My fellow geeks, I need PC building advice

Started by Farabomb, December 27, 2016, 10:18:24 AM

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Farabomb

It's a sad thing but I've been out of the PC building thing for a while so I'm really, really behind. My last build was Core 2 Duo LGA 775 on an ASUS maximus formula SE with a pair of Radeon 4800's and 6 g of DDR2 (remember that old ass stuff?). She's been good but I think it's time to upgrade.

I'm pretty sure my PSU is in the 850 - 900 w range and a Corsair so I should be able to recycle that. The lian-li case I love but cases have some a long way since I spent too much money on that aluminum thing. I can get a new CPU but the quad cores are $250 and that just gets me to the bottom rung of the ladder. I think I need a new MB, CPU and sadly a new GPU. The tons of HDDs I have can be transferred.

It's mainly the GPU and CPU I need help with. I know I can go and spend a ton of money and get a great system but I was always a bit behind the bleeding edge for my wallet's sake. The MB will be a ASUS, the chip intel and from what I read, Nvidia GPU. Just need to know what is the best bang for my buck.

All this because I bought a game without looking at the minimum specs first. Never had that problem before.  :undecided:
Speed doesn't kill, rapidly becoming stationary is the problem

I'd rather have stories told than be telling stories of what I could have done.

Quote from: Ear on April 06, 2016, 11:54:16 AM
Quote from: Farabomb on April 06, 2016, 11:39:41 AMIt's more like grip, grip, grip, noise, then spin and 2 feet in and feel shame.
I once knew a plus-sized girl and this pretty much describes teh secks. :rotf:
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
         —Benjamin Franklin

My other job

Joe

The Intel Core i7 is the best CPU but you can probably get by with an i5. The i7 runs from the $290 dollar range if you can find one on sale up to $1700 for the high end. The i5 can be had for $180 - $300. I would stay away from the i3 for a gaming system though.

GPU's? You get what you pay for basically. I trust the guys at the Tom's Hardware site: Tom's Hardware

RAM? These days 16 gb is about the minimum. You can get by with 8 GB in a normal PC but for gaming I would definitely want 16 GB minimum.

Your PSU should be fine.
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

delooch

i picked up a dell desktop through work with an i7, 8gb ram.. dropped a geforce gtx1050 and another 8gb ram and the thing seems to play everything on max with minimal struggle. I think the i7 churns through anything without issue.  the kid is a GTA5 and rocket league addict, its nice watching him ditch the XBone for the desktop rig.  me, i used to game but now i run from anything with a KB attached...

Farabomb

I was getting pissed this weekend. PC gaming is definitely a PITA but I do prefer it. My old logitech controller is sketchy so that leaves car games out, tough it does seem to be OK most of the time with rocket league. I'm miffed I have to buy a dongle just to use a xbox 360 controller.

I'm probably going to start looking at the i5's. The i7 is nice but unless I can get it as a crack gift from one of my friends upgrading, I think i5 is the way I'm going. Well, unless in my reading it convinces me otherwise. I will have to replace my thermalright cooler but I'm not sure I want to go back to watercooling. Yeah it was neat back in the day when you have to build your own stuff and had the choice of a few waterblocks. I'd be more inclined to use my old system and watercool it, seeing and the NB already has a waterblock on it.

The woman will realize she made a mistake after giving me my 6tb drive for x-mas. Saying "what else do we need" means new computer time.
Speed doesn't kill, rapidly becoming stationary is the problem

I'd rather have stories told than be telling stories of what I could have done.

Quote from: Ear on April 06, 2016, 11:54:16 AM
Quote from: Farabomb on April 06, 2016, 11:39:41 AMIt's more like grip, grip, grip, noise, then spin and 2 feet in and feel shame.
I once knew a plus-sized girl and this pretty much describes teh secks. :rotf:
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
         —Benjamin Franklin

My other job

delooch

Quote from: Farabomb on December 27, 2016, 11:37:22 AMThe woman will realize she made a mistake after giving me my 6tb drive for x-mas. Saying "what else do we need" means new computer time.

she cant really expect you to mix the old hardware with the new hardware, right?

MS got smart with the One and the controllers work on pc with just a cable. still a KB/Mouse player though.

im chugging through alien isolation at the moment, the game is intense, but is sometimes beyond my attention span.

Farabomb

Finished bioshock yesterday, last week I finished Call of Juarez: bound in blood. Still have a ton of backlogged games but a lot of them I have to binge play or I loose interest.

OK, it's not interest it's I forget where the hell I am.
Speed doesn't kill, rapidly becoming stationary is the problem

I'd rather have stories told than be telling stories of what I could have done.

Quote from: Ear on April 06, 2016, 11:54:16 AM
Quote from: Farabomb on April 06, 2016, 11:39:41 AMIt's more like grip, grip, grip, noise, then spin and 2 feet in and feel shame.
I once knew a plus-sized girl and this pretty much describes teh secks. :rotf:
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
         —Benjamin Franklin

My other job

Joe

Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

Farabomb

CRS is a family trait and I had it before I turned 40. Now it's just much worse. I can barley get through 2 episodes of anything on netflix before I'm asleep.
Speed doesn't kill, rapidly becoming stationary is the problem

I'd rather have stories told than be telling stories of what I could have done.

Quote from: Ear on April 06, 2016, 11:54:16 AM
Quote from: Farabomb on April 06, 2016, 11:39:41 AMIt's more like grip, grip, grip, noise, then spin and 2 feet in and feel shame.
I once knew a plus-sized girl and this pretty much describes teh secks. :rotf:
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
         —Benjamin Franklin

My other job

AaronH

I've got a similar problem. I have to binge play anything these days or I end up making a new character/starting over when I pick it back up again. I finally beat the main quest line in Skyrim last September.

Regarding PC building, I'm about a year behind so I may be little help. Last year I was contemplating replacing my Asus gaming laptop with an inexpensive setup and did a ton of research. An article I read, I believe on Tom's Hardware, spoke about gaming not necessarily requiring quad core CPUs yet and that you can get more bang for your buck if you get a faster, 3.5+ GHz dual core. Old information I know, but it could be of help. Maybe?  :-\

My laptop is a bit old, a 2010 Asus g73sw but it still runs most games alright with an i7 quad core with 2.9 GHz turbo boost, 8 GB DDR3 and an NVidia GTX 460M with 1.5 GB DDR5. New games it probably would laugh at however.
Mac & Windows | XMF | Fiery | Oris

Joe

I can play my games on a 286. Commander Keen, Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure, Crystal Caves, Realms of Chaos, Arctic Adventure, Paganitzu, Jack Nicklaus Golf. :rotf:
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

Farabomb

Technically, you can play Commander Keen on a 8088.

The game I bought, the minimum specs are a quad 3g CPU. I know it's probably overkill but it's been a long, LONG time since I upgraded and I'm feeling the itch. The MB and video card are going to be the hard decisions. I was planning on doing some research but now I get the privlege of driving out to a customer's house a hour away from here and a hour away from my house on my gas putting miles on my car... Actually, that's a good thing because bindery is being extra friendly and crazy as a shithouse rat so it will be good that I'm gone.
Speed doesn't kill, rapidly becoming stationary is the problem

I'd rather have stories told than be telling stories of what I could have done.

Quote from: Ear on April 06, 2016, 11:54:16 AM
Quote from: Farabomb on April 06, 2016, 11:39:41 AMIt's more like grip, grip, grip, noise, then spin and 2 feet in and feel shame.
I once knew a plus-sized girl and this pretty much describes teh secks. :rotf:
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
         —Benjamin Franklin

My other job

Farabomb

Damn, ASUS not getting amazing writeups. I may have to actually look into another manufacturer. I've had nothing but bad times with MSI boards but maybe times have changed.
Speed doesn't kill, rapidly becoming stationary is the problem

I'd rather have stories told than be telling stories of what I could have done.

Quote from: Ear on April 06, 2016, 11:54:16 AM
Quote from: Farabomb on April 06, 2016, 11:39:41 AMIt's more like grip, grip, grip, noise, then spin and 2 feet in and feel shame.
I once knew a plus-sized girl and this pretty much describes teh secks. :rotf:
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
         —Benjamin Franklin

My other job

Joe

I think I've had both bad and good ones from them all. I think it all depends on luck if the shipping guy pulls the right one off of the shelf.
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

Slappy

If you're still shopping components, pcpartpicker.com is a good resource. Forums are pretty friendly, good advice and large library of member's existing builds too.
A little diddie 'bout black 'n cyan...two reflective colors doin' the best they can.

Farabomb

I'm going to be parts shopping for a while. It normally takes me a good few months to sort out what I want. I will give that place a look though. Last night was the woman's band practice so I had a lot of time alone to read up and get bad ideas in my head. Watercooling has come a long, long way from when I was hacking together aquarium parts. I'm dumb enough to actually consider it now.

Speed doesn't kill, rapidly becoming stationary is the problem

I'd rather have stories told than be telling stories of what I could have done.

Quote from: Ear on April 06, 2016, 11:54:16 AM
Quote from: Farabomb on April 06, 2016, 11:39:41 AMIt's more like grip, grip, grip, noise, then spin and 2 feet in and feel shame.
I once knew a plus-sized girl and this pretty much describes teh secks. :rotf:
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
         —Benjamin Franklin

My other job