technology Recommended Gaming PC's?

[BubbleGum-Pop 26]

So, it's my birthday soon, and I'm getting a new gaming computer. (woo!)

But, I want to know what you guys would recommend as a good computer.

I need something with a large amount of data, it needs to be reasonably quick and not too expensive.

[Mr F 1,522]

is it laptop or a desktop? Lol but it is common to have gaming laptops and they can be more practical, but desctops gives better performance and price wich type? (feels a bit stupid) 

[N.W. 3,619]

I would suggest building one, much better money-wise and much more fun.

I built my own system 2 months ago, love it ( SSD failed though, getting a replacement)

[An Old Head 4,816]

There are tons of possible boundaries when it comes to building a new computer. For instance, what price, roughly, are you aiming at? What's your maximum price?

 

Buying computers pre-built is a quick way to lose money; I would recommend either buying the components yourself and constructing it from there, or ordering it from a website that allows you to choose components and then builds it for you. The UK equivalent of such a site is Scan.co.uk, so if you find one within your country, it's a great thing to do.

 

You should check out some of the benchmarks for potential graphics cards over at http://videocardbenchmark.net. There's a chart over there where they test each graphics cards against graphics-intensive programs to measure how powerful they are, it's worth checking out.

Edited August 21, 2013 by Flipturn Costava

[LittleRawr 679]

I've heard that Alienware is the best, like top of the line and stuff. However, the same people have said that it's really dang expensive. Maybe there's cheaper Alienware models, but I don't really know. 

[Mr F 1,522]

I reccomend you to check out some channels on youtube like austin evans and linus tech tips. they have got some nice builds that should fit most situations. (also how to build one) 

if you want buckets of storage for a low price some of my friends have got the WD green 2 tb hard drive.  It worked sweet for them. ( what type of pc you are aiming for is all up to you and your needs)

BACK TO ENERGY DRINKS 

Edited August 21, 2013 by a crazy pony

[GhostPony750 959]

The best is to get a desktop. It's cheaper and have better performances.

You can buy a gaming computer, like Alienware.

Or build your gaming computer, which is less expensive.

[Milk Wave 454]

I've heard that Alienware is the best, like top of the line and stuff. However, the same people have said that it's really dang expensive. Maybe there's cheaper Alienware models, but I don't really know. 

Alienware is middle class. When you buy it, you really know the Processor and Graphics, rather then everything else. The hard drive could just be like a 30 dollar one that burns out within 6 months or so, so you never know.

Also, they have a tendency to fail half the time which is why I wouldn't consider getting one.

Edited August 21, 2013 by Baby Sirius

[Planty 1,053]

I would suggest building one, much better money-wise and much more fun.

I built my own system 2 months ago, love it ( SSD failed though, getting a replacement)

 

honestly if you can don't get an SSD, very expensive and make little noticeable difference if you get a new pc (without an ssd mine boots in 12 seconds and every loads fast). SSD's are great if you can afford them but they can be a budget blower!

anyways:

 

If you can build one !

 

Try here http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc they will help you out and there are other sub reddit linked form that that will even help you find parts ect !

[The Awesome One 1,315]

First of all, we need you to tell us what you're going to use that PC for because you didn't tell us anything other than how much memory you want in it.

 

What's your price range and will you game on it? 

[Guest]

 

 

I've heard that Alienware is the best, like top of the line and stuff. However, the same people have said that it's really dang expensive. Maybe there's cheaper Alienware models, but I don't really know.

  sorry, but no. For the money you spend on a relatively good alienware you can get a WAY better PC from most other companies. Having an Alienware is a prestige thingy. I wouldnt advise any gamer to get one, because its just for showing off.

 

@@BubbleGum-Pop,

How much money are you willing to spend?

What kind of games would you like to play?

Laptop or Desktop PC?

If Desktop PC --> Prebuilt or do you want to build it yourself?

You need to give us some more information to work with other than "I want a gaming pc."

 

-Greetingz from TS

[Rayalicious 435]

<p><p>mate you've come to the right place first u need to see ur budget and u will need to see if ur gonna use it for something else than gaming<br /><br />

<br /><br />

so to these are acceptable specs at a good price(these are parts that u can buy to build ur custom pc desktop only)<br /><br />

to start off with a 120/240 gbs SSD they are a bit pricey but essential<br /><br />

16 gbs of rams is very good<br /><br />

cpu heres the link <a class="bbc_url" data-ipb="nomediaparse" href="<a data-ipb="nomediaparse" href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116898">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116898">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116898</a><br /></a><br />

motherboard somthing moderate but realy good quality <a class="bbc_url" data-ipb="nomediaparse" href="<a data-ipb="nomediaparse" href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131980">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131980">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131980</a><br /></a><br />

u can choose as much storage as u want it doesn't matter(recomended 2x 2TB WD black caviar faster than the ones mentioned before with the green)<br /><br />

an optical drive ofc (blu ray is more universal i would recommend)<br /><br />

u will want to get one realy good performing video card or two cards that u can SLI( u can get 2 of these or one but ur choice <a class="bbc_url" data-ipb="nomediaparse" href="<a data-ipb="nomediaparse" href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127699">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127699">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127699</a> ir u can choose a more permanent one<a class="bbc_url" data-ipb="nomediaparse" href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127751">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127751</a>)<br /></a><br />

a full tower for gr8 cable mangment <a class="bbc_url" data-ipb="nomediaparse" href="<a data-ipb="nomediaparse" href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=11-147-053">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=11-147-053">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=11-147-053</a><br /></a><br />

and a 750 or 850cards watts power supply u can choose(&nbsp;depends on the video cards if one or 2)<br /><br />

<br /><br />

<br /><br />

if u want a laptop u can get ofc an alien ware (not THAT good tho)<br /><br />

<br /><br />

and it should be pretty good u can add anything else but these are good</p></p>

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<p>If u want go check my thread on it i alredy did a recomendation   <a href="http://mlpforums.com/topic/70673-brand-new-build/" style="font-size: 14px;">http://mlpforums.com/topic/70673-brand-new-build/</a></p>

Edited August 21, 2013 by supersonic rainboom

[Forlong 1,726]

My recommendation: get something with a quad-core, 4 GB of RAM, and Windows 7 operating system.  If you have all that, the other stats will be good.  Such a PC can cost $400-500, if you take time to look for a good deal (which isn't as hard as it sounds).

 

That's right, you can get an excellent gaming PC for less than the Xbox One.

[Milk Wave 454]

Adding on from the post above, if you get the AMD A8-6600k quad core desktop processor with integrated graphics (which is a 120 dollar processor), you don't even have to spend any more for a GPU unless you're playing some games like Saints Row 3 on ultra. And don't get me wrong, the integrated graphics are great. I have an AMD A8-4500m laptop processor and it runs Fallout 3/NV, and borderlands at a really good FPS rate. (around 30-60)

Edited August 21, 2013 by Baby Sirius

[NightOwl 912]

As mentioned before it would be a good idea to maybe build your own gaming PC. I have lot's of experience building PC's and theirs nothing like it when you turn on your PC for the first time to see it all working. Places like YouTube/Google and Newegg ( If you're from America ) can give you great information on how to build your own gaming PC. 

[Vermillion 613]

ummm i have a gaming computor and mine is custom currently but just buy a complete model to start off and if you want to make it better add new processors and stuff but i could only suggest

Fierce Neptune 2 Ultra Fast Powerful Top Gaming PC 3.40GHz 4GB HD 7770 Windows 8

 its really cheap and good 

[Lateon 589]

Gaming rigs in laptops are about 50-100% more expensive than if you got a tower rig. They also do not run as well, due to most laptops within any normal price range having on-board (this means directly on the motherboard) graphics memory. Only transcending into the ridiculous can you get stand alone graphics cards in a laptop - I'm talking about $2000 plus.

 

What I would recommend is to find a friend who knows a thing or two about building computers, and have them do most of the dirty work for you. Most of the choices you have to make can be done on your own though. Nvidia vs. AMD for your graphics card (I like Nvidia much more), always get a watercooled rig, what you want as your monitor or your keyboard, etc.

 

Here is a guide on how to buy a keyboard for yourself. I learned a lot by reading it, and am partial to getting the "brown" type switches when I get enough money to get a keyboard for myself. Essentially, mechanical switches are superior to the cheap rubber dome varieties found in cheap everyday keyboards, since they require less downforce to trigger, and don't require you to press the key all the way down to trigger its effect.

 

http://www.overclock.net/t/491752/mechanical-keyboard-guide

 

Typical monitors suitable for gaming have response times lower than 5 ms. Anything more is noticable and will become irksome. Do NOT buy a smallish TV to use as a monitor. Unless it's 1080p, the resolution is crap, the pixels are gigantic, and the response time is terrible.

 

LED monitors last longer than LCDs, but you only start noticing wear on LCD monitors 5+ years after you've bought them, and it only appears not as bright as it used to be.

 

For a quick machine, you'll want to opt for an SSD, or solid state drive. While its memory capacity is quite a bit lower than its hard-disk ancestors (256 gig SSDs cost about 150-180 dollars, which is about 50 cents per gig, whereas HDDs go at a rate of a nickel per gig), they load EXTREMELY quickly. Boot times and load times for games are cut in half, or more, due to how the machine lifts data off of the drive. Optimal amounts of RAM would probably come in at about 8 gigs of it.

 

Overall, if you want to get ridiculous performance, I believe the upper limit is around 1500 dollars. For standard awesome performance, it'll run about a grand.

 

Just as a reference point regarding laptops, I paid 1500 dollars for mine two years ago. I checked its price about 5 days ago, and its price has come down to a grand. It can get 30-60 FPS in WoW and a constant 60 in LoL on ultra settings, but it runs extremely warm (borderline damage inflicting, 60-75 degrees Celsius or so). 1 TB HDD, 12 gigs of RAM, Nvidia GTX 560M graphics card with 1.5 gigs of dedicated memory, and a quad core i7 intel processor that runs at 2.00 GHz. I do not overclock, partly because I do not know how, and partly because I believe doing so would push temperatures over the edge.

[Rayalicious 435]

Gaming rigs in laptops are about 50-100% more expensive than if you got a tower rig. They also do not run as well, due to most laptops within any normal price range having on-board (this means directly on the motherboard) graphics memory. Only transcending into the ridiculous can you get stand alone graphics cards in a laptop - I'm talking about $2000 plus.

 

What I would recommend is to find a friend who knows a thing or two about building computers, and have them do most of the dirty work for you. Most of the choices you have to make can be done on your own though. Nvidia vs. AMD for your graphics card (I like Nvidia much more), always get a watercooled rig, what you want as your monitor or your keyboard, etc.

 

Here is a guide on how to buy a keyboard for yourself. I learned a lot by reading it, and am partial to getting the "brown" type switches when I get enough money to get a keyboard for myself. Essentially, mechanical switches are superior to the cheap rubber dome varieties found in cheap everyday keyboards, since they require less downforce to trigger, and don't require you to press the key all the way down to trigger its effect.

 

http://www.overclock.net/t/491752/mechanical-keyboard-guide

 

Typical monitors suitable for gaming have response times lower than 5 ms. Anything more is noticable and will become irksome. Do NOT buy a smallish TV to use as a monitor. Unless it's 1080p, the resolution is crap, the pixels are gigantic, and the response time is terrible.

 

LED monitors last longer than LCDs, but you only start noticing wear on LCD monitors 5+ years after you've bought them, and it only appears not as bright as it used to be.

 

For a quick machine, you'll want to opt for an SSD, or solid state drive. While its memory capacity is quite a bit lower than its hard-disk ancestors (256 gig SSDs cost about 150-180 dollars, which is about 50 cents per gig, whereas HDDs go at a rate of a nickel per gig), they load EXTREMELY quickly. Boot times and load times for games are cut in half, or more, due to how the machine lifts data off of the drive. Optimal amounts of RAM would probably come in at about 8 gigs of it.

 

Overall, if you want to get ridiculous performance, I believe the upper limit is around 1500 dollars. For standard awesome performance, it'll run about a grand.

 

Just as a reference point regarding laptops, I paid 1500 dollars for mine two years ago. I checked its price about 5 days ago, and its price has come down to a grand. It can get 30-60 FPS in WoW and a constant 60 in LoL on ultra settings, but it runs extremely warm (borderline damage inflicting, 60-75 degrees Celsius or so). 1 TB HDD, 12 gigs of RAM, Nvidia GTX 560M graphics card with 1.5 gigs of dedicated memory, and a quad core i7 intel processor that runs at 2.00 GHz. I do not overclock, partly because I do not know how, and partly because I believe doing so would push temperatures over the edge.

even tho u are right on most of ur points water cooling is not ESSENTIAL , but for over clocking its is I use overclocking for locked cpu and the max temp my cpu hits while oh high load never bypassed the 50¬60 and also u should be sure about the way u will apply the thermal paste because it can dramatically affect the heat dispersion and cool air/water transfer for instance in  my first build i didint apply corectly which cause cores 1 and 3 to be way hotter than cores 0 and 2 (id recomend arctic silver but im curently using Xigmatek which is way cheaper and performs exactly the same way) also u can mod fans for the heatsinks foro the cooling im using a 4000 rpm instead of the original 2000 rpm on a thermaltake bigtyp revo heatsink but its a bit costy and very loud i only use it full speed when needed

 

u can go check the whole specs of my build here http://mlpforums.com/topic/70673-brand-new-build/

Edited August 22, 2013 by supersonic rainboom

[Milk Wave 454]

Just as a reference point regarding laptops, I paid 1500 dollars for mine two years ago. I checked its price about 5 days ago, and its price has come down to a grand. It can get 30-60 FPS in WoW and a constant 60 in LoL on ultra settings, but it runs extremely warm (borderline damage inflicting, 60-75 degrees Celsius or so). 1 TB HDD, 12 gigs of RAM, Nvidia GTX 560M graphics card with 1.5 gigs of dedicated memory, and a quad core i7 intel processor that runs at 2.00 GHz. I do not overclock, partly because I do not know how, and partly because I believe doing so would push temperatures over the edge.

I'm going to call BS for how your rig runs League at 60-75 celsius. You really need to check your thermal paste for any kinks or wear on it, since it would really help.

Tell me, did you apply any on or did it come already coated on your heatsync?

Graphics card applies the same for ^ since I don't know if its the CPU or GPU.

Edited August 22, 2013 by Baby Sirius

[Lateon 589]

I'm going to call BS for how your rig runs League at 60-75 celsius. You really need to check your thermal paste for any kinks or wear on it, since it would really help. Tell me, did you apply any on or did it come already coated on your heatsync? Graphics card applies the same for ^ since I don't know if its the CPU or GPU.

 

 

I've never actually checked what the CPU/GPU run at while playing league. I don't see the need to check because my laptop's fans don't kick into high gear on their own, which is what they usually do when I'm playing WoW. I would be surprised if it ran that hot during League, it's not really a visually demanding game.

 

As for your other questions, I'm not sure. I didn't build my laptop, and I've never taken it apart before, since I'm nervous I might break it. It's an MSI GT683R, if you were wondering. What would thermal paste look like? What would wear on it look like?

 

Thanks for the heat dispersing advice, you two.

Edited August 22, 2013 by HandMan

[Rayalicious 435]

I'm going to call BS for how your rig runs League at 60-75 celsius. You really need to check your thermal paste for any kinks or wear on it, since it would really help.

Tell me, did you apply any on or did it come already coated on your heatsync?

Graphics card applies the same for ^ since I don't know if its the CPU or GPU.

 

 

 

NEVER play around or tweak with laptop that are extremely hazardous i got electrocuted while adding some rams a few months ago and when a laptop gets that hot i recommend u use cooling pads they are really good my notebook if left overnight goes in flames unless i unless i use  a cool pad even if on idle. so if u want to take apart ur laptop do at own risk i do not recommend at all  beleive i tried it i had to take back at local retailer to get it fixed (if u want i can link  some pic of what a thermal paste look like )

[Milk Wave 454]

@

Thermal paste looks like a clearish white. You'll notice there is wear when not much of it is on the processor connecting to the heatsync, plus it just does over time. The best way to clean it is by getting a coffee filter n such, but I forgot the rest. You would have to look it up on youtube.

It's a good idea to watch someone take apart the laptop first so you can get a general idea step by step on how to do it. It can be hard though since it's a laptop.

 

NEVER play around or tweak with laptop that are extremely hazardous i got electrocuted while adding some rams a few months ago and when a laptop gets that hot i recommend u use cooling pads they are really good my notebook if left overnight goes in flames unless i unless i use  a cool pad even if on idle. so if u want to take apart ur laptop do at own risk i do not recommend at all  beleive i tried it i had to take back at local retailer to get it fixed (if u want i can link  some pic of what a thermal paste look like )

Just take the battery out and turn it off really. That's what I do whenever I wanna check my RAM or HDD in my laptop.

Also cooling pads do help out somewhat, but if it's a heatsync problem then it's not going to do much.

Edited August 22, 2013 by Baby Sirius

[Rayalicious 435]

@

Thermal paste looks like a clearish white. You'll notice there is wear when not much of it is on the processor connecting to the heatsync, plus it just does over time. The best way to clean it is by getting a coffee filter n such, but I forgot the rest. You would have to look it up on youtube.

It's a good idea to watch someone take apart the laptop first so you can get a general idea step by step on how to do it. It can be hard though since it's a laptop.

 

Just take the battery out and turn it off really. That's what I do whenever I wanna check my RAM or HDD in my laptop.

Also cooling pads do help out somewhat, but if it's a heatsync problem then it's not going to do much.

@ as baby sius mentioned before u can clean and apply new ones but to be more specific u can use ISOPROPYL alcohol or simply purchase the arctic silver cleaning kit which i did cuz ive been around helping many friends with the cooling problems and its perfect plus i would recomend u purchase a thermal paste that has a mini spatula in it for perfect application Edited August 22, 2013 by supersonic rainboom

[Milk Wave 454]

@ as baby sius mentioned before u can clean and apply new ones but to be more specific u can use ISOPROPYL alcohol or simply purchase the arctic silver cleaning kit which i did cuz ive been around helping many friends with the cooling problems and its perfect plus i would recomend u purchase a thermal paste that has a mini spatula in it for perfect application

Cooling pads do help out a lot, since I just got a CPU temperature monitor and it reads 38C on idle with the fan on low. Without it it gets to 50C on idle so it goes down quite a bit~

That was after I let it run Saints Row 3 and left it to cool for 20 minutes, but now without the fan its running on 40C so it needs that little bump of cool air to get it to go lower.

Edited August 22, 2013 by Baby Sirius