Gaming Best place to buy a PC for games?

[Seratonin]

I'm thinking about paying from 300-1000 USD. I wanted to know which build you guys would recommend since we are going into next gen. Even then, it will take some time for these developers to make these next gen games (would prefer a graphics card that will survive till then).

 

[Rydian]

You'll likely be spending $650+ for a decent gaming PC. Most things below that aren't even up for consideration for gaming.

"Next gen" on consoles doesn't mean much for PCs. PCs are, and have always been, far beyond the capabilities of consoles.
"HD"? My Windows 98 computer did that shit in Quake 2.

Anyways as far as planning for the future, I'll quote a friend.

Rapid obsolescence:[/b] PC hardware becomes out dated VERY quickly. If you spend $7000 on a computer now, in 2 years time (possibly less) you could build a computer for $2000 (possibly less) that would handily outperform the $7000 system. It would be MUCH smarter to build a completely new $2000 computer every year for 3 years than spend $7000 on one computer and expect it to last you for 3 years.

So buying hardware for the future isn't a good idea. Buy hardware for the now.

 

[Seratonin]

You'll likely be spending $650+ for a decent gaming PC. Most things below that aren't even up for consideration for gaming.

"Next gen" on consoles doesn't mean much for PCs. PCs are, and have always been, far beyond the capabilities of consoles.
"HD"? My Windows 98 computer did that shit in Quake 2.

Anyways as far as planning for the future, I'll quote a friend.

Rapid obsolescence:[/b] PC hardware becomes out dated VERY quickly. If you spend $7000 on a computer now, in 2 years time (possibly less) you could build a computer for $2000 (possibly less) that would handily outperform the $7000 system. It would be MUCH smarter to build a completely new $2000 computer every year for 3 years than spend $7000 on one computer and expect it to last you for 3 years.

So buying hardware for the future isn't a good idea. Buy hardware for the now.

You have a point, what build would you recommend?

 

[the_randomizer]

Anywhere that isn't Alienware. You can find equivalent hardware for half the price.

 

[Rydian]

It depends on when you buy, since new models of various parts are always coming out so prices on previous ones drop meaning you could get a better deal on the same parts one month later if you wanted to wait, or something that's more efficient might come out and blow previous things out of the water at a reasonable price (ah, 8800GT release memories), so unless you're wanting to buy now, all we could do is link you to general guides.

 

[rufus83]

The only things that are going to make a huge difference are your CPU, GPU, RAM and motherboard. Find a decent motherboard that's in a combo deal with the Core i5 2500K and you probably won't go wrong and you'll save money. Get no more than 4GB of RAM from a reputable company. I like Corsair. Then figure in the cost of your other components, sans GPU. Spend whatever's left on the best graphics card you can get.

EDIT: Don't forget to buy your RAM, 2x2GB so you can run dual channel. Very important.

 

[FireGrey]

You'll likely be spending $650+ for a decent gaming PC. Most things below that aren't even up for consideration for gaming.

"Next gen" on consoles doesn't mean much for PCs. PCs are, and have always been, far beyond the capabilities of consoles.
"HD"? My Windows 98 computer did that shit in Quake 2.

Anyways as far as planning for the future, I'll quote a friend.

Rapid obsolescence:[/b] PC hardware becomes out dated VERY quickly. If you spend $7000 on a computer now, in 2 years time (possibly less) you could build a computer for $2000 (possibly less) that would handily outperform the $7000 system. It would be MUCH smarter to build a completely new $2000 computer every year for 3 years than spend $7000 on one computer and expect it to last you for 3 years.

So buying hardware for the future isn't a good idea. Buy hardware for the now.

Most parts you don't have to upgrade, so better yet you can just replace the mobo, cpu and gpu every year for ~$600 and upgrade the other bits as you please.

 

[Ericthegreat]

Hmm you could prob build a very nice rig for about $1000. (prob ALOT better then anything in any store.)

 

[Lanlan]

How much are you actually wanting to spend? 300-1000 is a broad range. And do you have a monitor? It'll be cheaper to build a PC, a $1000 self-built PC will smoke a $1000 OEM PC.

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

How much are you actually wanting to spend? 300-1000 is a broad range. And do you have a monitor? It'll be cheaper to build a PC, a $1000 self-built PC will smoke a $1000 OEM PC.

I have built my own PC's since the P3 days (My first build was a 733Mhz P3 with 256MB's of RAM and a Voodoo 5500! I loved that machine....)

The crapware they infest store bought PC's is reason enough to build your own machine. (I can't count how many machines I have reinstalled a normal copy of windows and blown out a hard drive for people so they can at least get the performance out of a machine they paid for...)

If you do buy a PC from an OEM, first thing you should do is download Windows 7 from Microsoft what ever version the machine comes with and use it to format the hard drive and install that copy. I promise it will feel at least 10% faster just from doing that.

 

[Seratonin]

How much are you actually wanting to spend? 300-1000 is a broad range. And do you have a monitor? It'll be cheaper to build a PC, a $1000 self-built PC will smoke a $1000 OEM PC.

I have built my own PC's since the P3 days (My first build was a 733Mhz P3 with 256MB's of RAM and a Voodoo 5500! I loved that machine....)

The crapware they infest store bought PC's is reason enough to build your own machine. (I can't count how many machines I have reinstalled a normal copy of windows and blown out a hard drive for people so they can at least get the performance out of a machine they paid for...)

If you do buy a PC from an OEM, first thing you should do is download Windows 7 from Microsoft what ever version the machine comes with and use it to format the hard drive and install that copy. I promise it will feel at least 10% faster just from doing that.

Yeah I know, because of all of that bloatware the computer comes with but I recently found a pretty good build a good friend sent me. I appreciate the help.

 

[Rydian]

Mind linking it here so we can double-check? There's a lot of common mistakes people make when building gaming computers (such as a high-end CPU with a weak GPU).

 

[Lanlan]

Yeah recently my roommate (not too computer savvy) built a $1200 PC, except he ordered an Ivy when his mobo only supported Sandy. He was relying on his other friends that he thinks are computer experts just because they worked at a computer store when he should have just asked me. So be sure to do a fair bit of research or you could be out some serious money.

 

[Carnivean]

I'd have to disagree with rufus about the 'no more than 4gb' comment, there's plenty of situations in which you might be pushing over the 4gb barrier especially if you do things like video editing.

 

[Originality]

Gaming is not video editing.

You don't need more than 4GB, but RAM is so cheap that there's no harm in getting 8GB.

 

[marcus134]

@ the op, to answer your question about the WHERE? the answer is simple if you don't want build it yourself.
Small computer parts and repair shop
While the quality may vary from shop to shop, they usually have all the good parts at hand and can assemble the comp in your stead for very little money above the cost of the parts themselves and will come with a service warranty (usually the minimum legal warranty which is 3 month in the us or plus for an extra).
All you have to do is spot a couple of those shop in your area and ask them what they can build for the money you want to spend and compare.

To avoid: future shop, best buy, walmart, etc ( well.. sometimes they have good price for parts, but for built computer they're crap)

 

[ILuvGames]

I would look for a build like this :-

Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H for the Motherboard,
Intel I5 2500k for the CPU (boring I know, but still the best for the money),
An NVIDIA GTX 670 (2GB) rather than the pricey but not much better performing NVIDIA GTX 680,
(Or a GTX 570 if you can't afford the GTX 670 as you get about a third less performance (FPS wise) and it costs about a third less).

Bear in mind that you are stuck with 1600 MHZ ram for that Motherboard and it only supports Crossfire for dual GPU use (the second PCI slot is restricted to 4x).

This build is aimed at a Bang4Buck purchase. You may want to spend a bit more.

 

[Originality]

Small correction, you're stuck with 1333Mhz for that CPU. Only Sandy Bridge E and Ivy Bridge goes up to 1600Mhz. The motherboard only determines the limits of overclocked memory.

 

[Seratonin]

I would look for a build like this :-

Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H for the Motherboard,
Intel I5 2500k for the CPU (boring I know, but still the best for the money),
An NVIDIA GTX 670 (2GB) rather than the pricey but not much better performing NVIDIA GTX 680,
(Or a GTX 570 if you can't afford the GTX 670 as you get about a third less performance (FPS wise) and it costs about a third less).

Bear in mind that you are stuck with 1600 MHZ ram for that Motherboard and it only supports Crossfire for dual GPU use (the second PCI slot is restricted to 4x).

This build is aimed at a Bang4Buck purchase. You may want to spend a bit more.

Haha, jinx my friend sent me that...

 

[Rydian]

Considering that RAM "speed" doesn't have a noticeable impact in gaming (in-game, 0.2FPS in benchmarks is not noticeable in-game), I don't think being stuck with a lower-clocked set of RAM is bad.