Okay, I have not been a PC gamer for way too many years (think Doom 2, original Duke Nukem series, and Age of Empires). I'm trying to help with a game PC system for a 16 year old boy. Think latest games, pumped up graphics, 16 year old cool factor, and in this case, he's not really super techie, just an avid gamer. And, sub $1000.
From reading, it appears AMD GPU's are pretty comparable to Nvidia and keeps the price down. Wrong tree to be barking up?
Looked around for a while and ended up on CyberPowerPC.com for what seemed to be some decent specs, prices, and cool factor.
Finally, decided I needed help from hands on folks. Anyone????
HELP Recommend Game PC Under $1000
Okay, I have not been a PC gamer for way too many years (think Doom 2, original Duke Nukem series, and Age of Empires). I’m trying to help with a game PC system for a 16 year old boy. Think latest games, pumped up graphics, 16 year old cool factor, and in this case, he’s not really super techie, just an avid gamer. And, sub $1000.
From reading, it appears AMD GPU’s are pretty comparable to Nvidia and keeps the price down. Wrong tree to be barking up?
Looked around for a while and ended up on CyberPowerPC.com for what seemed to be some decent specs, prices, and cool factor.
Finally, decided I needed help from hands on folks. Anyone???
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Both Tiger Direct (http://www.tigerdirect.com/?cm_sp=Masthead-_-Logo-_-NA) and New Egg (http://www.newegg.com/) are great sites for computers and computer parts.
It's really not difficult to put a PC together anymore if you are interested in exploring that option. You will get a better rig for a lower cost. http://lifehacker.com/5828747/how-to-build-a-computer-from-scratch-the-complete-guide
i5 cpu amd GPU 16GB ram and a cheap SSD. Gaming in the bag.
+Dave Kelly, this one's not for me and if they had to wait on me to do it, it would be the age of hologram computers. 😉 Tiger Direct and Newegg are good recommendations but I'm still at a loss for what specs to be looking for to be the best for the least. I'll definitely check out the lifehacker article, though, no matter what! Thanks 🙂
+Ian Ridgwell Succinct and to the point, my friend! I might need a bit more hand holding to find the right rig, though! lol
If your going to be hands off the build, then someone like alienware maybe a better option. You get the custom gaming rig feel with a warranty backed by Dell since Dell bought them years back.
I am cringing just posting this link because I am a firm believer in building your own system. Also assuming you need a monitor in that budget. http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=9095517&CatId=1886
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=9494752&CatId=114 it's over but hybrid drive makes it worth it. about 800 to build yourself.
+Tyson C I actually did not head over to Alienware because I remember them always being cool looking but really expensive. I'll have to take another look.
+Dave Kelly I understand the cringe, lol! 😉 It is good to see I was perhaps on the right track with CyberPowerPC. I will look deeper into that rig. I think they have a monitor, but… I'm distrustful that it has the oomph to go with the PC. Recommendations?
+Doug Meredith, looks wicked. It's over but not by tooooo much so I'll definitely look closer and submit the recommendation. I'll have to look up "hybrid drive" because I'm feeling quite ignorant.
hybrid drive ssd + standard harddrive as one.
ssd for speed of os and cache and large storage of standard drive
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/budget-gaming-pc,3854.html
http://pcpartpicker.com/guide/y2V323/800-gaming-build
There are also builds at other price points on the main page. Their recommendations match up with my experiences.
If it were me, I'd be aiming for something like this:
CPU: Intel® Core™ i5 4590
Motherboard: B85 chipset
Graphics: EVGA GTX 760 Superclocked, or maybe a 770 GTX if you can afford it.
Memory: Kingston 8GB (2x4GB)
Solid State Drive: Samsung 840 120GB
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 1TB Power Supply: A good 500W+ PSU
Case: whatever cheap capable care you like.
I like Antec for cases and power supplies, they are good quality reasonable priced and their cases are nice to work in.
You will definitely want an ssd, nice cheap way to get a big overall performance boost.
Definitely get an i5 or higher, games are using more and more cpu now, thanks to the new gen consoles.
You can easily get a new graphics card down the line to add some extended life to the computer, but the new games are getting quite hungry for graphics cards, some need 3gb of video memory to run the high settings.
16gb of ram is a nice thing too, but again can easily be added later when it is needed.
+Ian Urquhart pc games stop using cpu 5 years ago, the cpu throughtl is a lie, well if the game is for pc….. I see you CoD.. some day….
+Simos Katsiaris try some of the new 'next gen' games and you will see they are using more and more cpu. Watch dogs, civilisation, arma 3, battelfied 4. Will utilise a cpu and they will only use more now the consoles have the capabiloty. As you may know so many pc games are just console ports.
+Ian Urquhart all optimized for console, i said pc
If all you're interested in is gaming, then focus on the CPU, RAM, and graphic's card. Remember, there's no such thing as too much or too fast, only too expensive for "my" wallet.
+Tracy Page and then come GTX970, cheap, low power, close to GTX780(not the Ti) and the world was like, from nvidia?
I'm sporting the GTX760 right now…there's nothing wrong with Nvidia products, IMO.
+Tracy Page for the 7 and 9 series, before AMD was dominating in terms of price/prefornance ratio
+Simos Katsiaris tell me what games aren't built for console first now? that was my point.
+Scott Cramer? nowadays, the graphics card is the single most important component for a gaming PC. Don't get anything that is considered low end.
Other than 8GB of ram (minimum), you can skimp on most of the other parts. Games have yet to fully game advantage of 3 or 4 core processors. So make sure you have a dual core Cpu, but it doesn't have to be too high end (you can even go cheap and get an Intel i3) . Most game processing is moving towards the GPU, which is why you can get away with it.
In terms of storage, you don't have to get an ssd, but it would improve load times of games.
Also, consider a gaming laptop as a lot of the decent ones are less than 1000.
+Ian Urquhart
ff xiv, civilization v, the new AC unity as we learned yesterday(seriously lag after 3 months of testing?), the blizzard games, half the Square Enix games and the list goes on, even the FF XIII that is clearly for ps3, you can't even change the resolution, uses only the GPU, basically the ones that have good and experienced dev behind them
p.s. also all the valve games and borderlands
The GTX960 is going to be released soon, supposed to be a great performer on a budget. I always go with Intel for cpu but AMD will be cheaper and work for what you want. Have you tried something local to see if they can build you a decent rig for within your budget?
NCIX has a US site this is the Canadian link. This system should do very well
http://www.ncix.com/detail/ncix-pc-explorer-r2-tier-f7-100082.htm
PS3/PS4/XBOX/XBOX One games are all heavily optimized for GPU/CPU chips in the console. They all have multi core GPU/CPU's on same chip in them.
BF4 on PC is very GPU intense not so much CPU. I have two 770 in SLI and get any where from 60-100 fps while playing BF4 on highest settings and watch the stats climb on the GPU's while my octo core CPU barely registers any activity. Games are very GPU dependent on PC. It's a different code base from console. Yes the code is likely ported but its different code, that's why patches for different consoles and PC don't always release at the same time.
+Tyson C not all, gw2 is not optimized yet
Check out Tech Report; a couple times a year, they publish an article on building your own PC, with a nod toward gaming. Generally, they have 3 levels of build, with the $1K price point being in the middle. I built mine almost 2 years ago, and it matched up very, very well with their recommendations.
As for specific components: I'm a die-hard Intel/nVidia guy. But I won't call you names if you were to go with AMD. Generally, AMD CPUs run hotter, and there's a lot more in-game tuning to nVidia rather than AMD.
I have bought a couple of computers from this place, and my friend has bought one as well. Their prices are pretty good. I always go through them when I get them to make sure everything was done right before firing them up. I have had on bad mother board with a bent pin on the CPU socket, but it was no problem to return and get a new one.
I have been building systems for years, so I can quickly check to make sure everything was put together right, if you are not familiar with installations, you may or may not want to use this vendor. Just being honest here.
http://www.ibuypower.com/
They do have good pricing.
Throw linux on it.
Compile the kernel from source.
Compile everything from source with the right flags.
Throw Home Root and Swap on different hard drives.
And boom you got the same setup as supercomputers.
And most of it is free.
My PC without peripherals was under $1000, and I know you can get better stuff now than what I have for the same price.
From my personal experience, going nvidea is the way to go for graphics. I have built myself 4 PCs over the hears and a few for friends. Latest Nsync Asus capable monitors with nvidea cards is awesome, even lower frames per second seems smooth with the timed synchronized refresh. And yeah a i5 process be good. I really really like Asus graphics cards too. Asus nvid cards rock the socks off you. So far only problems with solid states I met with were two Intel ssd that stopped working and I can't get info off of them even. So I stear clear of in tell ssd.
Thanks ALL of you for the info and specs and links! I'm going to dig in more this weekend and hopefully have a pretty decent recommendation!