensive computer to play good games unless it's Crysis Core 3 then you need a great computer to run that on highest quality.

• Tony Maund

  

  • 111 posts
   

  December 18, 2013 5:27 AM EST

  I think this depends on your budget
  
  I started on the PC trail in 1992 with a Compaq Deskpro 486/25 running MS DOS 5 and Windows  3.1 The machine had a default memory of 1MB upgradeable to 4MB (4 x 1MB slots on MOBO). The cost? Around £1400 (GBP)
  
  I bought this to support my business but to play games I had to add more memory  and a sound card. Eventually as the game bug bit I upgraded and eventually built my own systems for years 
  
  The point is that you can spend US$ 5000 on an all singing all dancing pc which  does everything apart from make the coffee, but you can grab a perfectly good gaming pc (does other stuff as well) for between £750 and £1400 (GPB they are likely cheaper in the US)
  
  If you want to build your own the best thing to do is get state of the art stuff now if you can afford it, or the highest performance value for money deals you can get. Sound cards are not an issue these days with good onboard sound systems but a decent graphics card with at least 1Gb of onboard RAM is a must. NVIDIA make the best in my view but AMD and others are available. In terms of what to buy it's not worth looking lower than something like an NVIDIA GeForce GTX650Ti. You must have a minimum of 8GB RAM in the MOBO and no less than something like an Intel 3.3 Ghz Intel core i5 processor. If you can get an SSD drive as well as a large capacity HDD (say one terra) that would be great. Unfortunately by default you will be offered Windows8 as an o/s which as yet is not by default particularly PC friendly. Do get the 64 bit version. If you can grab a copy of windows7 64bit as an alternate do so. An upgrade to a better version of W8 is relatively inexpensive

  Hope this helps