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pc vs consoles  "NOT A FIGHT"

#1

So I am a student in Denmark. I've looked around a few sites and the prices for building a decent gaming pc costs at least 500 pounds with shipping etc. I like mouse and keyboard but sometimes I just want to sit back and enjoy with a controller.
How often so you have to upgrade your pc, and what's the average price of the change? I like steam and their sales which is why I am even considering a pc.. I've never built one before but I think I want to try having a gaming pc instead of a console for once.
So I am asking for your experience and pros/cons.
And of course amd or Intel etc. (I have no understanding for pc parts)
Thanks guys.
0

User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#2

All of your questions depend on money.

How much are you willing to spend?

What are you looking to play?

What would you consider acceptable performance?

All of those impact total cost of ownership. Give us that information and we can help you.

Also, keep in mind that anyone can build a computer these days, but diagnosing and fixing problems is a whole 'nother matter. I've repaired everything from 486's to MacBooks. If you are just "average" in skill when it comes to computers a gaming PC will be more work than usual. Be prepared to ask around to solve all your problems. Throwing money at hardware never ensures higher quality anymore. There's more snake oil products and poorly engineered parts than you can shake a stick at these days.

This post has been edited by Protected by Viper: 21 May 2014 - 05:31 PM

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User is offline   Forge 

  • Speaker of the Outhouse

#3

price these, then figure in power supply, case, optical drive, hard drive, peripherals

i5-3470 Ivy Bridge, 1155
ASUS P8Z77-V LK, LGA 1155, Z77
GIGABYTE Radeon R7 265, 2GB, 256-Bit GDDR5

This post has been edited by Forge: 21 May 2014 - 07:18 PM

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User is offline   Gambini 

#4

Lol why he´d use an ATI?

DN64 trust me, don´t buy anything that´s not Intel or Nvidia.
0

User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#5

What shitty advice Gambini.

Radeons are only bad for polymost. That's not their fault, it's due to a straight up badly written renderer.

AMD has some good processors. The 8350 and 8320 are great choices if you can't afford an i5.
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#6

Well I want it to play games on atleast 1080 60 fps and doing that for 3-4 years. 450 pounds must be the limit for me.
I just don't want to buy a ps4 if I can pay a bit more and get a better gaming experience. Thanks. Rememeber US prices is a lot different from Europe prices. :)
Thanks for the quick answer.
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#7

If you're into tweaking GPU settings, RadeonPro is more user-friendly than nVidia Inspector.
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User is offline   Tea Monster 

  • Polymancer

#8

View PostProtected by Viper, on 21 May 2014 - 08:55 PM, said:

What shitty advice Gambini.

Radeons are only bad for polymost. That's not their fault...,

Dude! Seriously????. Look anywhere on the net and there are thousands of pages of people complaining about having problems with Radeon cards. Just one example: The Blender Institute have been trying to get their Cycles renderer working on OpenCL for at least 2 years with no success. They are all open-source hippies so they would be all over that crap. There is a page called something like "A good news for AMD/ATI Graphic cards owners" which goes on for something stupid like 78 pages detailing multiple failed attempts to get Cycles working on AMD graphics cards. The Blender guys have even directly contacted AMD's OpenCL gurus to try and get the problem sorted out to no avail. AMD graphics cards* look good on paper, but in real life they suck. OK for games, good for sod-all else. Avoid.

Much as it pains me to agree with Gambini, hes spot on there. Avoid Radeon like the plague.

* their CPU's are pretty good, underpowered compared to Intel, but good value for money.
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#9

I don't know what dealers you have in your area, or if you use eBay (Most people I talk to refuse to use eBay or aren't allowed bank accounts for reasons they won't discuss) but check out bundle deals.

Many stores, such as Maplin now sell these, you can save a fair bit of money doing this. Sometimes they even include a graphics card so you'd likely only need to worry about the case and hard drive.

On your budget, if I were limited to using a store and not the net, I'd go for this kind of bundle, the CPU scores well usually. They have a 3570K version of that bundle for another £100, will get you a 500 extra points in the benchmarks but given that my Core 2 Quad can still run everything and scores lower, you probably needn't and I'd get the slower chip for reasons I shall soon disclose.

More than half the budget gone... That store is expensive however, most other places - especially the internet - are cheaper, this is just a basic guideline.


Graphics card... Well, my 460 OC can still run almost everything quite well, the 650 Ti comes out a bit slower but has other advantages, it's still an option though. I would go for a 660 however. £50 left, we'll go a little over budget using Maplin, like I said, forget them, they're overpriced. But due to getting that slightly slower CPU you can now get a better GPU which is what matters most in games. You could actually save more money by going for an i3 motherboard and probably still get by, but it's less future-proof making the i5 better value in price/performance/longevity. Intel chips now have a better price/performance ration than AMD too IMO. As for the graphics cards, what Tea Monster said.

Case, get a cheap one, like this. Comes with a few fans so heat shouldn't be an issue as it's too big for our motherboard anyway. £30 left, we're about to go a little over budget.

DO NOT get the cheapest PSU, get something half-decent like this, I use a powercool and it's been reliable despite me exceeding it's current limit frequently. Avoid the cheaper no-name ones and CiT as they are shit. That one I suggested can give more power than that system will need easy, leaving room for future upgrades and ensuring you're stable... As it's dual rail you should have nice stable voltages too as sudden current draws on the CPU won't affect other components as much. You could get a Corsair for a bit more and those are rock solid, worth considering as I've yet to kill one. We are £10 over budget (£460 spent)... Only need a hard drive and an optical though...

Get a decent hard drive, Western Digital. 1TB should be a minimum, 2TB recommended. You can get cheaper drives such as Seagate but they always give me problems, Samsung are cheap AND very reliable if you can find them. Just broke £500... Optical drives really depend on what you want to do, they are grossly overpriced at Maplin however. An option here is find a machine being thrown out and steal it's optical drive, if it can read a windows disc it'll get you up and running for now and you can put a better one in later... Having said that, you could leave it out all together if you're going to do digital downloads of games, just install Windows from a USB stick (assuming you have one) and add an optical if you need it later.

As a last note on that hard drive, if you do get a WD, don't get the green like the one I linked, go for the blue, the green is an energy saving drive and it'll piss you off with it's low RPM and spin up time when it has to fire up to load a new level. If you want to spend a bit more, get a WD Black, I use those and they're reliable and about as fast as a mech drive will go.

So there's an example of something, you could do that a lot cheaper using eBay though, on top of that, the hardware I selected can be upgraded later. You could, for example, get another RAM stick later or throw a faster CPU in when those come down in price. If you eBay it my recommendations are to go for business sellers as they are almost guaranteed to have to take you up on the returns policy if something is DOA. Either way, a system like that should get you to the end of this generation with minimal attention.


Keep in mind, I'm not a gamer, so somebody could easily come here and debunk my recommendations. Also, refer to things like the passmark site I linked as they have a search feature meaning you can quickly look up any CPU or GPU you are looking at to see how it fares against others.

This post has been edited by High Treason: 22 May 2014 - 02:12 AM

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#10

I am probably buying parts from Germany or UK. EBay is probably a no go.
Amazon UK is acceptable.

This post has been edited by DukeNukem64: 22 May 2014 - 03:17 AM

0

User is offline   Tea Monster 

  • Polymancer

#11

It's a shame that New Egg don't operate over here. They do some storming DIY kits.
Try and get the best motherboard that you can, it's going to be the heart of your system. You don't have to put the top-of-the-line processor into it, but it pays to future-proof your rig by getting the best mainboard that you can. Over the next few years, you can swap out CPU's and graphics cards, but the mainboard is the heart and soul.

2nding what High Treason says about power supply units. Bad ones go 'phut' really easily and can take other items with them when they go. They can also cause problems with other equipment that is really hard to track down if they start going west on you.

AMD processors are good. They don't have the muscle of Intel, but they get the job done and tend to be much cheaper for the same amount of power.

Don't get an Intel graphics card for gaming. Great for general computing and 'officey' stuff, bad for games and graphics/computational stuff that requires GPU computing.

This post has been edited by Tea Monster: 22 May 2014 - 03:27 AM

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#12

Hmm. Well I am wondering could you post some specific stuff I should get. I mean I am really stupid when it comes to hardware.
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User is offline   Forge 

  • Speaker of the Outhouse

#13

View PostHigh Treason, on 22 May 2014 - 02:04 AM, said:

On your budget, if I were limited to using a store and not the net, I'd go for this kind of bundle,

a uATX board?
yeek. have a fire extinguisher handy.
0

User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#14

For 450 quid you aren't going to get anything world beating.

View PostTea Monster, on 22 May 2014 - 01:13 AM, said:

Dude! Seriously????. Look anywhere on the net and there are thousands of pages of people complaining about having problems with Radeon cards. Just one example: The Blender Institute have been trying to get their Cycles renderer working on OpenCL for at least 2 years with no success. They are all open-source hippies so they would be all over that crap. There is a page called something like "A good news for AMD/ATI Graphic cards owners" which goes on for something stupid like 78 pages detailing multiple failed attempts to get Cycles working on AMD graphics cards. The Blender guys have even directly contacted AMD's OpenCL gurus to try and get the problem sorted out to no avail. AMD graphics cards* look good on paper, but in real life they suck. OK for games, good for sod-all else. Avoid.

Much as it pains me to agree with Gambini, hes spot on there. Avoid Radeon like the plague.

* their CPU's are pretty good, underpowered compared to Intel, but good value for money.


Sitting in your room all day rendering things is degenerate, and you know it. AMD is just helping to combat degeneracy.

Naw but seriously though, no one uses Radeons for 3D rendering stuff. They didn't ten years ago, either.

For gaming and GPGPU, what he's looking for, they are offering the better product now.
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User is offline   Forge 

  • Speaker of the Outhouse

#15

he's using it as a "gaming" rig. it's a decent average video card.
why can't people just make alternate recommendations without turning these threads into mud slinging contests?

don't act like he's marrying the damn thing.
As Tea M said, get a good mobo, everything else can be rotated out and upgraded later on down the road

This post has been edited by Forge: 22 May 2014 - 06:09 AM

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#16

Every period in hardware history has a GPU that's considered the "best bang for your buck". Usually AMD, but can be Nvidia, too. Go for that.

I was long time Nvidia customer, changed to AMD, and the only real issue I had with my current AMD card was that the auto fan doesn't work properly, so it was overheating in graphic intensive games. A profile in MSI Afterburner fixes that, but it's annoying to have to do it.

Weren't most games developed primarily for Nvidia in the recent past?
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User is offline   Kyanos 

#17

Nvidia over ATI graphic cards all day long. Google, steam, nvidia, are all kinda in cahoots together, to take over the world Mwhahaha.

Seriously though, a shit ton of games are optimized for Nvidia, steam os & android (aka the people who sell the most games) are wrapped up so deep in Nvidia open code it's a no brainer, I wouldn't be surprised if they intentionally make games run slower on the competitors card.

Finally, I have had both Radeon and Nvidia cards, I recommend Nvidia.
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User is offline   Forge 

  • Speaker of the Outhouse

#18

a gtx660 is going to be a little more pricey than the AMD Radeon R7-265

read a third party review and make an educated decision:

http://www.guru3d.co...5_review,1.html


the differences between the 660 & the 265 are negligible on most performance scores with games and benchmark test used.

the 265 would serve your budget better

Summary:
The AMD R7-265 in most scenarios will be performing close to the GeForce GTX 660, that is a pretty nice sweet spot for just one GPU that comes with a nice price-tag opposed to the competition. Performance wise there will be few games that won't run seriously good at the very best image quality settings when you stick at 1600x1200. At Full HD you'll still be able to achieve very decent framerates with good image quality settings on the majority of games. Hitman Absolution with 40+ FPS at 1920x1200 High quality and 2xMSAA is such an example. That is nice performance for the money.
We'd recommend the R7-265 to the casual gamers with a monitor resolution of 1920x1080/1200 as absolute maximum. With the extremely modern games that are heavy on the GPU we do advise to look at something a hint stronger. For the casual gamer we can definitely recommend the product,


That "something a hint stronger", they imply looking into a GeForce GTX 750


fyi, i'm running a gtx 650ti amp card in my rig. i have no issues with it and i'm quite satisfied with its performance, but i'm not running modern games either, so i can't say how well it would hold up under those conditions.

This post has been edited by Forge: 22 May 2014 - 07:01 AM

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#19

Viper no I understand that now. 450 pound is really a lot for gaming. I've been saving up for a ps4 but.now I am looking at the pc option due to steam. Also can anyone just throw a random pc build in here. I am just expecting something within the 450~500 range. I can't really afford more.
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User is offline   Forge 

  • Speaker of the Outhouse

#20

EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 650 G 80 PLUS GOLD Certified 650W
ASUS P8Z77-V LX LGA 1155 Intel Z77
Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
Intel Core i5-3470 Ivy Bridge 3.2GHz LGA 1155
WD BLACK SERIES 1TB 7200 RPM
NZXT Source 210 ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
GIGABYTE GTX 660 2GB 192-bit GDDR5

you'll have to look this up for prices where you buy comp parts.
i kept it relatively mid/lower end and cheap.
there are cheaper alternatives, but you may take a hit on performance or quality
(e.g. get an i3 instead of an i5, or get a Radeon r7 265 instead of a gtx 660. AMD cpu's are slightly cheaper, but the board will be about the same price)

now add in monitor, optical drive, keyboard, mouse, game controller

This post has been edited by Forge: 22 May 2014 - 07:53 AM

0

User is offline   ReaperMan 

#21

View PostForge, on 22 May 2014 - 06:05 AM, said:

why can't people just make alternate recommendations without turning these threads into mud slinging contests?

Welcome to the INTERNET!
1

#22

View PostForge, on 22 May 2014 - 07:29 AM, said:

EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 650 G 80 PLUS GOLD Certified 650W
ASUS P8Z77-V LX LGA 1155 Intel Z77
Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
Intel Core i5-3470 Ivy Bridge 3.2GHz LGA 1155
WD BLACK SERIES 1TB 7200 RPM
NZXT Source 210 ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
GIGABYTE GTX 660 2GB 192-bit GDDR5

you'll have to look this up for prices where you buy comp parts.
i kept it relatively mid/lower end and cheap.
there are cheaper alternatives, but you may take a hit on performance or quality
(e.g. get an i3 instead of an i5, or get a Radeon r7 265 instead of a gtx 660. AMD cpu's are slightly cheaper, but the board will be about the same price)

now add in monitor, optical drive, keyboard, mouse, game controller


Thanks Forge. Is that really the best I can buy with 450-500 £ ?
0

User is offline   Kyanos 

#23

I like your list. I searched through and noted amazon.com prices for anyone else interested. Just quick ballpark figures.

Quote

Intel Core i5-3470 Ivy Bridge 3.2GHz LGA 1155
256

GIGABYTE GTX 660 2GB 192-bit GDDR5
242

EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 650 G 80 PLUS GOLD Certified 650W
85

ASUS P8Z77-V LX LGA 1155 Intel Z77
141

Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
80 - HyperX

WD BLACK SERIES 1TB 7200 RPM
80

NZXT Source 210 ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
50

Total: US $934


This post has been edited by Drek: 22 May 2014 - 09:33 AM

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User is offline   Forge 

  • Speaker of the Outhouse

#24

View PostDukeNukem64, on 22 May 2014 - 09:29 AM, said:

Thanks Forge. Is that really the best I can buy with 450-500 £ ?

you have to price out the list from wherever you plan to buy the components. From there we can adjust things to fit your budget.

not everywhere is the same
i.e.
Intel Core i5-3470 Ivy Bridge 3.2GHz LGA 1155
amazon/new egg: $190us
tiger direct: $185us

the GIGABYTE GTX 660 2GB 192-bit GDDR5 was calculated at $242, but there are several places where it's listed at around $190

currently the estimated 934 us dollars is about 554 british pounds - that's taking into consideration that everything is priced the same where you plan to make your purchase

i don't know where you plan to shop or how many alternate locations are available where you're at

after everything is calculated, you can then upgrade/downgrade and determine if it's worth your time and money to proceed

This post has been edited by Forge: 22 May 2014 - 10:18 AM

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#25

Forge if it's 930 $, I'm afraid it will be around 1400 $ in EU at least. 25-30% more expensive as usual..
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User is offline   Forge 

  • Speaker of the Outhouse

#26

the exchange rate is 1us to .73 eu
$934=684eu

that's about 855eu if the average prices are 25% higher there than here.

we could work with 684eu and get it down to around 500, but if parts are indeed that much more expensive and you have to downgrade to half the cost from what i've listed, the rig won't even come close to what you want

you don't want to skimp on the mobo.
you could probably get by with a 500w powersupply, but you'll still want a good one - not the part of the comp you want a shoddy component for.
The ram can be reduced in half
there are cheaper towers that are still decent
there are smaller hard drives

problem is you'll end up with a weak processor and a crappy video card - since this is where the majority of the money goes, this is where you need the bigger budget cut.

e.g.
Intel Core i3-3240 Ivy -or- AMD FX-6300 Vishera = $120us - 110eu after 25% mark up
Radeon R7 250X 2GB 128-Bit GDDR5 -or- GTX 650 1GB 128-Bit GDDR5 = $110us - 100eu after 25% mark up

even with this bottom of the line stuff, it's still nearly half your budget

This post has been edited by Forge: 22 May 2014 - 02:14 PM

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#27

Thanks Forge, can I add you on steam or viceversa? I think you could might help me - if you have time and would like to. :)
Anyone else is welcome to add me aswell.

Realmadrid94 - my steam name :)
0

User is offline   Forge 

  • Speaker of the Outhouse

#28

View PostDukeNukem64, on 22 May 2014 - 02:22 PM, said:

Thanks Forge, can I add you on steam or viceversa? I think you could might help me - if you have time and would like to. :)
Anyone else is welcome to add me aswell.

Realmadrid94 - my steam name :)

you can add me on steam, but i only get on there once or twice a week.

what do you need help with?

btw: here's the rest of the cheapest stuff i'd recommend for your build: *all EU prices are marked 25% up
NZXT GAMMA Classic Series GAMA-001BK Black $34us -31eu
Western Digital WD Blue WD10EZEX 1TB 7200 RPM $60us - 55eu
Kingston 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 $43us - 38eu
ASUS P8Z77-V LX LGA 1155 Intel Z77 $125us - 114eu
EVGA 100-W1-500-KR 500W $45 - 41eu

that's 279eu (without peripherals, cpu or gpu)

This post has been edited by Forge: 22 May 2014 - 03:16 PM

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#29

View PostForge, on 22 May 2014 - 02:36 PM, said:

you can add me; i'm xforgex on steam, but i only get on there once or twice a week.

what do you need help with?

btw: here's the rest of the cheapest stuff i'd recommend for your build: *all EU prices are marked 25% up
NZXT GAMMA Classic Series GAMA-001BK Black $34us -31eu
Western Digital WD Blue WD10EZEX 1TB 7200 RPM $60us - 55eu
Kingston 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 $43us - 38eu
ASUS P8Z77-V LX LGA 1155 Intel Z77 $125us - 114eu
EVGA 100-W1-500-KR 500W $45 - 41eu

that's 279eu (without peripherals, cpu or gpu)


Thanks!
Isn't i-3 outdated soon? I've read about i-5 and i-7....?
As I told you I have no idea..
0

User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#30

Yeah aren't the parts more expensive in the UK? That could be a problem.

I just wanted to add that after finally dabbling in overclocking my 770 today, I can safely say fuck Kepler, and fuck GPU Boost 2.0. What a pain in the ass. You give this thing a boost clock of 1211MHz, and the next thing you know it's at 1300+ because the temps are low.

Also, fuck Nvidia for locking the voltages on these things, and fuck Asus for advertising a 770 with upgraded VRM's, and then sticking a proprietary digital VRM control chip that can't be voltage unlocked. The 10% optional voltage boost you guys advertise made me buy it, and the inability to do what everyone else is doing made me regret it. Having a shit tier yield with 72% ASIC quality doesn't help. Also, who does my RAM top out 500MHz effective slower than all the 2GB models? Did you assholes seriously cheap out and not give the 4GB models that precious Samsung RAM that hits 8GHz?

If I spend $380 on a video card it better be fucking perfect. I should be able to fuck with voltages, and I should be able to dial in clock speeds directly. Seriously hating this overpriced POS. Yeah, it's fast and all, but like I said, for that much money, it better be God damn flawless.

I knew about most of these problems before I bought it, but that Litecoin shortage screwed me out of a Radeon.

This post has been edited by Protected by Viper: 22 May 2014 - 02:46 PM

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