Need a new pc

[phe0nixblade]

So, I'm looking to get a new PC that I can actually fucking play games on cause my laptop just fucking isnt cutting it anymore. I've been looking at my local craigslist and some of the PCs on here might be good but I'm not sure anymore I've been out of the pc game for too long to know what's good/bad. I'm looking to spend like 600-700$. I'd love to be able to play some of my steam games again like skyrim dark souls etc etc but I don't really HAVE to be able to kill it on max settings.

Mostly my question is this, are any of the PCs from this actually good enough for me to drop the cash on? http://fortwayne.craigslist.org/sear...inAsk=&maxAsk=

If you could build me up some parts for a PC from like newegg or something that'd be awesome as well. I've set up computers for people in the past so I actually can (for the most part) build the PC I just don't know what parts are good.

[phe0nixblade]

summon ritual for the following people
darkshark
foilman
uhhh
ninjakiwi
anyone else i cant remember who was good with this shit

[FissionMailed1]

How's this?
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/zyak

[m0de]

newegg:

AMD FX-6100 Zambezi 3.3GHz Socket AM3+ 95W Six-Core Desktop Processor - $120

ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard - $90

CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory - $48

CORSAIR Builder Series CX600 600W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply - $70

ASUS ENGTX560 DCII OC/2DI/1GD5 GeForce GTX 560 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card - $170

just under $500, and shouldnt have any problems running any games. no harddives included in the build, if you'd like opinions on HD's, i can throw some at you. also no case either. thats up to you to decide what you like. if you have any questions on whether or not everything will fit in a case, just link me to the case and ill let you know.

[phe0nixblade]

@fissionmailed i dunno you tell me lol
@mode i aint picky about the case and im really just looking for like a 500g to 1tb harddrive

[Garquillex]

Yeah don't ever buy a PC off craigslist. There's so many things they can avoid telling you and they're usually overpriced.


I don't recommend an AMD CPU period
Definitely build it yourself to save money.

Do you need an OS or monitor? Keyboard and mouse? Speakers or etc.?

[m0de]

Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive - $80

case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129066 - $58

total cost: $638 without tax/shipping

[FissionMailed1]

Originally Posted by phe0nixblade

@fissionmailed i dunno you tell me lol

For this price, it will pack quite a punch on most games. The downside is that it is too expensive to make it a quad core given the other components, so performance in multicore applications might not be as good as owning an i7. Also, you might be able to get a hard drive for cheaper, depending on the capacity. I opted for a 660 Ti to squeeze out as much graphics performance as possible.

[Izzy]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...u%20i5%202500k

Quad core i5. The only difference between this and an i7 is hyperthreading, which is irrelevant for all basic usage. You would use hyperthreading for something like video rendering.

Also there aren't any games that can benefit from a cpu having 4 cores instead of 2, they just aren't written for that kind of parallelism. As for multiple programs, it is beneficial to have 4 cores so that the operating system can spread the workload.

[FissionMailed1]

That's a good point Izzy, I forgot about the new Ivy Bridge processors. Instead of what I listed, use that instead, or use one with a lower clock if that particular one is too expensive.

[trumaestro]

For $20 over your budget, you can get a machine that I built a year ago for $1150 (with monitor and OS). This one just doesn't have quite as much room to upgrade as mine.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/zyUZ

[d4u7211]

I'd have to agree with m0de's ideas. I've never had a problem with AMD processors before, nor intel tbh, but intel's stuff is a little overpriced. My first build cost around 650 and it's pretty close to what m0de described, and I've been playing all kinds of hardware intensive games, and they run pretty well. The only thing stopping my pc from being as fast as i would like is the graphics card. Also, you don't need to shell out money for "intel integrated HD graphics" on a processor if you have a graphics card.

[PriestREA]

Quad Core i5 with a mid range card - Maybe a GTX 550/650
That'll run you about $450
A good psu - Corsair CX650? $89
Cooler Master H212+ $30
1TB Seagate Barracuda $80
8GB Ram $50
CD/DVD Optical Drive $40

Just estimates - A build like that would be around $720

[Garquillex]

Originally Posted by Izzy

Also there aren't any games that can benefit from a cpu having 4 cores instead of 2

I'm pretty sure that's not true anymore...

[Izzy]

I'm trying to find evidence of a game that uses true quad core parallelism, but it seems like the most advanced games can sometimes fully utilize two cores and minimally benefit from 4. The performance difference for running a game on a quad core over a dual core assuming there was nothing else running on the computer would be 5% at best.

They can set different independent tasks to be on different cores, but true parallelism across multiple cores for the same task just doesn't seem to be there in video games. I assume the problem is synchronization in real time.

[Crashfan3]

Originally Posted by Garquillex

Yeah don't ever buy a PC off craigslist. There's so many things they can avoid telling you and they're usually overpriced.

I'll agree with you that most of them are overpriced, although sometimes you can find some decent deals. But as long as you check out the computer, before you hand over your cash, you should be alright. Make sure the OS is genuine, all the parts are there, etc, etc. If you're not good with computers, then bring a friend along who knows his/her way around them. It's no different than buying a used car on Craigslist, there will always be someone who tries to sell you a lemon, but if you use your head you'll be fine.

One of my friends bought a computer on Craigslist two years ago. It's certainly no gaming computer but $250 for a minitower with 4gb of ram, a 3.0ghz dual, and a fresh W7 x64 install was a pretty good deal. Of course, I went with him to make sure that the seller was honest.

@OP: These are all fairly good deals that I found on your local Craigslist. link 1 link 2 link 3

Some other people in this thread have built you some nice rigs for the price, so I don't think I need to do that, but if you find something and you're unsure if it's a good deal, post here or PM me if you want my advice.

[ELRayford]

Originally Posted by Izzy

I'm trying to find evidence of a game that uses true quad core parallelism, but it seems like the most advanced games can sometimes fully utilize two cores and minimally benefit from 4.

We generally run higher core counts with multiple GPU setups to avoid bottlenecks.

[phe0nixblade]

Originally Posted by trumaestro

For $20 over your budget, you can get a machine that I built a year ago for $1150 (with monitor and OS). This one just doesn't have quite as much room to upgrade as mine.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/zyUZ

any idea how it'll run things like skyrim? crysis?

Originally Posted by Crashfan3

@OP: These are all fairly good deals that I found on your local Craigslist. link 1 link 2 link 3

which of those is best deal and how do they compare to this one
http://fortwayne.craigslist.org/sys/3573938931.html

[Tyson ultima]

Originally Posted by phe0nixblade

any idea how it'll run things like skyrim? crysis?


which of those is best deal and how do they compare to this one
http://fortwayne.craigslist.org/sys/3573938931.html

Lol 16GB of ram is so useless. I would just recommend to go with the seperate parts that the people here had already recommended you. an i5 with a Radeon HD7870 or hell maybe 7850 as recommended could last you a good 2 years. It should be able to run Crysis on Ultra averaging anywhere from 40-60 frames a second and Battlefield 3 on ultra at probably around the same depending on how many players are on the map.

[phe0nixblade]

aight so yeah ill just decide on one of the ones you guys picked out instead cause i dont really wanna deal with craigslist people anyways lol