Getting a gaming PC, by the end of this week.

[BBP: Baka.Bonkura.Ponkstu]

Hello nice people. I'm about to get a new gaming PC by the end of this week. Of course this is my first time doing that, also my first time switching to PC gaming. My best friend is the one whom is building my PC, and overall we have a budget of $600-$700 (without peripherals). He's a programmer, software engineer, and coder. Basically, he knows what to get me in terms of: RAM, GPU, CPU, MotherBoard & OS (Win7:64 Bit). But we're a bit confused if we should get an AMD graphic card or Nividia?
He got his brother a Nivida graphic card a year ago, and he says everything is well. My best friend himself is not a gamer; therefore, I felt it's better if we double-check.


-I have been reading on loads of sites that had loads of debates; you can build an amazing High-End gaming PC that run every game on Maximum/Ultimate settings with my said budget... and if it doesn't run on highest settings, it will be most likely from the game itself having a poor port or not being well-optimised for the highest settings.
I plan to play all games on Maximum settings, as long as they handle it.

Would you kindly tell&educate me with details, if we should get an AMD Graphic Card or Nividia, and anything else in terms of hardware? I'd greatly appreciate it.

-It seems that Steam store and AMD are going hand-in-hand... just an observation.

Please be nice and detailed. Be easy on me with all the numbers and jargon, as I'm a beginner and trying my best to learn about these details.

[Rove]

Kyanti4869님이 먼저 게시:

Rove님이 먼저 게시:

What is your budget for GPU?

On your $600-700 budget for tower, not including OS, I recommend:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1nUjU

If you need Windows 8 64bit along with it you could drop down to a HD 7870 GE GPU and or or a cheaper PSU, 500w continuous 80 Plus Bronze at minimum. That should be able to save more than enough $ to afford a copy of WIndows 8 64fbit.

Hmm.. I'm not sure of the specified budget of the GPU, but I'll ask him and check my "wallet" :P. Please, take the freedom to describe the great ones, with no worry. Once I'll know my exact budget for the GPU, I'll pick up the suited one.

I'm going with Windows7 64 Bit; I have it ready with my friend, so no worries on that part. I don't want to have Windows8, since I didn't like it, and It doesn't support Controllers whatsoever. I have a disease that disables me to play on a keyboard for longer than 30 minutes.

One more question: What's the difference between a 6 core-processor and a 7-core-processor?

Okay so take the build I recommended and show your friend. The GPU I am recommending is the HD 7950 or HD 7970. On your budget it is probably best to get the HD 7950 though as I made a good value budget machine around the HD 7950 in the build I recommended and it was at the top end of your budget.

The difference between 6 core and 7 core? There are a few, there are 6 core CPU's but no one that I am aware of makes a 7 core CPU currently, 8 cores, 10 cores, 12 cores and 16 cores though are possible to purchase if you have enough money.

To further answer your question a "core" in a CPU is what a CPU used to be. Back in the day all CPUs were "single core" meaning the entire CPU was a core and a core was a CPU. Then some smart person realized that as these things got more and more miniature they were getting harder and harder to design because they got more and more complicated to fill up all the extra space that miniaturization was making available. So at a certain point they decided that instead of designing a even more complex CPU they would design a smaller, simpler one to take up 1/2 of the space and print 2 of them inside the same package as miniaturization and other technology advances allowed them to still make these "cores" better than previous generations of CPUs had been. Meaning that one core could perform as well as 1 whole CPU from a previous generation and that 2 cores was up to twice as good for some things. It's still only 1 CPU because it fits in the same package but in a way every core is a equivalent of 1 CPU (old CPU) and is then cloned a bunch to fill up the available space. It makes it so that they can still reasonably keep improving their designs without it getting more and more complicated. Becaue otherwise it would start to get too difficult to design newer, better CPUs. So they still design relatively simple ones and then clone them several times, usually in units of 2 or 4. The performance of individual cores is still improving as well, but without cores the designers would probably not be able to keep up with miniaturization and other efficiency improvements.

Long story short, more cores is better. When dealing with the same brand and generation of architecture it can reasonably be said that having twice as many cores is twice as good.

LASTLY:

As for GPU's I recommend that you not go below the level of AMD Radeon HD 7790 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 or GTX 760. The reason for this is that the PlayStation 4 will have a 1840 GFLOPS GPU and it would be best to meet or beat that processing performance. The Xbox One will have slightly less, about 1300 GFLOPS but might have a better CPU or better programing or something because of Microsoft.

For CPU I recommend that you not go below a 3.2 Ghz Quadcore or a 3.0 Ghz quadcore unlocked for overclocking so you can overclock it if you need to.

[BBP: Baka.Bonkura.Ponkstu]

Imrazor님이 먼저 게시:

Tell us what games you want to play. What is your screen res? BTW, you CAN do well with a small budget, as a Radeon HD 7770 does pretty well at BF3 at 1680*1050 and will be playable at 1920*1080. 2560*1600 is out though.

I do not know what my screen res is, since I have practically built nothing XD.

Well, I can tell you the games I'm playing on console (PS3) and will play them again on Max settings when I get my PC, but to tell you of future games, I kinda don't know :P. I plan to play: Dishonored, Max Payne 3, PayDay2, Tomb Raider, Hitman: Absoulotion, Bioshock:Infinite, Prototype 2, Minecraft, Dust: An Elysian Tail.

It seems from the search I did today and all of your help guys, I'll be going with a Nividia GPU. I have read an hour ago, that Nivida GPUs have the ability to show particles and effects, that perhaps some AMD GPUs can't.


Thank you! :)

Rove님이 먼저 게시:

Kyanti4869님이 먼저 게시:

Hmm.. I'm not sure of the specified budget of the GPU, but I'll ask him and check my "wallet" :P. Please, take the freedom to describe the great ones, with no worry. Once I'll know my exact budget for the GPU, I'll pick up the suited one.

I'm going with Windows7 64 Bit; I have it ready with my friend, so no worries on that part. I don't want to have Windows8, since I didn't like it, and It doesn't support Controllers whatsoever. I have a disease that disables me to play on a keyboard for longer than 30 minutes.

One more question: What's the difference between a 6 core-processor and a 7-core-processor?

Okay so take the build I recommended and show your friend. The GPU I am recommending is the HD 7950 or HD 7970. On your budget it is probably best to get the HD 7950 though as I made a good value budget machine around the HD 7950 in the build I recommended and it was at the top end of your budget.

The difference between 6 core and 7 core? There are a few, there are 6 core CPU's but no one that I am aware of makes a 7 core CPU currently, 8 cores, 10 cores, 12 cores and 16 cores though are possible to purchase if you have enough money.

To further answer your question a "core" in a CPU is what a CPU used to be. Back in the day all CPUs were "single core" meaning the entire CPU was a core and a core was a CPU. Then some smart person realized that as these things got more and more miniature they were getting harder and harder to design because they got more and more complicated to fill up all the extra space that miniaturization was making available. So at a certain point they decided that instead of designing a even more complex CPU they would design a smaller, simpler one to take up 1/2 of the space and print 2 of them inside the same package as miniaturization and other technology advances allowed them to still make these "cores" better than previous generations of CPUs had been. Meaning that one core could perform as well as 1 whole CPU from a previous generation and that 2 cores was up to twice as good for some things. It's still only 1 CPU because it fits in the same package but in a way every core is a equivalent of 1 CPU (old CPU) and is then cloned a bunch to fill up the available space. It makes it so that they can still reasonably keep improving their designs without it getting more and more complicated. Becaue otherwise it would start to get too difficult to design newer, better CPUs. So they still design relatively simple ones and then clone them several times, usually in units of 2 or 4. The performance of individual cores is still improving as well, but without cores the designeers would probably not be able to keep up with miniaturization and other efficiency improvements.

Long story short, more cores is better. When dealing with the same brand and generation of architecture it can reasonably be said that having twice as many cores is twice as good.

LASTLY:

As for GPU's I recommend that you not go below the level of AMD Radeon HD 7790 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 or GTX 760. The reason for this is that the PlayStation 4 will have a 1840 GFLOPS GPU and it would be best to meet or beat that processing performance. The Xbox One will have slightly less, about 1300 GFLOPS but might have a better CPU or better programing or something because of Microsoft.

For CPU I recommend that you not go below a 3.2 Ghz Quadcore or a 3.0 Ghz quadcore unlocked for overclocking so you can overclock it if you need to.

Thanks :).I agree! Of course, I want my build to beat PS4/Xbox1, in the short run, and then upgrade gradually to something more amazing, to be ahead of next gens consoles or something to be happy with :).

Again, thank you. I sent him the link to this page, and hopefully once he wakes up, he will see to it.

[Rove]

Kyanti4869님이 먼저 게시:

Imrazor님이 먼저 게시:

Tell us what games you want to play. What is your screen res? BTW, you CAN do well with a small budget, as a Radeon HD 7770 does pretty well at BF3 at 1680*1050 and will be playable at 1920*1080. 2560*1600 is out though.

I do not know what my screen res is, since I have practically built nothing XD.

Well, I can tell you the games I'm playing on console (PS3) and will play them again on Max settings when I get my PC, but to tell you of future games, I kinda don't know :P. I plan to play: Dishonored, Max Payne 3, PayDay2, Tomb Raider, Hitman: Absoulotion, Bioshock:Infinite, Prototype 2, Minecraft, Dust: An Elysian Tail.

It seems from the search I did today and all of your help guys, I'll be going with a Nividia GPU. I have read an hour ago, that Nivida GPUs have the ability to show particles and effects, that perhaps some AMD GPUs can't.

That's not true about Nvidia GPU's showing particles and effects that others can not.

There is 1 "Physics Engine" called Nvidia Physx that works on Nvidia GPUs exclusively, but it also works on all CPU's as well. So you can run Physx on your CPU if you have a AMD.

Also Physx is only 1 of many Physics Engines and many others will run on both AMD and Nvidia or also on CPUs.

I have over 125 games and only one of them uses Nvidia Physx, the others all use other Physics Engines that also work with AMD.

Nvidia is just being evil by deliberately preventing Physx software from running on AMD GPUs, but it will still run on a good CPU just fine and you can still use it together with AMD GPUs while running the Physx portion of the game on your CPU. Using Fluidmark for example my AMD can run 10,000's of Physx Particles on my AMD FX 8150 CPU.

Also as I mentioned, Nvidia Physx is a relatively rare Physics Engine, with the majority of games running one that is compatible with both AMD and Nvidia GPUs and CPUs also.

It's never been a problem for me yet. They sure sound like jerks for being so exclusive with it though. All the excuses about how they can only make sure it runs properly on their own hardware. Ya right. Every other Physics Engine works fine on anything, even a Matrox GPU. Nvidia is just trying to be a stupid monopoly and bully people into buying their stuff. It had the opposite effect on me, that and their stupid pricing for their high-end parts. The value per $ gets really really bad at the top end of their GPU catalogue.

[BBP: Baka.Bonkura.Ponkstu]

Rove님이 먼저 게시:

Kyanti4869님이 먼저 게시:

I do not know what my screen res is, since I have practically built nothing XD.

Well, I can tell you the games I'm playing on console (PS3) and will play them again on Max settings when I get my PC, but to tell you of future games, I kinda don't know :P. I plan to play: Dishonored, Max Payne 3, PayDay2, Tomb Raider, Hitman: Absoulotion, Bioshock:Infinite, Prototype 2, Minecraft, Dust: An Elysian Tail.

It seems from the search I did today and all of your help guys, I'll be going with a Nividia GPU. I have read an hour ago, that Nivida GPUs have the ability to show particles and effects, that perhaps some AMD GPUs can't.

That's not true about Nvidia GPU's showing particles and effects that others can not.

There is 1 "Physics Engine" called Nvidia Physx that works on Nvidia GPUs exclusively, but it also works on all CPU's as well. So you can run Physx on your CPU if you have a AMD.

Also Physx is only 1 of many Physics Engines and many others will run on both AMD and Nvidia or also on CPUs.

I have over 125 games and only one of them uses Nvidia Physx, the others all use other Physics Engines that also work with AMD.

Nvidia is just being a evil by deliberately preventing Physx software from running on AMD GPUs, but it will still run on a good CPU just fine and you can still use it together with AMD GPUs while running the Physx portion of the game on your CPU. Using Fluidmark for example my AMD can run 10,000's of Physx Particles on my AMD FX 8150 CPU.

Also as I mentioned, Nvidia Physx is a relatively rare Physics Engine, with the majority of games running one that is compatible with both AMD and Nvidia GPUs and CPUs also.

It's never been a problem for me yet. They sure sound like jerks for being so exclusive with it though. All the excuses about how they can only make sure it runs properly on their own hardware. Ya right. Every other Physics Engine works fine on anything, even a Matrox GPU. Nvidia is just trying to be a stupid monopoly and bully peop-le into buyiung their stuff. It had the opposite effect on me, that and their stupid pricing for their high-end parts. The value per $ gets really really bad at the top end of their GPU catalogue.

Waaw, thanks companion :). I totally understand :). Yes, Nividia is so expensive...

[Dutchgamer1982]

Good, you understand that 600-700 is not a high end pc.
But if you ment "joining the pc masterrace' than I bid you welcome!.

Your story bout a 600 euro frame outperforming a 3500 frame.. sounds unlikely but possible in some cases if that 3500 was not made for gaming or composed of the right parts and that 600 was.
it could be if that 3500 frame is not configured right (aka it's a server or it is optimalised for rendering, or it has a big bottleneck of a weak motherboard).

But if we make the comparising with consoles, than yes, pc's are always better.
Hardware wise consoles are ancient tech, of years ago even at lauch, and any 300 euro pc will be better than a brand new console.

But console games are optimalised for standard hardware, were pc games have to work on thousants of different combinations of thousants of different possible hardware parts.
As an effect to perform just as good an console a pc performing at console quality will cost more than a console.. but no more than say 500 euro..
(still twice what a console costs..)

however get above that. and the pc master race starts showing it's mucle.. and at 600-700 you should see improvement compared to even next gen consoles aperearing in the market today.
and to be fair.. I did not always buy high end pc's either.. my first game pc only costed about 400 euro.. when I was 12 or 13.. payed for by my first job of spreading the paper.
it was not before I was about 18.. I had the dough to buy a 1200+ machine, and it was 4 years later before I entered the high league..
I am now on my third high legue machine.. to give you that idea.. so yes your budget depending on your age is a good start.

But having a pc you will on top of that see other boons.. like better acces to mods (yeah) better possibility to download and play pirated games, music and movies, much bigger and cheaper storage options, improved game controll, and ofcource you can use a pc for a lot more than gaming alone.

[BBP: Baka.Bonkura.Ponkstu]

Dutchgamer1982님이 먼저 게시:

Good, you understand that 600-700 is not a high end pc.
But if you ment "joining the pc masterrace' than I bid you welcome!.

Your story bout a 600 euro frame outperforming a 3500 frame.. sounds unlikely but possible in some cases if that 3500 was not made for gaming or composed of the right parts and that 600 was.
it could be if that 3500 frame is not configured right (aka it's a server or it is optimalised for rendering, or it has a big bottleneck of a weak motherboard).

But if we make the comparising with consoles, than yes, pc's are always better.
Hardware wise consoles are ancient tech, of years ago even at lauch, and any 300 euro pc will be better than a brand new console.

But console games are optimalised for standard hardware, were pc games have to work on thousants of different combinations of thousants of different possible hardware parts.
As an effect to perform just as good an console a pc performing at console quality will cost more than a console.. but no more than say 500 euro..
(still twice what a console costs..)

however get above that. and the pc master race starts showing it's mucle.. and at 600-700 you should see improvement compared to even next gen consoles aperearing in the market today.
and to be fair.. I did not always buy high end pc's either.. my first game pc only costed about 400 euro.. when I was 12 or 13.. payed for by my first job of spreading the paper.
it was not before I was about 18.. I had the dough to buy a 1200+ machine, and it was 4 years later before I entered the high league..
I am now on my third high legue machine.. to give you that idea.. so yes your budget depending on your age is a good start.

But having a pc you will on top of that see other boons.. like better acces to mods (yeah) better possibility to download and play pirated games, music and movies, much bigger and cheaper storage options, improved game controll, and ofcource you can use a pc for a lot more than gaming alone.

Yes sir, I agree and understand :). It's not really my story, it's from an article, lol... But I get the point ^^. The great thing is that even from a low staring point from $600-$700 budget frame, one can be better than consoles. Over the course of a couple months/years (depending on the financial state of the said person), they can upgrade to higher specs, with a cheaper price than the first time when they built their first PC. Overall, you're saving more money when gaming on a PC than, when gaming on consoles; not only in hardware, but in software (games) prices and deals!

With console gaming, I felt so far behind in a lot of things. I might not get all the mods or so, but the experience of PC gaming in itself, is something marvellous! I have an ordinary Asus laptop, that ran Max Payne 3 on minimum settings, and it looked gorgeous!

[banzaigtv]

Try this build.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1odCo

CPU: Intel Core i3-3210 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($109.10 @ TigerDirect)
Motherboard: ASRock B75 PRO3 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($82.55 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($74.08 @ TigerDirect)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($63.98 @ Outlet PC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost 2GB Video Card ($154.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master RC-430-KWN6 ATX Mid Tower Case ($30.00 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Antec EarthWatts Green 650W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($69.99 @ Amazon)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NS95 DVD/CD Writer ($15.99 @ Microcenter)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.73 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $690.41

[BBP: Baka.Bonkura.Ponkstu]

banzaigtv님이 먼저 게시:

Try this build.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1odCo

CPU: Intel Core i3-3210 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($109.10 @ TigerDirect)
Motherboard: ASRock B75 PRO3 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($82.55 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($74.08 @ TigerDirect)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($63.98 @ Outlet PC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost 2GB Video Card ($154.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master RC-430-KWN6 ATX Mid Tower Case ($30.00 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Antec EarthWatts Green 650W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($69.99 @ Amazon)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NS95 DVD/CD Writer ($15.99 @ Microcenter)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.73 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $690.41

Thank you so much, sir! I'll see to it.

On another note: I'm disappointed; I haven't found Prototype 2 in any PC digital store :(. I suppose I'll order it from Ebay or Amazon as a Physical copy, and then insert the code into steam client.

EDIT 1: I just ordered it digitally via Ebay from someone. It says, I'll receive the Steam Code within 12 hours :). I highly dislike it when game developers and/or publishers region-lock games, it's so absurd.

[Rove]

Hey,
Prototype 2 is on Steam.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/115320/

Are you not in North America or something?

Also did you show your friend the build I recommended in the top post?

I'm curious to know your final build if you'll share it.

[BBP: Baka.Bonkura.Ponkstu]

Rove님이 먼저 게시:

Hey,
Prototype 2 is on Steam.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/115320/

Are you not in North America or something?

Also did you show your friend the build I recommended in the top post?

I'm curious to know your final build if you'll share it.

No sir, I'm not in the U.S.A.
I sent him a link to this page. I promise, to tell you about the final build and share it with all of you :). Await my news :).

[Rove]

Alright so what country are you in then?

Cause my recommendations have to change depending on what is locally available and what the local prices are.

Still if you can get a HD 7950 at a good price that is what I recommend unless you can afford a HD 7970 or HD 7970 GE or GTX 780 or Titan somehow.

Here those last ones cost more than your entire budget for a build.

[_I_]

its often cheaper to order parts from your own country, than have them shipped across boarders or overseas

if anything is damaged or needs to be rma'd or lost during shipping, it will be alot less hassle

[Legendary old man]

Best source of info is here.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html
Unless you have the ability to test every card like these guys do or you read reports like these you are guessing.

[{AMI}SirMisAlot]

Dutchgamer1982님이 먼저 게시:

moving to pc gaming = good.

but to wake you from your dream :
600-900 euro is a LOW end gaming pc
1200-1500 euro is a MEDIUM gaming pc
1800-2400 euro is a HIGH END gaming pc
4000+ euro is Top segment Gaming pc

at 600-700 usD you will get a low end gaming pc.

it is a matter of taste..
Nvidea cards are more powerfull but expensive
Radeon cards are slighly less powerfull, but cheaper.

at your low budget a radeon card will most likely give you most bang for bucks.

700-750 I purchased Amd 8 core CPU/Watercool combo $218 on sale at newegg,GForce 660 sc Video card $229,combo Sabretooth 990FX Mobo W/8 Gig mem $248.
you can go cheaper on the mobo if you want and you dont have to do the watercooling combo i just did it because it was on sale at the time

[Dutchgamer1982]

AMD = lowend, any proper gamer knows intell is the way to go.
that video card is FAR from high end (midend cards cost 450 euro or more, highend 750 euro or more)
you should NEVER cut back on the mobo, it is the MAIN mistake many people make, and the main reason you want to build your own machine to start with.
having the right chipset, or not will differ upto 30% of performance.
and LANES are the biggest bottleneck, slow lanes.. useless pc, cheaper mobo's have to slow lanes to handle all the communication needed.
finally one cannot overclock if your mobo is flimsy.. having a high quality mobo helps in that end too.

General rule a good mobo will bring you down bout 300-350 euro's.

it is THE rule in building a proper pc : don't cheapskate on your mobo, period.

and combo's are usually THE WORST.. don't let me lauch only 8 gig of mem.. and what C-times does it have... err? even my beasty has 12gb.. any new highend should at least have 24gb at the best c-times possivle..


To help this fella out, as a general rule for a normal game pc :

30% of budget use for GPU
40% of budget use for mobo/ram/CPU
15% of budget use for casing & power
15% of budget use for rest.

it can be profitable to look out for a high end mobo, of a slighly older generation.
the champions of yesterday often are better than the average joe of today.. don't go for parts that are more than bout a year/year and a halve old though... to prevent incompability with tomorrows tech..

=> I still remember having that beast with that nice VOODOO card in it.. nothing could outperform it... but BANG games changed shaders and such.. could not use it anymore..

same happend with my Gefoce 2 TI 500 back in the days.. it still was bout the 3d most powerfull card on the market.. but it lacked some shader feature unabling it to play the most modern games...