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PC Gaming Thread

Old 12-10-13, 08:17 PM
  #26  
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Re: PC Gaming Thread

Originally Posted by wlj
I appreciate those sites, but you guys have no clue how much of a tech moron i am. I will want someone to send me a link and say "order this right here"


Originally Posted by mhg83
link to the sites?
I got a custom-built gaming desktop (but they do laptops too) a couple of years ago from cyberpowerpc. Like you guys, I didn't really want to muck around with building it myself (I've done so in the past, but just didn't have the time) so I was ok with paying a little more. But I wanted to save money from pre-built gaming desktops like you'd get from major computer stores.

Online reviews of cyberpowerpc were a bit spotty but the prices were great (especially during one of their special sales) and I liked the degree of customization so that I could get exactly what I wanted. So I gave it a shot and have nothing negative to say. No problems with customer service or billing. Shipping went fine and I got just what I ordered. If they're still around, they'll get my business in 2 or 3 years when its time to upgrade my desktop to "state of the art" again.
Old 12-10-13, 09:46 PM
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Re: PC Gaming Thread

OriginPC does pretty nice work from what I have read. Not cheap though. I almost bought one from them last summer but wanted to tinker with a build myself.

I spent slightly over 5K on a massive media/gaming PC and the only thing that I feel I threw away money on was the video cards. Two GTX 780 classifieds that have dropped in price like a rock the last 3 months! Needless to say I think my next GPU upgrade will be a mid-level model.
Old 12-10-13, 10:19 PM
  #28  
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Re: PC Gaming Thread

I'm honestly impressed with how much performance you can get out of two GTX 760s in SLI for < $400. I can only imagine GTX 780s doing that.
Old 12-11-13, 05:29 AM
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Re: PC Gaming Thread

I'm just holding out for the Steam Machines before I decide what my next gaming rig will be.

Today I had to send my AMD 6850 to XFX because it stopped working. I was surprised how well my old 5670 was able to pick up the slack in the meantime.
Old 12-11-13, 10:11 AM
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Re: PC Gaming Thread

Originally Posted by DthRdrX
OriginPC does pretty nice work from what I have read. Not cheap though. I almost bought one from them last summer but wanted to tinker with a build myself.

I spent slightly over 5K on a massive media/gaming PC and the only thing that I feel I threw away money on was the video cards. Two GTX 780 classifieds that have dropped in price like a rock the last 3 months! Needless to say I think my next GPU upgrade will be a mid-level model.
Just for fun, I decided to screw around with upgrading one of their units. This is what I came up with:

Corsair 750D
Exterior: Not Painted
Truly Custom PC's. Want a component that is not on our site? Call or email us and we
will include it in your system.
ORIGIN High-Performance Ultra Silent Fans - Black
ASUS Rampage IV Extreme
ORIGIN CRYOGENIC Custom Liquid Cooling CPU Only (refill kit included)
Ice Dragon High Performance Coolant - White
Overclocked Intel Extreme Core i7 4960X Hex-Core (4.4GHz - 4.8GHz), 15MB Cache
1.5 Kilowatt EVGA Supernova NEX1500 Classified w/Sleeved Cables
Quad ORIGIN CRYOGENIC Liquid Cooled 3GB NVIDIA GTX 780Ti
ORIGIN Professional Graphics Card Overclocking
64GB Corsair Dominator Platinum 1600Mhz (8x8GB)
Genuine MS Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit Edition
RAID 0: For better speed and performance (2 or more identical drives needed. Not
Compatible with Boot Drives over 2TB)
1TB Samsung 840 Evo Series
4TB Western Digital Black SATA 6.0Gb/s, 7200RPM, 64MB Cache
2TB SATA 3.0Gb/s, 7200RPM, 32MB Cache
12X Blu-ray Reader and DVD Combo (No DVD/Blu-ray Playback Software Included)
12X Blu-ray Burner (No DVD/Blu-ray Playback Software Included)
ASUS ROG Xonar Phoebus
D-Link Wireless DWA-566 PCI Express Desktop Adapter
ORIGIN Wooden Crate Armor
3 Year Part Replacement and Free Shipping Warranty with Lifetime Labor/24-7
Support
ORIGIN Recovery USB3.0 Flash Drive
3 Year Evolve Part Upgrade Service with Free Shipping
ORIGIN PC T-Shirt XLarge
Corsair Voyager Air 1TB Black External Hard Drive
Microsoft Internet Explorer
All for the low price of $10,930.
Old 12-11-13, 10:18 AM
  #31  
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Re: PC Gaming Thread

Originally Posted by RocShemp
Just for fun, I decided to screw around with upgrading one of their units. This is what I came up with:



All for the low price of $10,930.
Reminds me of Dr Mabuse saying that's what real gaming systems cost.
Old 12-11-13, 12:29 PM
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Re: PC Gaming Thread

Originally Posted by RocShemp
Just for fun, I decided to screw around with upgrading one of their units. This is what I came up with:



All for the low price of $10,930.
But don't forget that it comes with 3 free games!
Old 12-11-13, 12:44 PM
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Re: PC Gaming Thread

I've been console exclusive since the late 80's. But I'll jump into PC gaming next year. I'm tired of listening to all these people babble on podcasts about these "amazing steam deals" they keep getting.
Old 12-11-13, 12:54 PM
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Re: PC Gaming Thread

Bah, Steam deals are the male equivalent of clothing sales for women. We end up buying a ton of shit we don't want simply because it's cheap.
Old 12-11-13, 12:55 PM
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Re: PC Gaming Thread

Originally Posted by starseed1981
I've been console exclusive since the late 80's. But I'll jump into PC gaming next year. I'm tired of listening to all these people babble on podcasts about these "amazing steam deals" they keep getting.
Old 12-11-13, 02:15 PM
  #36  
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Re: PC Gaming Thread

Originally Posted by covenant





this gif is 100% true. those sales are amazing. this past summer i avoided steam for one week because I knew i would have no willpower. i have such a large backlog and didn't need to add to it.
Old 12-11-13, 03:02 PM
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Re: PC Gaming Thread

Originally Posted by RocShemp
Just for fun, I decided to screw around with upgrading one of their units. This is what I came up with:



All for the low price of $10,930.
Anything prebuilt with liquid cooling is usually going to cost you! My rig is mainly a media server first so I didn't want any water in it. I have a Corsair 900d set to fit 19-20 hard drives in it lol.
Old 12-11-13, 05:26 PM
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Re: PC Gaming Thread

For those of you just getting started into PC gaming, you don't need to go really crazy. I spent about $800 on parts last year to build a new machine (was able to re-use a couple things from my old rig like the hard drives and dvd drive). Ended up with a machine that could run newer games like Sleeping Dogs at over 60fps with no problems, and this was with only a $100 graphics card.

I got a new case, power supply, i5, 8GB RAM, some nVidia card that I don't have anymore (wasn't able to run FarCry 3 at 60fps), a power supply, a 24" LCD monitor, and a handful of fans for that price.
Old 12-11-13, 05:49 PM
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Re: PC Gaming Thread

Originally Posted by Shagrath
For those of you just getting started into PC gaming, you don't need to go really crazy. I spent about $800 on parts last year to build a new machine (was able to re-use a couple things from my old rig like the hard drives and dvd drive). Ended up with a machine that could run newer games like Sleeping Dogs at over 60fps with no problems, and this was with only a $100 graphics card.

I got a new case, power supply, i5, 8GB RAM, some nVidia card that I don't have anymore (wasn't able to run FarCry 3 at 60fps), a power supply, a 24" LCD monitor, and a handful of fans for that price.
Sounds like me with my last build.

I didn't mean to freak anyone out with my last post. That was just me screwing around with the available options from the site. Though, in all fairness, I did exclude some software I already had and could install on my own.
Old 12-11-13, 07:23 PM
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Re: PC Gaming Thread

Originally Posted by Shagrath
For those of you just getting started into PC gaming, you don't need to go really crazy. I spent about $800 on parts last year to build a new machine (was able to re-use a couple things from my old rig like the hard drives and dvd drive). Ended up with a machine that could run newer games like Sleeping Dogs at over 60fps with no problems, and this was with only a $100 graphics card.

I got a new case, power supply, i5, 8GB RAM, some nVidia card that I don't have anymore (wasn't able to run FarCry 3 at 60fps), a power supply, a 24" LCD monitor, and a handful of fans for that price.
O yea I agree, you can build a kickass gaming machine for 800-1000. Prices go up as you add options and better hardware though.

Personally if I had to do it all over I'd wait for the standard 8 core chips in a year or so though. I'm going to get an upgrade bug when Haswell-E comes out.
Old 12-12-13, 07:59 AM
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Re: PC Gaming Thread

Are games using 4+ cores now?
Old 12-12-13, 08:19 AM
  #42  
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Re: PC Gaming Thread

Originally Posted by Shagrath
It's a lot cheaper (and more satisfying) to build your own machine. It's seriously not that hard. However, if you absolutely don't want to fuss with that, there are some sites that will allow you to custom-build a machine with some pretty decent parts and charge only a nominal fee to put it all together for you.

I've been back into PC gaming for about a year now, and I love it.
Originally Posted by mhg83
link to the sites?
I bought a nice Ode 3 machine from Digital Storm (www.digitalstorm.com) and I have been very pleased with it. Literally no issues in over two years. I do want to upgrade though because the SLI 570s are seriously hampered by the measly 1.25 GB of VRAM. I think I will wait until the 800 series of GTX cards come out though. Anyway, highly recommend Digital Storm.

Also, for custom builds, Tom's Hardware does a build competition every quarter where they price out a budget, mid range, and high end PC ($650, $1,300, and $2,600). See Q3 2013 http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...king,3617.html. The tri SLI 760s on the high end machine this quarter is an interesting choice, but the cooling is garbage. I wouldn't replicate that build.

Lately I've been into Battlefield 4, Europa Universalis 4, Arma 3, and a couple indie games.

I'm really looking forward to the release of the indie town management game Banished, which should be out in a few weeks.

Also, still following the Oculus Rift obsessively. I think the consumer version is going to be huge for PC.
Old 12-12-13, 10:41 AM
  #43  
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Re: PC Gaming Thread

Nvidia's G-Sync is going to be awesome. Although I don't want to replace my 27" monitor anytime soon. And they need nice IPS monitors with it.

http://anandtech.com/show/7582/nvidia-gsync-review
Old 12-12-13, 10:45 AM
  #44  
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Re: PC Gaming Thread

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=600246

That's the thread I used when piecing together my own PC. In the first post, there's a link to a spreadsheet that has a bunch of parts to build some good machines. Even if you don't have an account there, that thread is full of good information.
Old 12-13-13, 09:03 AM
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Re: PC Gaming Thread

Originally Posted by Raul3
Are games using 4+ cores now?
I'd imagine PC gaming will move to 4 core as the standard when we start to get a lot of next gen console games coming out. Still would be nice to have a good 8-core chip released that is not too expensive.
Old 12-13-13, 09:10 AM
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Re: PC Gaming Thread

Are many games all that CPU intensive? I'm just thinking that even though the PS4 and Xbox One are 8-core processors, they're fairly middle of the road processors, and they seem to have limitations (ie - the Xbox One only allows access to 6 of the 8 cores).

Though I guess that coincides well with http://bf4central.com/2013/11/battle...-ps4-xbox-one/

Last edited by RichC2; 12-13-13 at 09:20 AM.
Old 12-13-13, 09:19 AM
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Re: PC Gaming Thread

Originally Posted by RichC2
Are many games all that CPU intensive?
Not yet but it looks like that is the direction we will be going. Last gen games were not really being optimized for quad core and up systems. I figure with 8 cores in new consoles they are at least going to code for 4-6 of them. Only time will tell.
Old 12-13-13, 09:26 AM
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Re: PC Gaming Thread

True, and credit where credit is due, BF4 is one of the most optimized games I've ever played on PC. Buggy? Certainly, but the engine itself runs phenomenally well and scales beautifully.
Old 12-13-13, 09:34 AM
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Re: PC Gaming Thread

Agreed, Rich. I thought the same of BF3. Really amazing looking games and it is remarkable the run so well.

It was always my understanding CPU is taxed more on the back end than processing raw visuals. So your average multiplayer shooter like BF isn't very CPU intensive. Games where there is lots of AI and environmental simulation going on, physics and such, that taxes the CPU. Hopefully this means we'll get more complex and dynamic experiences down the road, rather than just marginally better graphics.
Old 12-13-13, 05:59 PM
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Re: PC Gaming Thread

Tech specs aside, usually at the start of a new console generation i'm impressed by the graphics and the consoles hold a lead over PC's for a year or two until new video cards and upgrades are out. That doesn't feel like it's the case to me, and more like consoles are just catching up to the standard of PC's and not really eclipsing them at all, after playing Battlefield 4 and Tomb Raider on my computer

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