PC build thread

[noiseredux]

I understand. The guy at Microcenter told you the most expensive stuff was the best. What option did you have?

I feel like I should be insulted, but I don't know what a Microcenter is.

my bad. Geek Squad told you to buy the most expensive parts?

[Cronozilla]

So I have a EVGA GTX 570. I want to upgrade but I only have about $150 to put towards a new card. What would be a decent upgrade? I want the card to be EVGA.

The only Nvidia chipset in that price range is the GTX 750, and I wouldn't personally recommend it for the price, considering the R9 270x is very close in price and a much better performer.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814202049

That'll be able to play games in 1080p with most settings turned up. (Most bench. show something like Far Cry 4 at 1080p and very high settings getting a minimum of 30fps. The 750 will get 30s at 720p with the same settings.)

[marurun]

So, if I had a small purse of money dropped on my head, what should I be looking for in building an affordable gaming PC? How expensive have your latest builds been? How well have they performed in recent games?

My current PC is over 4 years old, so I'm feeling a little out of the game...

[fastbilly1]

My current PC is over 4 years old, so I'm feeling a little out of the game...

If it still runs the games you like to play at settings you find acceptable, you are never out of the game. My pc is 9 years old and I am just now looking at upgrading.

[Hazerd]

What's your current build, Hazerd? Are you planning a new build soon?

My current build is:
(right click > view image for larger view)
GPU is HD 7870.





But if i was to build one today... or 7 months ago lol, probably would of went like this:


Would go with R5 case over R4 today maybe.

[noiseredux]

that's a nice wishlist build for sure. Curious why you'd go w/ the R9 3GB over a GTX 970 though? The R9 you show there is $310. For another $20 you could grab the Zotac or EVGA versions of the 970. Or are you just a fan of AMD cards over Nvidia?

[Hazerd]

that's a nice wishlist build for sure. Curious why you'd go w/ the R9 3GB over a GTX 970 though? The R9 you show there is $310. For another $20 you could grab the Zotac or EVGA versions of the 970. Or are you just a fan of AMD cards over Nvidia?

Well those wishlist prices are from 7 months ago, so they may have changed a bit, but ive never bought a video card over $300, try to stay between $200-300.

Im pretty neutral when it comes to picking between AMD/Intel, when i bought my i5-2400 it was way better than anything AMD could offer for the price/performance.

I wouldnt be against taking a Nvidia card, i recently upgraded my brothers HD 5850 to a GTX 750 ti, because it was cooler/quieter/30% more powerful than the HD 5850.

As of right now i probably would go Intel CPU and AMD GPU again. We as consumers need to keep the peace between Intel/AMD/Nvidia, they need each other for competition, otherwise without competition, they start to slack imo.

[isiolia]

So, if I had a small purse of money dropped on my head, what should I be looking for in building an affordable gaming PC? How expensive have your latest builds been? How well have they performed in recent games?

My current PC is over 4 years old, so I'm feeling a little out of the game...

Depending on what you have in your system now, you may not really need a full system upgrade. If you built around something like an i5 2500k, that'll still put up respectable performance. You can definitely get a lot more GPU for the money now though, and SSDs have dropped in price tremendously.

Performance is also going to be relative to targeted output. For instance, GPU performance at 1440p, or even 4k is being considered now, but if you're sticking to 1080p, or lower, then something less than the latest and greatest probably still runs well.

I have an i7 3770k and GTX 670 from a little over a couple years ago now, but it still does well with everything I throw at it. I considered buying a GTX 970, but didn't feel like it was quite justified yet, and a new CPU would be a complete waste.
Right now, I could fuss over 60fps+ over 45 without dialing down settings...but otherwise, it'd take a display upgrade/consumer Oculus Rift to really warrant new hardware.

[noiseredux]

Building a gaming pc for my wife... anyone got a win7 license to spare?

[wclem]

Building a gaming pc for my wife... anyone got a win7 license to spare?

You do know if you do not activate it all you lose is the desktop background?