Jump to content

Could use a little help with my PC too...


Andrewgeddon

Recommended Posts

I saw Roman's thread and how helpful everyone was, and I was wondering if maybe I could solicit a little help as well?

So this is my PC: https://www.gamersnexus.net/pc-builds/999-mid-range-budget-gaming-pc-2013

I built it 5 years ago, and other than replacing the hard drive with some junk hard drive to keep it running after the original broke down, I haven't done anything to it. With tax returns coming in soon-ish, I was considering putting some money into the old girl.

One one hand, it does everything I need it to do: It runs Chrome, I can play Hearthstone and the odd collection of games I enjoy on it. I'm considering just replacing the hard drive on it and calling it good, as I'm not much of a PC gamer.

One the other hand... it would be cool to play some more PC games! I'm not looking at building some l33t gaming rig, but if I could play something like Total War Warhammer / Divinity II / X-Com 2 on high-ish settings without having to drop a ton of money into it, I might consider giving the old girl an upgrade. 

Just wondering what my options are, on a modest budget of, say, ~$500?

Cheers!

  • Sad 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On January 15, 2018 at 12:18 AM, Andrewgeddon said:

Just wondering what my options are, on a modest budget of, say, ~$500?

Cheers!

That would be Console Gaming. A PS4 or an Xbox One. Downside is that only some of the games you mentioned can be played on consoles.

Or you could buy a mass produced cheap laptop or desktop that useually includes an OS that requires more ram than the computer actually has...I recommend the console for cheap gaming.

Or you could invest in a more expensive PC. It's more expensive...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not sure I would be as dark about it as Pax, but it's all going to depend on what you have right now.  If you *can* upgrade HD and video card then depending on what you are running now you can pick up a nice graphics card for $100-200 that will boost performance.  If your MoBo can drive one you could pick up a shiny SSD or even an M.2 to improve access speeds.  How much you can upgrade is going to be dependent on what you have in the machine right now though.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So if almost everything is 5 years old you might be able to squeeze into that price point.   What I don't know is if it will be that much better.  As Romans said decent video cards are hard to grab right now but if you try for something a little older or less powerful you might be able to find it.  The problem is will cpu+motherboard+ram+video card at 500ish still be a decent enough upgrade.

You might try using http://www.userbenchmark.com/PCBuilder to build out a current system profile then build out an upgrade system to see if it makes sense.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow! I didn't realize the prices blew up so much. I picked up a GTX 1060 in early December, it is $100 more now. 

Romans832 is right, just wait this thing out. You should probably also wait if you want to do a big investment to get all the new benchmark numbers for intel chipsets (if you wanted to upgrade your CPU). The Spectre vulnerability patch has some performance choke, but to my understanding it will be mainly for 3rd Gen younger intel, and it also will not affect gaming so much as it does big linear processes. Interestingly, AMD is less affected by the vulnerability, they may take this opportunity to drop prices slightly and snag some market share from angry Intel buyers. 

In the meantime, you can always get a solid state drive for your games. It wont help you run the battle in Total War, but it will help reduce the load time.

Nice job on the modular power supply. That is seriously 1337 g4m1ng.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Appreciate the feedback everyone! Will most likely just toss in a new hard drive so mine doesn't take 15 minutes to boot up and call it good for a while. I have a PS4 that I don't use for anything other than a Blu Ray player / streaming box, so I probably don't really need a gaming PC, even though I do some gaming on it. I'll probably just stick with Darkest Dungeon and Disciples 2, heh.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...