My computer is now about 7-8 years old, and has served me well for a long time. But I really want to be able to play Cities: Skylines and Grand Theft Auto 5, neither of which is even remotely possible with the current computing box.
When I built my current computer, some dopers gave me links to some sites that had nice builds on them. I planned it out and bought parts whenever I could from Newegg, usually one or two a month. Once I had everything I put it all together.
I don’t think I can cannibalize anything from my current PC. I might be able to use my current HD and DVD burner with the new system for a bit, but want a blue ray and a bigger HD.
I don’t have a preference for intel over AMD, Nvidia over Radeon, etc. I don’t have tons of cash though, and would like to get a decent system without spending tons of money. My max would probably be about $1000, although if I could get something nice for $700 or less that would be awesome. Trying to strike a balance between cheap and something that will last (and play new games) for 4-5 years. I can do minor upgrades down the line like adding more memory, upgrading the video card, etc.
So can anyone give me some advice and possibly guides to low to mid-range systems?
Max $1000 and must be 64 bit compatible.
I’d suggest using http://choosemypc.net to try and figure out what you can get for what money. It has a slider, you set the ammount, it suggets parts, gives you some information on such. I’m not sure what you have in mind by low to mid range. For $1k you can certainly get something that I would think is good for gaming (assuming you are happy with 1080p and 60fps with high settings on most games). To get down to $700 you’d have to make some sacrifices, but depending on what you have in mind and what you care about, might be very doable.
I have windows7 32 bit, and need a 64 bit OS to run Cities:Skylines.
Have there been advancements in power supplies since the ATX? If not then yeah as long as it works I can reuse that and my case. I do want to get a new case at some point though. I’ve always wanted an Antec Nine Hundred, although I don’t know how many modern (in computer terms) it is anymore. I definitely like big cases after having a few small, cramped ones.
Some good idea here, going to have to scope them out on newegg. Keep in mind it might take until fall before I have everything together, so I’m sure prices will drop by then.
Well, let’s start with the “must haves”. After that we can see what room you have for other things.
Video Card - $325 ($15 rebate card) - EVGA 04G-P4-2974-KR GeForce GTX 970 4GB: You can save some money with a 960 but I think the 970 is worth it. Of course by the fall that price will almost certainly be less. On the flip side they are offering Witcher 3 AND Batman Arkham Knight with a card purchase currently which is $120 worth of games (and I can say Witcher 3 is awesome if you like CRPGs). Make sure the card has the appropriate outputs for your monitor.
Operating System - $100 - Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-bit - OEM: Windows 10 will be coming out in a couple months but is a free upgrade from Windows 8.1
CPU - $240 - Intel Core i5-4690K Devil’s Canyon Quad-Core: Intel processors with a “k” at the end mean they are unlocked so you can overclock them giving you more potential bang for you buck if you are of a mind to.
You can reuse your current harddrive and case or upgrade as you like. An SSD is really nice if you can fit one in your budget. (Does your current drive have a SATA connection?)
How does one reuse an OS? I have the disk that I bought retail and am having to wipe my hard drive, so I’ll have to reinstall my OS. Can I just put it in and start normally? Or will I have to buy a new disk?
Ok I am going to get rolling on this. I was looking to spend about $800 or so total, although I have a few things that can be recycled and upgraded later so that might bring it down a bit.
I have a 19" Acer flatscreen monitor. I’d like to keep this for a while, and when it finally goes I’ll get a bigger and better one. If my video card has HDMI output, I can hook it up to any television with an HDMI port, right?
I can use my current dvd burner. I don’t really use it much anymore since I buy most of my games on Steam now, and I think I’m going to start going to a cloud backup system rather than dvd backups. I suppose I could get a blu-ray player but I don’t want to watch movies on my PC, I want to watch them on my television from the couch.
I don’t really want to reuse much else. I kind of want to keep the current comp as a backup, or maybe a second comp for my wife.
A few questions about components:
1)Overclocking - I have never overclocked and have no interest in it. Also, unless it’s the new wave of the future (and thus becoming a necessity), I don’t want to run 2 graphics cards. So no SLI/Crossfire or any other dual card setups.
2)Drive - I was thinking of getting a solid state drive, maybe instead of a HD. I saw 500mb SSD’s for around $140, which is a lot for a drive, but I don’t usually have more than about 10-15 games installed at one time plus about 40-50gb in mp3’s and music videos. so I think a 500gb SSD would be plenty. Right?
3) Memory - Is 8gb ddr3 okay for a modern comp or should I shoot for 16gb?
4) CPU - Thinking an intel i5 quad core should be a decent bang for my buck. Any thoughts? I was looking at the 3.2gz, is that likely enough for me to enjoy new games for a couple years? Remember, I don’t want to overclock.
5) Case - There now seem to be towers, mid towers, micro ATX, and mini ATX. Guessing you have to have a smaller mobo for the mico/mini cases? I’ve been looking at some fractal designs micro ATX cases, hows the cooling in them and are they good for gaming (micro cases in general I mean)?
6) Cooling - A lot of the micro cases I’ve looked at mention radiators, water cooling, and open fan slots. Am I going to have to buy extra fans/cooling equipment, or do most of them come with “good enough” stock equipment?
7) Video card - A friend gave me a Cyclone N460GTX. I haven’t followed the current trends, I know this is a lower end card now, but will it play GTA5 and other newer games on high settings, or should I just get something beefier right off the bat? I’d rather save the money and go with the 460 if I can.
For the drive, a good option is a small SSD (120 to 240) with an HDD. You can get a 1TB HD for only $50, which gives you plenty of extra space. Put the programs you really use a lot on the SSD (games, OS) and everything else like music on the HDD. Cheaper total than getting a good quality 500GB SSD.
8GB should be [plenty, unless you’re planning on playing a game while listening to iTunes and using Chrome at the same time.
For cooling, stock is fine (assuming the case comes with fans), unless you plan on overclocking.
missed the edit window. don’t think i need more than a 1tb drive though.
Heres what I have so far. Put together from the Choose my PC site that TATG posted plus some stuff I found browsing on newegg since almost half the stuff they listed was out of stock on multiple shopping sites. This comes to $519 on newegg. I think everything is compatible. I’ll check out that partpicker site though.
Hmm that sucks. Ok, so now I’m basically trying to decide between a GTX960 or GTX970
Kind of leaning towards the 970, especially since it has a $40 rebate. But if the difference is very small I might just get the 960 for around $120 cheaper.
The specs say that case can take cards up to 16" in length. The card is only 10". If a case handles ATX motherboards, you probably won’t ever have an issue with the size of cards. Even Micro-ATX cases usually don’t have any issues.
The 960 should run GTA V fine at 1080p. However, you will have to cut back on some graphical features because GTA V is very VRAM intensive. There is a version of the 960 that has 4GB of VRAM but it’s doubtful it has the processing power to handle that.
So, 960 should be fine to run GTA V. 970 should give you better quality/graphical mods. The 970 is generally seen as great value for money. I have one and concur.
I was dubious about overclocking at first but now I’ve grown to like both the results and the process.
I’d recommend the 960 for your build and budget, however the difference between a 960 and 970 isn’t small on average. Some games will see as much as a 25+ FPS improvement… however, for GTA V:
It looks like the 960 should let you play at a 60 FPS comfortably, and the 970 only gives you a bit more headroom.
Great googily moogily, $50 more than the price of that one component alone will get you a PS4 that runs GTA5 perfectly well. Hell, it’s perfectly fine on PS360, for that matter, if not impressive.
I get that you want a PC, and I don’t mean to threadshit you personally for that (buy what you want, it’s your money), but if any PC master race fanboys are reading this, THAT’S why consoles are never going away. Well that and shit like the PC version of Arkham Knight.
Going to get a 960 for now. I’m not seeing a huge difference between the 960 and 970 in the video. I can go to a GTX970 sometime next year after the price goes down, or even 2017 if I think it holds up well. The EVGA 960 that I linked to does have 4gb RAM so that should help.
The description on the Fractal Design case that I linked says it does not have an opening for an optical drive. I like that case a lot though, it’s cheap but seems well designed with good airflow and is quiet (I game at night a lot and it bothers my wife if I make too much noise when she’s trying to sleep). So I added an external dvd burner for $25.
I think I will also go for the i5 4590 that enalzi posted. That is a great deal.
I put everything in the newegg basket, and there are 3 rebate items and a combo bundle because I bought the graphics card with windows 10. Plus a few other items are on sale so I’ll wind up saving over $150 and get what looks to me like a damn nice PC.
