ServareVitas Posted September 13, 2015 Share Posted September 13, 2015 So I've wanted a gaming PC for a very long time (I game on a laptop) and whilst technically having the money I've always felt guilty getting one because my job is so poorly paid. Anyway I've recently come into the possession of £610! Lol £130 from a birthday and £480 as a tax rebate. So I'm thinking screw it as this is a large sum of unexpected money I'm going to add £100 of my own dosh and finally get a decent gaming computer. The problem: I don't have the slightest clue what I'm doing... From what I've gathered from reading online (I love gaming but I'm a newb when it comes to technology) is that graphics cards and RAM are the most important things for online gaming? I've also kinda figured out that more 'cores' are generally better and that cores basically = more RAM right? My current laptop is dual core with 3.8GB of RAM. Most modern games I see these days detail the 'recommended specs' as 8GB of RAM so I'm guessing that would be the minimum for what I want. I've visited a couple of PC building sites and there seems to be a jump where it goes from 6GB, 8GB, 16GB. To me 16GB of RAM sounds really massive but perhaps I'm just confused. Are there many games at the moment that really require that much? Graphics cards is something that really has me stumped as I don't know how to approach them as the layman newb because I've no idea how their specs relate to gaming. They seem all together harder to understand and work out than the whole cores and RAM business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WorstPlayer Posted September 13, 2015 Share Posted September 13, 2015 (edited) Firstly, Desktop PC is what you want for gaming, secondly You would want (this costs roguh £500) 3.90 GhZ is a good core, Preferably a AMD core, Nextly, 8 - 12 - 16 GB of ram, nextly try get a 2 GB dedicated NVIDIA card for graphics. and thats really what makes a gaming pc... also a laptop GENERALLY suffers for gaming... desktop pc with same specs as laptop will still do better Edited September 13, 2015 by ThePredator1701 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Playford Posted September 13, 2015 Share Posted September 13, 2015 £700 is about 1000$ While there is a US/EU price difference in PC components, go here: www.logicalincrements.com Everything that is 600$ and up will give you a PC that is more powerful than PS4/XBO by a decent margin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[DE]Grzegorz Posted September 13, 2015 Share Posted September 13, 2015 Oh lord. I'll do my best. Gaming builds are focused on potent GPU and CPU, with a slight of RAM coupled with it. Secondary focus are things like storage (HDD or SSD, HDDs are generally cheaper and offer much more space while SSD are just crazy fast). All of these coupled with a mobo that will support everything you throw at it and beefy PSU that won't blow in your face the moment you turn your PC on. I would personally recommend Wintel+Nvidia combo, because a) I use such build myself and b) AMD markings just baffle me. On top of that, the one place AMD wins over Nvidia is DX12. For CPU, we need some decent quad-core thing, we might save a bit on this component and buy quite old i5 2500K, fret not. This thing is still a viable and valid choice, with never generations being usually just a few percent faster than its predecessors, on top of that, this CPU is known for its OC potential. For GPU, something on a budget yet quite beefy, best choice would be GTX960, as it is relatively cheap while offering decent performance. RAM, 8GBs should be sufficient for pretty much everything, though if you really want to have a lot of stuff open in the background, consider getting 12 or 16GBs, either 2x4GB or 2x8GB, though it might require a bit beefier CPU on top of that. Motherboard, I personally use Asrock P67Pro3, it's of the cheaper kind but serves me well and has everything I needed so far. If you seek something else, focus on P67/Z68/Z77 chipsets, (socket LGA1155). PSU, ~650W could be even considered an overkill for such build, but I'm the kind of a man that put SeaSonic X750 into a PC with 2500K and GTX970 just to be sure. There are whitelists and blacklists of PSU on the web and I recommend checking them out. Storage, prolly small SSD for OS (60-120GB range) coupled with HDD for usual storage (1TB+) would be enough. That should be everything but the case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MillbrookWest Posted September 13, 2015 Share Posted September 13, 2015 (edited) Give this article a read, it's got video benchmarks and links to components: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-the-next-gen-digital-foundry-pc CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz processor with fan - £80.99 Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 - £176.90 RAM: 8GB Kingston HyperX 1600MHz - £61.42 Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 mATX - £37.06 Storage: Seagate 500GB internal hard drive - £37.70 Case/Power Supply/Keyboard/Mouse: Gigabyte GZ-MA02 4-in-1 - £55.63 Total: £449.70 You should aim for components equal to, or surpassing, those in the article to get a pretty decent gaming PC :) You'll need to look to your UK bros for exact places to pick up the stuff however xD EDIT: Just to clear some stuff up: From what I've gathered from reading online (I love gaming but I'm a newb when it comes to technology) is that graphics cards and RAM are the most important things for online gaming? I've also kinda figured out that more 'cores' are generally better and that cores basically = more RAM right? There are two types of RAM to know about: 1. System RAM, generally cheap, this stuff stores your OS, web browser etc when in use, you can buy more when needed. 8 GB is generally recommended for a gaming PC. 2. VRAM, generally expensive, can't buy more as they are soldered to your GPU and feed the GPU core exclusively. 4GB is recommended for 1080p gaming (this number grows faster all the time, 8GB VRAM is becoming a thing quite quickly) also, a 'Core' has little to do with RAM. A 'core' is the element on a CPU die that does all the number crunching for you. More cores means more number crunching (theoretically). In an ideal world, more cores would also directly translate to better performance. My current laptop is dual core with 3.8GB of RAM. Most modern games I see these days detail the 'recommended specs' as 8GB of RAM so I'm guessing that would be the minimum for what I want. I've visited a couple of PC building sites and there seems to be a jump where it goes from 6GB, 8GB, 16GB. To me 16GB of RAM sounds really massive but perhaps I'm just confused. Are there many games at the moment that really require that much? Very few games use more than 4GB System RAM. Warframe seems to resolutely sit below 4GB usage even when 64-bit is enabled. However, Games that are built with 64-bit Systems in mind will naturally use more than 4GB of ram. This is why you see 8GB recommended. As i said above however, System RAM is kinda cheap and can be upgraded later very easily - Just pull the old sticks out and slot in the new ones (it's that easy). Graphics cards is something that really has me stumped as I don't know how to approach them as the layman newb because I've no idea how their specs relate to gaming. They seem all together harder to understand and work out than the whole cores and RAM business. The easiest trick with GPU's is to look at it in tiers: Low, Medium, High, Enthusiast - And select which performance level best suits your gaming preferences. The price will generally be reflected in the bracket the GPU sits in. To use Nvidia as an example: Low - GTX 750 Medium - GTX 760 High - GTX 770 Enthusiast - GTX 780+ You can see the succession of performance brackets in their naming convention, with the first number denoting the generation of the card and the second number denoting the intended performance level. It is generally accepted that cards. medium and upward, are geared to perform at 1080p, and will be designed to do as such. At the lower end, things get a bit weird with designs cutting corners and stuff. Edited September 13, 2015 by MillbrookWest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WorstPlayer Posted September 13, 2015 Share Posted September 13, 2015 £700 is about 1000$ While there is a US/EU price difference in PC components, go here: www.logicalincrements.com Everything that is 600$ and up will give you a PC that is more powerful than PS4/XBO by a decent margin. PRetty much everything is better than ----box and ---station Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnymeme Posted September 14, 2015 Share Posted September 14, 2015 (edited) http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2HHxBm this is probably the best bang for your buck build you can get. it will definitely last you three-four years if you continue playing on 1080p to even 1440p. ssd's and such are also a fair idea to try and get, however i dont have one and my games run fine. then again, ive never had the luxury of using a ssd on any of my games so i guess i shouldnt really talk much lol but keep in mind, things such as peripherals [monitor, speakers keyboard and mouse] and also an OS will be needed for you to start using your computer after you built it. an OS runs about a hundred and a monitor if you get it on sale about the same. Edited September 14, 2015 by johnnymeme Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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