Hey everyone!! Its been a while since I've joined the ranks of fwh in a game not called As herons Call. I wanted to stop in, say hi and give everyone a update on my life.
Myself, my brother Dynastar, and good friend Demon all still have our AC accounts active(almost 14 year old characters). Dynastar just finished dental school and has moved home along with his wife to take over our family dental practice. He was 13 when he met up with most of the fwhers, so now you can refer to him as Dr Dynastar. My friend Demone lives in Colorado as a surgical tech and is doing great. I own my own business building custom homes and love it. I love to work with my hands and get the reward of seeing people living in my work. I just wish there was more time for gaming. I plan on getting married next year so that also cuts into my gaming time. We all do jump on Xbox a few times a week so If anyone wants to add up on Xbox live our gamer tags are Atomic081 and Dynastar087.
Now to my question to you all. I'm in the market for a new desktop computer. In the past I've bought from a company called Ibuypower.com and have had great lick. In the past I've always kept up with computer hardware bit as of recently I've been out of the loop. My question is how expensive to I need to go? Mostly its gonna be used for work stuff and the internet. I would still like to do some gaming if a good games comes out in the next few years. Can I get by with one of the 800 dollar computers and still do basic mmorpg games or do I need to spend 1500 to do it right?
Here is what im kinda looking at now:
Gamer Paladin D837
1 x Case ( NZXT Source 210 Mid Tower Case - Red )
1 x Processor ( Intel® Core™ i5-4670K Processor (4x 3.40GHz/6MB L3 Cache) - Intel Core™ i5-4670K )
1 x Processor Cooling ( Liquid CPU Cooling System [Intel] - Standard 120mm Fan )
1 x Memory ( 8 GB [4 GB X2] DDR3-1600 Memory Module - Corsair or Major Brand **FREE Upgrade to Corsair Vengeance** )
1 x Video Card ( AMD Radeon HD 7730 - 1GB - FREE Upgrade to Radeon HD 7750 1 GB )
1 x Free Stuff ( [FREE Game Download] - Final Fantasy XIV: ARR - Free with purchase of any Intel 4th Generation Processor )
1 x Motherboard ( Gigabyte GA-Z87-HD3 -- 2x PCIe 3.0 x16, 4x USB 3.0, 6x SATA-III 6Gb/s )
1 x Power Supply ( 500 Watt - Standard )
1 x Primary Hard Drive ( 120 GB ADATA SSD - Single Drive )
1 x Data Hard Drive ( 1 TB HARD DRIVE -- 32M Cache, 7200 RPM, 6.0Gb/s - Single Drive )
1 x Optical Drive ( 24x Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - Black )
1 x Flash Media Reader / Writer ( 12-In-1 Internal Flash Media Card Reader/Writer - Black )
1 x Sound Card ( 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard )
1 x Network Card ( Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100) )
1 x Operating System ( Windows 8 + Office 2010 Trial [Free 60-Day !!!] - 64-bit )
1 x Wireless Network Adapter ( ASUS USB-N13 802.11b/g/n N300 Wireless USB Adapter )
1 x Warranty ( 3 Year Standard Warranty Service )
1 x Rush Service ( Rush Service Fee (not shipping fee) - No Rush Service, Estimate Ship Out in 5~10 Business Days )
Thanks
Atomic
Hey there! Glad to hear all the good news. Need to get together I'm right near Madison right now.
Hey Atomic! Nice to hear things are going well for all three of you! Thanks for stopping by to give us an update.
As for the computer... it's absolutely plenty for some casual gaming, without question. However, I would personally recommend staying away from AMD products at the moment, meaning stay away from the Radeon cards. I would go with one of the nVidia cards listed in the configurator.
Now, if you want to future-proof this machine a bit, spring for a bit of a higher end video card as well. You'll want one with better bandwidth than the 128-bit interface the one you selected has. Look at the GTX 660 or GTX 760. The 660 has a 192-bit interface, while the 760 has a 256-bit interface. The 760 would be a better choice between the two, but the performance of the 660 will definitely be good. The higher bandwidth of the interface allows for much faster data transfers to and from the processor/memory on the card.
I would also go for a minimum 750-watt power supply (more is better in case you want to add more expansion parts to the machine later), especially if you take the advice in the above paragraph. These changes will give your machine a longer life before you would need to upgrade any components. If you skimp on the video card and PSU now, you'll need to upgrade both down the road when you want to upgrade the video card.
Of course, this is just advice, so take it with a grain of salt. For the occasional gaming you're describing (which is about where I am at this point too), the machine you configured is probably enough to get a couple years use before you'd want to upgrade anything. You wouldn't want to turn games up to their highest visual settings, but if you can live with that, then you'll be just fine with what you configured for a time.
Best of luck with everything, and good to hear from you!
Ditto - AMD is a bench warmer.
Thanks VolShebnik!!! I looked into those upgrades but it adds an extra 250 dollars and puts me over the 1000 dollars that i dont wana spend.
Lemme know when you are around Gilby, I was down in the Madison area a few weeks back golfing and hitting up the casinos
might also wana spend some extra dough on a raptor harddrive if you are really afraid your data might go bye bye if the harddrive goes....
