Ars Technica has published a new "Bargain Box Guide" for April 2014. As I'm looking through this I poked my nose over at Tom's hardware System Builder, Q1 2014: The $750 Gaming PC. Am I completely off my rocker? How do either of these qualify as a "budget build?"
I can consistently build systems (without monitors or OS) for far less that these systems and get a quality build that will work for several years of service. Am I just cheap or have I just been broke for too long and can't fathom the expense?
Do you still build systems or have you only purchased factory built units? How would you approach your design differently?
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(Score: 2) by lennier on Monday April 07 2014, @05:55AM
is what cheap lawyers drink, amiright?
Delenda est Beta
(Score: 4, Funny) by lx on Monday April 07 2014, @06:07AM
Don't mock. Fat fingered dyslexia is a serious condition.
fArs Technica will be proud to get a mention here.
(Score: 2) by mrbluze on Monday April 07 2014, @08:26AM
Errors in the article? What errors? ;)
Do it yourself, 'cause no one else will do it yourself.
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Monday April 07 2014, @06:03AM
It's a budget GAMING pc. Which is why the GPU comprises >40% of the cost. You could half the RAM, throw in a $120 GPU [tomshardware.com], and you'd still have a pretty good machine for ~$500.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Informative) by bryan on Monday April 07 2014, @07:24AM
Or, if you really aren't going to be gaming on it, ditch the separate video card completely and just use the one built onto most modern processors.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by dj245 on Monday April 07 2014, @12:50PM
The summary is inflamatory and basically false. Nothing in the Tom's article says that the $750 build is supposed to be a budget machine. In fact, when they state "Although I was free of previous budgetary constraints, I didn't want to go crazy on the enclosure. " kind of implies that they have done a budget build previously, and this is not a budget build.
The Ars Technica machine is a true budget machine at around $450. It won't play the latest games, but on the other hand, it isn't obsolete already- there is a decent amount of future-proofing in their selections.
Seems like the original poster is either illiterate or just wanted to rant about a non-issue.
(Score: 2) by Blackmoore on Monday April 07 2014, @01:11PM
Well, tom's used to have a build for a sub $500 budget box, but they don't this quarter. I would have liked one for comparison.
But here's the rub. I can look at any decent online place for MB and ram and processor. if I'm looking to so a budget build I can do that for less than $300. US. It wont be sexy, but it will still run linux and even play some low powered games. it will be fine for web, or music, youtube, or office work. it wont be a beast. but it will be BUDGET.
if I want to spend $500 (which is more than most peoples car payments) i can build a really good machine for games. I might even get Win 7 but the major expense is going to be the SSD and the video card. Processor and ram are well into the affordable range unless i get stupid and start buying 8 core processors, and GB of ram.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Hairyfeet on Monday April 07 2014, @01:43PM
I have been looking at the AMD APU builds and frankly as long as you pair it with decently fast, say DDR3 1600 RAM? Frankly they can play a hell of a lot of the mainstream titles and you can easily put one of these together for sub $500 including Win 7 HP.
As a nice bonus if you decide to get a discrete GPU down the line and stick with AMD you can use zero tech to a hell of a power advantage. For those that haven't heard of it zero tech is a new tech AMD added starting with the 7 series GPUs that allows the cores to "park" when not in use, turning off a large portion of the GPU to save power and heat. It is a pretty big drop, for an example my HD7750 goes from 110w to as low as 15w when zero tech is activated. With the APUs its even more dramatic as the GPU can shut down completely and allow the APU to do the job when it comes to multimedia so your GPU doesn't have to unpark just because you want to watch HD video, instead it can stay parked until you game which equals a pretty decent power savings.
So I'd argue it really isn't hard to build a sub $550 system that will play most games fluently and more importantly still have enough headroom that it won't be obsolete in 6 months.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 1) by len_harms on Monday April 07 2014, @01:51PM
Another way to reduce cost is to reuse.
For example the case. A case can comprise 10-20% of the cost when you get under 500 bucks. But you can find hundreds of discarded cases for near 0. Reuse the monitor from the last box, keyboard, mouse, etc... The monitors I use on the computer I am using right now have lasted 3 computers.
I usually bring 1-2 components over from my previous box. For example an SSD would be a good reuse item if you bought one recently as it is bit spendy but gets you an easy '0 cost' item.
These days I just buy a whole system. Total cost is usually within 100 bucks of build it myself. For anything 'special' I can usually swap it out. For example I upgraded my laptop to an 802.11AC network card this weekend, 25-35 bucks (easy part swap job). Then if I have anything die quick I can use the RMA of the system builder. Instead of trying to work thru a part vendor which can be hit or miss. Also when I 'build it myself' I usually end up overspending to buy 'better stuff'. Even thought he 'better stuff' does not do much.
(Score: 1) by crutchy on Monday April 07 2014, @07:37AM
$750 is cheap for a gaming PC, in Australia anyways
if anyone has actually built a gaming PC for less, please post the specs so that we can point out all the games that won't run well on it
a decent graphics card alone would probably chew up more than half that budget
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Monday April 07 2014, @12:25PM
Ok, I'm game.
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Pslytely-Psycho/saved /3YfU [pcpartpicker.com]
3 Weeks old yesterday.
Runs Skyrim,(ENB, 20+mods), Grid2 (maxxed out), Dirt3(maxxed out) @ 65+ fps
Kerbal Space program a usable framerate at 600 Parts.
35 avg for Next Car Game (last 2 are unoptimized Alpha games)
That's all I've played since building it.
The taxman was nice this year, so today arrives a Sapphire r9 270x 2GB card. I screwed up when I ordered the one in the system currently, and got the 1GB instead of the 2GB, so I am running out of VRAM in Skyrim, and GTA IV.
Top of the line...not even close.
Works great, yes it does.
Budget build? Depends on your budget.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Pslytely Psycho on Monday April 07 2014, @12:35PM
Oh, I just noticed, they DIDN'T include a copy of Widows. So their $750 build just became $850.
Mine actually came in at $711 total WITH Windows.
(Come don't flame me, I'm a user, not a programmer. Linux is great an all, but not for everyone.)
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Monday April 07 2014, @01:19PM
I still use Windows for gaming. Will probably stick with 7 for a long time.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Monday April 07 2014, @01:04PM
The 65 FPS I quoted was on MEDIUM SETTINGS for Grid2 and Dirt3, Maxxed out they run around 45-50 FPS.
Skyrim, vanilla on high 65. With ENB around 50 FPS.
Sorry, didn't mean to lie to you all.
BTW, if you replace the card I'm getting today, with the one I actually bought, it still come in at about $780 WITH OS. If you can get by with Linux, about $680. And that's still better than their $750 build with a crappy processor and weak Motherboard. I can Xfire mine, so with a new PSU and another Sapphire 2370x I can ramp up the performance when I get a little ahead.
Just noticed their crap build also only has a 1TB drive. I managed a 2TB in mine. The only place I see theirs maybe is better is the GPU. But that is going to be throttled by the CPU and the motherboard. (the Tom's Hardware build anyway. I didn't look as close at the Ar's computers)
Start with a decent MB, everything else is easy to upgrade.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Monday April 07 2014, @01:09PM
"If you replace the card I'm getting today, with the one I actually bought"
Rather "If you replace the card I ACTUALLY BOUGHT with the one I'm getting today"
Preview....someday I will learn to use it.....not today however.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Monday April 07 2014, @08:53AM
They go with a Mickey mouse dual core from Intel when you can get an AMD hexa for $119. Unless you are gonna be playing strictly OLD games (which if that is the case, why upgrade or build a new one at all?) then you have to accept the fact that more and more games are using multicore and dual core? Fine for office boxes NOT for gaming.
If you want a REAL bargain gaming kit here is a can of kick ass [tigerdirect.com], we are talking SIX CORES, 8GB of DDR3 Viper memory (I've used it before, quite good), a 500GB HDD, DVD burner and a case with a 450w PSU. I'd replace the HSF with a Coolermaster N520 (cost around $20) and for the GPU use an HD7790 as they are in the sweet spot for performance/price right now (cost? around $90, lower with MIR)
Your final total, including GPU and Win 7 HP X64? Around $500. Less than $520 for six cores which will give you nice future proofing when it comes to core heavy games and thanks to turbocore you are really getting TWO CPUs instead of one, a faster triple core for your lightly threaded loads and a slower clocked hexa for your heavy lifting. I have the previous gen hexacore (1035T) and can say that after nearly 5 years she can still play the latest games while costing me less than their dual core budget build even after adding in the 3TB in HDDs I added and GPU upgrade from the HD4850 to HD7750....if that isn't value I don't know what is. Its fast, transcodes like a monster, hell with 6 cores i have played a game AND did a transcode AND did a DVD conversion AT THE SAME TIME and have everything be smooth as butter...that is fricking nice.
If you are a multitasker you owe it to yourself to try hexacore, because you'll find its damned near impossible to bog one down. While I enjoyed my Phenom II 925 (which has passed through 4 boards so far and is now going into a gaming PC for the wife, talk about a tough chip!) there were times when I could bog it down with two much crap, not so the hexacore....ohhhh, did I mention that the hexacore OC like champs? The bang for the buck segment has been firmly in AMD hands for a good while IMHO and the fact that they would spend $750 for a dual core PC? To men just shows they are probably getting a chunk of ad revenue from chipzilla, because going less than quad for a gaming PC in 2014 is just dumb.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @10:36AM
But the main reason why your system is $500 and theirs is $770 is the GPU. The AMD CPU is only $11 cheaper.
Here's the diff between a HD7790 GPU and the $330 one they used:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1035?vs=10
And neither newegg nor Amazon seem to sell new HD7790s for $90.
I'd also like to see some benchmarks for your chosen hexacore CPU.
As it is I don't see how the article is bullshit.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Monday April 07 2014, @01:40PM
The Intel benchmarks over the FX-6100, has integrated video, and has lower power requirements. But i'd still go with that AMD : )- FX-6100 [cpuboss.com]
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i3-4130-vs-AMD
Mostly because you'll be able to upgrade that CPU someday without needing a new motherboard. Also, i have no idea how that benchmark is doing it's numbers because single core has Intel at 9.4 and AMD at 7.6. Intel has two cores and AMD has six. But when you look at performance with all cores they are nearly equal? It should be something like 18.8 (Intel) and 45.6 (AMD)?
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday April 10 2014, @03:27AM
Look up "Intel cripple compiler" to see why those benches are a load of horseshit, with ICC an in order atom will beat an out of order Athlon! THAT is why the math doesn't add up, because when it runs the code looks for the CPUID and if it doesn't get back "Genuine intel" it throws the code into X87 mode!
it just shows you how toothless the DoJ is, because this kind of rigging makes MSFT look like the care bears! But I can tell you that IRL those 6 cores kick the shit out of those Intel duals, i have played Torchlight II AND converted FLV to MP4 AND burned a video DVD and ALL AT THE SAME TIME without a bit of slowness. I thought the same as you but frankly even after 5 years I haven't had a need to even OC my hexa, much less look at the octo, its just too much of a monster and I didn't even get one of the high end ones!
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 07 2014, @11:09AM
Ditto. The wife did the same thing, only two weeks ago, at Newegg. I can't remember exact details now . . . Oh, here we go: FX6350 @3.9 ghz, ATI's R5450, a terabyte hard drive, 8 gig of memory, Ultra ETorque A5 case, and . . . here it is, Asus M5 A97 R2.0 mainboard. All of that must have cost just under $400, because she also purchased Windows 7 Home, and her total bill was right at $500.
She flashed this thing at me one day as I was walking past, I looked it over, and told her that it looked like a good enough machine - but I told her to increase her memory from 4 gig to 8 gig minimum.
Is it a "gaming" machine? No, I don't think it qualifies. But it's a damned fast machine, that does everything she will ever want to do. In fact, it will probably do everything that I ever want it to do!
Could I build a better machine? With just a little time and research, yes, I can improve on it, but with every improvement, the price will go up.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Monday April 07 2014, @01:31PM
What IS a gaming machine? because frankly those specs could play pretty much any valve game, along with most RPGs and MMOs. If all you count is FPS then simply adding a $100 GPU would make that a gaming machine....hell now that I think about it a $35 GPU would probably qualify it as when I retired my HD4850 she was still gaming pretty well, I just didn't like how hot the HD4xxx chips were but they sell right at $35.
I would argue that the bang for the buck is pretty solidly in the AMD camp right now and has been since the Athlon IIs and Phenom IIs, when you look at 1.- How many games can take advantage of multiple cores, 2.- How few games are CPU bound, 3.- Most importantly how many non-CPU upgrades can make a machine MUCH better for gaming such as using an SSD or a faster GPU? The system you build with AMD is gonna smoke the Intel system in the crucial sub $800 space thanks to being able to add more RAM, better GPU, and a good SSD for the AMD thanks to the lower priced CPUs and boards leaving more money for these crucial components.
I know I have been gaming on mine since Oct 09 with nothing but a GPU upgrade and have ZERO desire to replace it, no games as of yet seem to take advantage of more than 4 cores and with 8GB of RAM and 3TB of HDD I have more than enough for pretty much any game out there.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @01:49PM
If you're using a 450 watt power supply that comes with the case, you're doing it wrong. Power supplies like that almost never can deliver the wattage they promise on the sticker, and if they do the voltage is so far out of spec it's liable to damage your equipment. I suggest you read Johnny Guru's "Death of a Gutless Wonder" series. http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReview s&op=Story&reid=335 [jonnyguru.com]
(Score: 1) by emg on Monday April 07 2014, @05:38PM
My i7 plus GTX660 rarely goes above 200W at the wall when playing games. I put in a decent PSU, but it would almost certainly work on a no-name 450W.
They're using a 770 here, which is rather more power-hungry, but I'd be surprised if something claiming to produce 450W couldn't handle 276W at the wall without significant issues.
(Score: 2) by Blackmoore on Monday April 07 2014, @04:09PM
I get the distinct feeling that both Ars and Tom's have a Intel bias, and if you look at the number I can kinda see why. but then i get the feeling that Intel is doing something to rig the results; the difference between an Intel and AM id too much to believe.
Now I'm biased too. I walked away from Intel when they started to serialize (store a serial number) on the chips. tho- i wouldnt be surprised if AMD and the rest of them do the same at this point. But for what it is worth I have always gotten enough power out of AMD. and dollar for dollar I think i'm getting a decent deal for the processor.
That Tiger deal is pretty damn fine for the cost - certainly fitting in my definition of "budget". Sure once you throw in a graphics card you are now into the $400 range; but if you have to postpone that you can run with the onboard graphics for web and whatnot.
(Score: 1) by emg on Monday April 07 2014, @05:46PM
"I get the distinct feeling that both Ars and Tom's have a Intel bias"
Yet the very article linked to from here says in the fourth paragraph that their bargain PC last year used an AMD CPU.
The reason they picked an i3 over an AMD was probably that the i3 typically beats it in games, and runs on less power. Most games today don't use many threads, so less cores running faster beat more cores running slower.
(Score: 2) by Blackmoore on Monday April 07 2014, @06:44PM
I get that feeling because i get a plethora of Intel ads on both pages.
Tom's has pretty frank reviews of processors. and I am happy to see they like AMD on the low cost end.
(Score: 1) by Immerman on Monday April 07 2014, @09:11PM
I haven't been following CPUs closely for a while now*, but my impression is that intel chips are considerably faster per core, while AMD chips give you a lot more cores for your dollar. Since most games still don't really take advantage of multi-core CPUs that gives Intel an advantage.
* Hey, what can I say? My mainstream gaming mostly moved to the Wii where the new interface allows for a nice change of pace. Meanwhile resource-intensive PC games these days are mostly all prettier rehashes of Doom, and after a couple decades that's just not interesting enough to justify buying a gaming PC for anymore. Maybe once a prettier rally racing game with high-fidelity physics comes out I'll consider upgrading, but Richard Burns Rally is still the high-water mark of the genre, and runs just fine on my ancient gaming rig. Really I think it'll be VR that makes me upgrade.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @09:56AM
Anyway unless you find loss leaders and promos, you're not going to get similar performing items much cheaper - so the big price differences would depend more on how much performance you want and where (IO, CPU, GPU). The video card makes a big diff in price and gaming performance. If you're not running the latest games you can save $330 and use the built-in graphics - they'll work fine for most 7 year old games. If you're not running the latest games, buy a mid/lower-mid level CPU, and buy the GPU later if you find you need it (if you're lucky you can get a working 2nd hand one - but GPUs don't seem to last very long in my experience, maybe even less than HDDs, go figure).
If you need faster IO, get an SSD but those are expensive... And they aren't magic - you will still have to wait a fair bit for some things - some apps just take time to launch/run (even if CPU, I/O etc not loaded). And stuff like Firefox will probably still be unresponsive from time to time
(Score: 0, Troll) by Grishnakh on Monday April 07 2014, @03:10PM
What kind of lame site is this? There have been multiple people asking this same question. Haven't you all heard of BitTorrent yet?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @09:36PM
It appears that you haven't been watching what has been happening since the Summer of 2012. [googleusercontent.com] (no orig link[1]) [google.com]
NB I have never been a gamer and even I have noticed the flurry of activity outside the EULAware-OS gaming realm. [google.com]
This site does a quasi-daily digest on this topic. [google.com]
[1] I'm not linking directly to the other site any more. If the link is broken because Dice Holdings is still screwing around, I advise you to substitute a valid 12-character string for the bogus one following q=cache:
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by Freeman on Tuesday April 08 2014, @05:31PM
I would love for my next gaming machine to have a Free OS. I am pretty much just looking at Steam OS. I have made my peace with the fact that I am locking myself into the Valve Ecosystem. So long as they keep churning out decent priced games, I will keep buying from Steam. GOG.com has recently started updating some games for Linux as well.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1) by Aiwendil on Monday April 07 2014, @10:05AM
As with everything it depends on what you are comparing it to.. For a gaming rig that probably is cheap compared to other gaming-rigs but it would be expensive when compared to a "work horse"-rig.
It is like this is all fields and it differs quite a bit in their respective sub-fields: for instance with graphic-cards and cpu's today [for consumers/home-users] are being marketed as "low power" while still needing a fan - one upon a time a fan (other than in the psu) was only needed if you where doing something stupid like overclocking heavily (these days we get many chips that are too heavily overclocked straight from the maker instead, with no option of downclocking it to sane levels).
This same split exists in many fields - what for one subset is considered "a good and efficient solution" is in its neighbouring field laughed at as "shortsighted and bad design"
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday April 07 2014, @01:01PM
one upon a time a fan (other than in the psu) was only needed if you where doing something stupid like overclocking heavily
I have to go a long way back to a time there wasn't a fan on my CPU. I remember CPU fans on socket-7 motherboards, certainly my PII-300 (Slot-A) had a fan, I think there were fans on Pentium 100s too. I think you have to go back to the 486 era to get rid of CPU fans on ibm-compatible pcs.
Now I did have a shuttle PC which had a single fan for the CPU and case, using pipes to the outside. That machine didn't have a PSU fan, just a big external brick.
(Score: 1) by Aiwendil on Monday April 07 2014, @04:00PM
I started with computers in the 386-era, so I got to see a few "bare" systems, heatsinks was accepted as a neat - but heavy - solution, fans never really got past the "How about NO"-stage.
My previous desktop was a P6 Tualatin 1.3GHz (TDP 37W) and my current is a Intel D252MW (mini-itx board with integrated cpu) both of which run without a fan (excepting in the psu)
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday April 07 2014, @06:00PM
Well yes, my 286 had a strange hard drive and CD rom connector and an AT keyboard connector, I'm fairly sure it still had a fan in the power supply, something that's not needed now.
You went from a fanless 486 straight to a Tuatin? The last 486 came out in 1995, and I believe had a fan. You didn't have anything between them?
Getting a fanless system in the late 90s would be pretty much impossible
(Score: 1) by Aiwendil on Monday April 07 2014, @09:32PM
Hmm, I might have had a PII in between, didn't have a PI, and my 486 was the reason why I started to abhor fans (incidently also last time I ever got a non-intel-cpu for x86). The 486 ended up with a hefty downclock and oversized heatsink.
Hmm, now when my memory is jogged, I do remember one setup I can't recall the specs of where I basically had the cpu-heatsink wedged to the psu-fan-intake with just a small silicon shim in between.
But in general - yeah, I tend to skip 2-3 generations of CPUs and also get CPUs very close to their end-of-line (normally due to this being when they finally start to get decent)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @10:28AM
Look, ArsT used to be a great place to go to get good tech stories, as well as get information on the latest computer components, both high-end and budget-minded.
Used to be.
But just like a certain site was bought by Dice, ArsT was bought by Conde Nast, and is now just one of their "media brands". The ArsT writers aspire no longer to be tech writers, but to be "journalists"... which they have achieved. They are now on the level of such renowned journalistic titans as The National Enquirer and News of the World.
There are still some good people posting on their forums, but the slow and steady exodus of the knowledgeable from there is readily apparent.
Bluntly, ArsTechnica is no longer a place worth visiting, nor are their articles worth reading.
(Score: 1) by ezekielsays on Tuesday April 08 2014, @03:09AM
I agree wholeheartedly - I've been quite disappointed by ArsTechnica lately. However, I'd love to hear any recommendations on alternate sites to visit that cover the same material. I haven't had much time to look into alternatives, and humbly beg the community for their suggestions.
Go ahead and play the blues if it'll make you happy.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday April 07 2014, @02:38PM
I have no idea why I'd throw away my perfectly good case, or replace my larger power supply with a smaller one, or replace my working optical drive with an inferior one, or replace my hard drive with a smaller one.
The Tom's story IS insightful WRT the graphics card and mobo commentary, at least to me. I am considering replacing my card this year and that was interesting to read about.
I suspect many of the readers are like that and are only interested in one or a couple components.
(Score: 1) by emg on Monday April 07 2014, @05:41PM
"I have no idea why I'd throw away my perfectly good case, or replace my larger power supply with a smaller one, or replace my working optical drive with an inferior one, or replace my hard drive with a smaller one."
I built a new gaming PC last year. I threw away the case because it was built for a P4 and sounds like a jet engine, the PSU because it was built for a P4 and has no SATA connectors, the optical drive because it was built for a P4 and is PATA, not SATA, and... OK, I threw away the hard drives because they were ancient, PATA and far too small and slow, not too big.
Personally, I thought $1500 for that machine (i7 plus GTX660 plus 32GB RAM plus SSD, plus 3TB hard drive, etc) was a bargain compared to the old P4 machine, so $750 certainly would be.
(Score: 2) by Blackmoore on Monday April 07 2014, @06:31PM
Depends on your situation. In most cases I'd like to re-use the case, power supply, existing drives. and sometimes you just cant. Old hardware does get outdated, and hard drives need replacements every couple of years - lest you tempt running them til they die. (done it)
I did a "extremely tight" budget upgrade for myself last year and discovered i had to replace the burner, since the new MB really wanted SATA devices. expensive? no, but annoying.
and when you can reuse, you can spend more on MB ram and processor. (or not)
and a lot of systems you can get away with upgrading the Ram or the graphics card and get another couple of years out of the processor.
I really don't get the compulsion to wholesale replace the system every 3 years.
(Score: 2) by Nobuddy on Tuesday April 08 2014, @01:03AM
See, a great gaming rig can be built from 2nd and third generation components. An older i7, a nice dual GTX580, An SSD and a large storage drive. RAM is a trivial cost now, max that shit out.
Will it run Batman at max res with every bell and whistle turned on?
Actually, yes. My single GTX580m does that flawlessly. Much of the performance gain lately is purely on paper. Who gives a rat's ass if you get 63FPS instead of 60FPS when it cost you another $1000 to get there? Fuck that noise, I will wait until your dumb ass sells your brand spanking new GTX780Ti for the GTX781Ti next month, and snake yours off EBAY for a song.
In fact, I love people like that- got more money than sense. Keeps me in decent hardware on the cheap.
let's see, I may consider an upgrade in another year or so, when a new game comes out that actually exceeds my existing 2 year old rig's capabilities. If I like that game, that is.
(Score: 1) by emg on Tuesday April 08 2014, @04:42AM
"RAM is a trivial cost now, max that shit out."
32GB of decent 1600MHz RAM looks to be over $300 now (whereas I believe I only paid $110 for it when I built my gaming PC early last year). I wouldn't call that 'trivial'.
(Score: 2) by Nobuddy on Wednesday April 09 2014, @05:44AM
I was unaware it had gone up again. I stand corrected. As of about a year and a half ago it was about $.02 per petabyte, or thereabouts.