Many, many years ago, I used to build all my PCs and those for friends and family. I knew all the pros and cons of the components and what offered the best bang-for-the-buck in terms of performance.
As I got older (…I turned 40 today…), there was less and less of needing to do that, so I fell out of the loop in terms of what was impressive versus flashy but not effective.
Since our family’s first IBM PC back in the early 80s, I’d used computers for gaming (as well as productive purposes…), so whenever I built a PC, it always had gaming in mind. However, when kids came around, the family PC became more for email/simple web browsing than anything else.
For gaming, I moved to the PS3. I am well aware that some people here (SenorBeef, Kinthalis) look upon me as some unevolved lifeform who is partially responsible for destroying all that is good in the world. I make no apologies - I had (and am still having) fun on the platform.
However, the old trusty family PC died yesterday. It is mourned most of all by the kids, who can no longer check their Webkinz/Moshi Monster/World of Cars/etc. accounts.
I played, and enjoyed to the best I could, Oblivion on my PS3. I knew mods existed (played Morrowind on the PC to much delight), but wasn’t an option for me. I miss playing certain games on the PC (SenorBeef ran an excellent CS:Source sever back in the day, which taxed our PC to the max), so I figure, what better opportunity to get Skyrim and some select FPS back by building a new PC now.
The problem is, I am so far out of the loop that it would take me too long to get back up to speed on what is good and what is not - the kids will not tolerate any delays. My preliminary research has left me confused and overwhelmed (happens in old age like mine).
So I throw it to the PC gamers out there. Help me build a new PC based on a budget of $700 (4 kids are expensive). I want the best price for performance PC I can get in that range that also has a somewhat future-possible upgrade path (e.g. as an old school example, don’t recommend an ISA bus MB with PCI being out there). I do not need a monitor, nor do I care for a flashy case. I could reuse keyboard and mouse, but those should not be dealbreakers in the grand scheme of the price anyways. Assume nothing else is reusable at this point.
Help me come back to the platform where I started (although I still love my PS3).