Topic: PC Gaming

A grand is a pretty good ceiling to have.
If i did a fantasy rig for you with no sales or rebate prices (meaning this rig will likely be cheaper to buy):

Case: Cooler Master CM 590 III Black - Mid Tower Computer Case with Top Magnetic Dust Filter and Blue LED Fan (59.99)
MOBO: GIGABYTE G1 Gaming GA-H170-Gaming 3 (rev. 1.0) LGA 1151 Intel H170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard (114.99) -note no wifi...I don't put it in my rigs so that may cause you to want a different board.
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Intel Z170 Platform / Intel X99 Platform Desktop Memory Model F4-3200C16D-8GVKB (61.99)
CPU heatsink/fan:Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - CPU Cooler with 120mm PWM Fan (RR-212E-20PK-R2) (34.99)
PSU: Thermaltake PS-TPD-0850MPCGUS-1 850W ATX12V / EPS12V 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Active PFC Modular Power Supply (139.99)
HDD: Seagate 1TB Desktop HDD SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive (49.99) I prefer WD personally but I usually see seagate cheaper and they make good drives too.
GPU:EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB SSC GAMING ACX 3.0, 6GB GDDR5, LED, DX12 OSD Support (PXOC), 06G-P4-6267-KR (279.00)
CPU:Intel Core i5-6600K 6M Skylake Quad-Core 3.5 GHz LGA 1151 91W BX80662I56600K Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 530 (249.00)
Optical Drive: ASUS Black 12X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM SATA Internal Blu-ray Drive (52.99)

MSRP Total= 1042.93

Sans rebates I am a little over your budget but almost all of those components actually have a lower price due to sales/markdowns/rebates... I just like to give worst case costs. In fact I think with the rebates and markdown it frees up almost 150 that you could put into another component...like getting an i7 which I'd recommend. Note this is a quick and dirty build as I'm at work so you can likely go cheaper.

Not to double post but I don't want to tack on the post I made to @defhalan but, has anyone gotten dishonored 2 for PC? I'm seeing average reviews on steam and I don't want it if it is a crap port. I've been getting a lot of lower budget games lately. Emergency 2017 (which I like a lot to my surprise), Owlboy (haven't started it yet) to name a few. I also picked up the new COD so I can play with my brother...I still have no love for FPS games. Sigh.

Picked up Dragon Age Orgins from GOG ( i am trying to switch to DRM free if I can) and installed my texture mods and I'm replaying it. (I still feel like for ME it was BioWare's last good all around game the sequels and the rest of Mass Effect are kinda like swiss cheese for me personally...so much so that bioware has dropped from instabuy status as a dev for me.)

@Ryu_Niiyama Sadly, it has been labelled as a 'crap port' almost everywhere.

Owlboy Iooks like the most charming and whimsical game of the year, and I really wish I could play it!

The whole list of modules and things you need to build a computer actually scares me. It may well be fairly straightforward in practice, but that's why I like the accessible simplicity of consoles.

@Peek-a-boo Aww darn. I guess I'll get it for xbone then. I need more games for that system anyway (I really can't wait for crackdown 3). Computer building takes a screwdriver and a hour of free time. (Maybe a flashlight depending on the size of your case.. I use full size cases for my media computers because I tend to toss a bunch of HDDs in there. My music alone is 1TB.) I started back in 05 after my computer in college gave up the ghost (and I lost two term papers...I cried for a week straight) and I have not looked back. Games are cheaper, look better and your rig can be as big or as small as you can dream it to be. I will admit you might catch the bug once you start though. I'm designing some arcade cabinet rigs now for after my move.

Honestly I feel that way about consoles. The guis are way too busy/complicated and have really soured my absolute adoration of consoles this gen. But I don't want a media box. I just want to play games.

If you hear about skynet starting up...I'm sorry that might be my fault.

EDIT: LOLOLOL http://www.pcgamer.com/why-dishonored-2-is-running-so-poorly/

@DarthNocturnal That is a bethesda thing. I love them to pieces but you need a can of raid to play their games.

I'm sorry @Ryu_Niiyama but there are a lot of things not to like about that build. A few things I don't think are necessary and/or worth spending extra on. A few other things you've skipped over that should be in every build. So for what it's worth here's my build for @DefHalan .... prices from Newegg

CPU: i5-6500 - $205
MoBo: ASUS H170 Pro Gaming - $115
RAM: HyperX 2x 4GB DDR 4 - $60
SSD: Samsung 850 EVO 250GB M.2 - $100
HDD: WD Blue 2TB - $75
GPU: Gigabite 1060 3GB - $214
Case: Corsair Carbide 400C - $100
PSU: Corsair Builder 500W - $50
Total: $920US

For things I didn't get that were in @Ryu_Niiyama's build. I dropped the cost by not including an optical drive because on a modern gaming PC you'll pretty much never use it. You don't need a big PSU, 500W is fine for this build. I picked the lower RAM SKU for the GPU because with a 1060 you're going to be gaming at 1080p, 3GB VRAM is plenty. And with the motherboard frankly it doesn't matter much which one you get. I just looked for the cheapest, decent brand board that had decent I/O and decent expansion options. Also I didn't bother with spending extra for overclocking.

Where did I drop that money saved? Well storage but also a little bit more breathing room. I think a 1TB HDD and nothing else is a very bad setup for 2016. You should always find a way to fit an SSD into a modern build. I've gone with a 250GB M.2 drive because it's fast and enough for your OS and most of your commonly used games/apps. Then a 2TB HDD for extra storage. I don't see the point of a 1TB drive when a 2TB drive is not that much more expensive.

Lastly, that money left over? There are options there. It might go towards a copy of Windows 10 which I did not include. You could also potentially push that money towards a bigger GPU like a 1070 or something. There's almost enough there for that. You might also just want to get a nicer case or a modular PSU so the build looks nicer. There's room there for that also. Just not all of these things at once unless you can find some good deals.

@Ryu_Niiyama @skywake is there a particular reason you went with intel and Nvidia instead of AMD? I was looking at an AMD build because it looks like I can get more power out of cheaper pieces. They seem to have more power (as in Power Supply) requirements but it seems like a better deal

@DefHalan
Video cards are usually priced appropriately for the performance you get. The GTX 1060 is priced between AMD's RX470 and RX480 and you get performance in that sort of range out of it. But as you said AMD cards tend to consume a bit more power. So NVidia is a bit of a better buy.

Note that I say this as someone who has an AMD card. Specifically because that was the best value card in the price bracket I was looking at. But it's also one of the components I am least happy with. Not that it's bad but in the middle of a hot Australian summer? I find myself turning down game settings to reduce heat/noise. So if I was building again I'd lean towards a more power efficient card.... unless there was a good deal

The only other thing I'd change if I started over again would be the number of PCIe slots. I got a micro-ATX board because I wanted a small build. It has 1 PCIe 16x slot and 2 usable PCIe 1x slots. Which means I can't get USB 3.1 or a 10Gbps NIC without a full system upgrade. Not that I need those things but for not a lot extra the option would have been nice.

@skywake is the choice to go with a Intel Processor based on the choice to go with a Nvidia Graphics Card or is there a different reason to go with Intel over AMD?

I was thinking a AMD FX 8370 with a RX480 originally (was only going slightly over my "budget" but felt it was worth it) but you have me wondering if going with an Intel build would be better, especially since I would love this build to last 5 years (as in play the next 5 years of game releases decently, but continue to work longer than that lol)

@DefHalan
AMD vs NVidia is a toss up, AMD vs Intel is pretty one sided. Also there's no benefit to going pure AMD or Intel/NVidia vs Intel/AMD. It doesn't matter.

But to make a simple comparison in a multi-threaded synthetic benchmark? The AMD CPU you mentioned gets a score that's ~15% higher. In a single threaded benchmark it's ~30% lower. But it's also double the power and about the same price. Also games usually benefit more from better single threaded performance and usually don't benefit from more than 4 cores.

But here's the thing that really swings in Intel's favour. Motherboard options. You won't find an AMD board that supports DDR4. I don't think there are any that have a USB Type C connector on the back. And because there are less options there are less deals to find. That combined with the fact that the CPUs themselves aren't that great? It makes it impossible to recommend an AMD CPU

@skywake no prob. I prefer larger psus so that i can grow into them as i upgrade gpus. I also use my optical drives heavily and i also think from a standard troubleshooting perspective it is always good to have one. We differ on hdd preferences. Sdd's imo are still too costly per gig but to each her own. My rigs are heavy media and design systems so i need large cheap drives. My os and programs are on a 1tb drive and the majority of the rest of my media is in a raid setup. Hence why i went with a smaller drive. Most people that dont consume a ton of media find 1tb to be enough.
Typos abound I'm on my phone.

@skywake Wow, thanks for the info. I do find Intel naming conventions a bit confusing. My budget isn't very strict, so is there an Intel CPU that overall you think will be my best option, even if it is more than the one earlier that you recommended?

@Ryu_Niiyama
If anything PCs are becoming more power efficient not less. Unless you know you need it for a high end multi-GPU setup (which is a serious waste of money) you don't need it. Case and point the list of components I posted on the previous page? Even if I swap out the GPU for a Fury X it's under ~450W. The 1060 build sat at ~300W. So 500-600W is fine.

In terms of storage? Well sure, it depends. But you gain a hell of a lot from having an SSD for applications and the OS itself. And 250GB is cheap enough to fit in that budget but still plenty for a decent handful of games, the OS and your main programs. Pair it with a HDD and you're set. Why 2TB rather than 1TB? It's double the storage for ~20% extra money. Relative to the total build it's not a lot extra.

@DefHalan
It depends on what you're doing. If you're going to be doing a lot of video editing and live streams you might get some value out of an i7. But for gaming there's not much point going above a modern i5. Games are going to be bottlenecked by the GPU first with an i5.

@skywake So I finally made it onto Newegg and put a bunch of parts in the cart, I upgraded a few of your suggestions to match closer to what I want, but it added over $500 to your estimates... building computers can be difficult lol. I also am not sure what cords I need for my hard drives and everything.

@DefHalan
The cables you'll need will be included. Usually the only cables they don't have extra of are SATA cables. Even then there are usually about two in the box

Elder Scrolls Online is having a free weekend starting now and is on sale for less than $10

@DarthNocturnal i'd play with you ! if you're on pc that is^^

i didn't have anyone to play with either when i started the game, but most guilds are always looking for new members and the community overall is very nice so you will find people to play with fast.

anyone even slightly interested in the game should get it right now! because the biggest and best dlc "orsinium" is on sale, too. it's dirt cheap right now.

I know this isn't specifically PC related, but I hope your tech savvy-ness can help me out.

The internal storage on my 16 GB tablet is running low, so I got an 8 GB Micro SD card, but no matter what I move over to it, it's not having a palpable effect on my internal storage.

For example, I had 1.4 GB of free space in my internal storage, downloaded Lara Croft GO (which said it was just over 400 MB on it's page) which brought my internal storage down to about 700 MB.

I then moved the game over to the SD card, but it only freed up about 100 MB in my internal storage by doing so.

Any Idea on what kinds of apps/files more effectively transfer to an SD card?

@DarthNocturnal, thanks for the explanation.

I'll probably move over my music, pictures, then delete any apps I hardly use (FX Now, Google Earth, & Miitomo, the latter of which takes up over 1 GB on it's own...), and see if that helps.

So after having gone through 3 gaming laptops that were all broken in some way, i've decided to say screw gaming laptops and build my own powerful desktop PC instead. It's gonna be difficult (mostly inserting components in the case) but I want to try. I'm ready to embrace PC gaming!