Yeah, the 7850 (which XFX gave me as a free replacement when my old 6850 recently died) is taken from my old rig.

The 480gb Seagates are down to $230, but I forget how much they were before. You're probably right, that's closer to 20% off.

It's okay, but compared to something like a 290, it's pretty weak. The 1GB of RAM is the biggest downside to it, it's just not enough memory for current games.

Exactly. Sure, game installs are getting bigger, but how many games do you really need installed at once? If your internet speeds suck, then just copy over the games you aren't playing to a slower storage drive, otherwise just download the games again.

If you are using Steam, there are tools to move your games between drives. That's always faster than downloading games.

Steam itself now supports multiple libraries. I don't know if it allows you to move stuff through it, but I wouldn't be surprised. Else you can just do symbolic links (which is what those tools do).

I have about 100 hours logged on DayZ so far. I know people like to dismiss it for several reasons, but running around with 5 or 6 friends on a high pop server is insanely fun. We've gone from trying to keep our characters alive as long as possible to trying to help out others to complete trolling. It really brings out the best and the worst in people.

Definitely a unique experience every time we play.

I'm super intrigued by this game. I want to play it, but I'm going to wait until a few more patches are released before jumping in.

AMD R9 295X2

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7930/t...9-295x2-review

Ok, I'm really tempted to buy Broforce.

http://kotaku.com/a-game-that-brings...ife-1562034579

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/qAlQx-kOjOE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I don't game on the pc but found this really facinating to watch. I've seen plyer customization before but not like this...

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/4TP4L1vHfpk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

If one is serious about PC gaming and has the money, SSD is the only way to go. When I help friends build PCs, I look at it two ways:

The non-negiotable parts should always be the CPU, the GPU, and the associated parts (e.g. motherboard). These are the ones you'll want to upgrade the least due to the cost.

The negotiable parts are RAM (you can always get more or go faster based upon which motherboard you choose) and HDDs (you can always get more and expand later).

However, as I've seen some builds here, I would say that 8GB RAM (1600 MHz) is the absolute minimum one should start out at with and I would personally choose a hybrid drive over a standard mechanical drive if my budget couldn't afford an SSD.

No one is saying not to get an SSD, that's just silly. We are saying that it doesn't really make sense to use only SSD's. You should augment an SSD with a traditional HDD for storage. That is, unless you just have money to burn, then sure, go for it.

I'd agree that 8GB should be the bare minimum, but if I was building a new PC right now, I'd get 2x8GB. Even with RAM prices increasing over the last year or so, it's still pretty cheap.

For a gaming/performance PC I would say 16 GB minimum. Just to be covered, RAM is so cheap anyways.

And yeah, 1 TB SSD should be lowest in the priority list, based on prices. 256 GB is a good minimum right now, based on price/performance gains. If you have a little more money, 512 GB. But again, you don't need to have ALL your games all the time in your SSD drive, you can move your games between your mechanical hard drive and SSD. With 256 GB you should be able to have between 5-10 games, depending on the game.

Not to mention copy speeds from a HDD to a SSD are very quick (since HDD's read a lot faster than they write), so you can move stuff around pretty quickly.

What's the best shopping option for someone who doesn't want to build their own gaming rig?

Yeah, yeah, I know it's not really that hard to build your own. I've done it before but it usually turns into a big exercise in frustration. Frankly, I don't have the time or the patience to buy all the parts and assemble a machine.

Despite their terrible online reviews I'm leaning toward cyberpower PC or ibuypower. I purchased a rig from cyberpower several years ago and did not regret it. Anyone have a better idea?

I've been very happy with my IbuyPower PC I got back in January. They package it really well, and only took me like 5 minutes to get setup and started. I also bought it via Newegg which was much cheaper than going to their website and shipping was free! $699 for an I5 that can play everything I want.

Alienware.

In all seriousness, I've heard some good things about: http://www.digitalstormonline.com

Avoid those. I bought an Ode system from Digital Storm in 2011. It has been amazing - absolutely no issues and still runs as good as the day I bought it. I would definitely recommend them, although their systems do seem a bit more expensive than they were back then.

Digital Storm has a slick web site. I do wish their systems were a little more customizable, but I guess having more uniform builds cuts down on stability issues (one of the big complaints I've read about cyberpower and ibuypower).

It also makes it more affordable for the consumer.

Their Vanquish II is a great deal for someone wanting a gaming PC at the lowest cost possible.

I really like the look of the Bolt II, Slade, and Enix. It's just a shame they utilize Liquid Cooling for a majority of their product line.

This could be good news or bad news (if you get as addicted to the games as I do) but Firaxis announced a new Civ game today called Civilization: Beyond Earth. It looks basically like a new Alpha Centauri game, so I'm not sure why they didn't just call it Alpha Centauri 2.

Just... one... more... turn...

The best part about it is that it comes out this fall!

They can't call it Alpha Centauri because EA owns it. For all intents and purposes, this is Alpha Centauri 2.

I bought the Vanquish Level 4 from Digital Storm about a month ago, right before they reconfigured the model. So far, I love it.

I was in the same boat - just didn't want to take the time to build and deal with that whole process. Ordered from their site on a Friday and the system arrived the following Friday.

Briefly thought about replacing my i5-2500K in my HTPC, but after looking at gaming benchmarks against the i7-4770K, it became obvious pretty quickly that it would be a waste of money. Pretty crazy that I've owned this CPU for three years and there isn't much point to upgrading. I first thought about it when I noticed how much I'm hitching while playing the EQ Next Landmark Beta. However, I realized I didn't have my overclocking software installed, and once I did, I was able to crank it up to ~4.5ghz and Landmark plays perfectly now.

I'll probably swap out my Radeon 7950 with a R9 290X at some point though. I'm going to wait and see how it handles Watch Dogs first.