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Gaming PC Build

Oct 7, 2019

The games you listed are mostly super easy to render, and if this is just for ‘competitive online shooters’, (the penchant for ultra high refresh rate), then a few things to consider: Processor speed does not matter so much for gaming nowadays. Let me qualify that- With consoles the lead platform targeted by games companies, and consoles having, by contrast to PCs, ancient processors of a very low speed nature- most PC processors are overkill for modern gaming. The exceptions are open world games (that require the magic trifecta of high speed processor, massive RAM bandwidth (basically the only genre to show (slight) frames per second increases for increased RAM speed, AND a great graphics card). Other than open world games, having way more processor speed than is needed, can come in handy if you plan to stream (although this can be offset in other ways that reduce the CPU overhead for streaming), or plan on running budget Solid state drives that don’t really give full performance without a decent CPU hit. (Some people playing open world games with processors that JUST cut it, have major drive loading issues as there is no CPU *headroom* left for crunching data to/fro the cheap solid state drive). The times when CPU speed DOES matter is when we want to go massively high framerates and the video card is being held back by not enough processor speed. The flipside to this is that an i3 processor (low tier/low speed) might give the same frames per second at 4K resolution as a nice i7 (upper tier/high speed) processor due to the bottleneck being the graphics card that simply cannot render more frames per second. For super high framerates (at 1920x1080 or ‘low resolution’) the trifecta becomes ‘no bottlenecks’; need a great graphics card fed from a fast processor. What is a fast processor for THOSE GAMES and 1920x1080? Actually, older ones work really well! Those games will need one thread at a really fast speed (it will prove the bottle neck), and a few more to keep the system running and the sound flowing etc. As an example to offer some ‘real world numbers’, I had an i7 3770K processor. It would happily clock up to 4.8Ghz (5Ghz if power consumption wasn’t an issue) on water cooling, and with its four cores + hyper threading, offered 8 threads at ‘very high speed’. Battlefield (Hardline/BF1/Star Wars Battlefront etc) easily rendered north of 120 frames per second. Maybe not *easily*, and truth be told, I basically ran the processor at 4.6Ghz as that ensured ‘around 110 (lows) to 120 (averages) frames per second’ and kept the heat/power consumption down. When I upgraded (sidegraded) to a 5820K, with 6 cores/12 threads (it had more parrallel processing capability, generally NOT supported in older games), its reduced core speeds that I ran it at (4.2Ghz) dropped my framerates to 90 Lows with averages around 20 frames per second less than my older ‘faster ‘per core’ clocked’ CPU. Why so much technical mumbo jumbo? (Teach a man to fish; bear with me!) Just establishing that processor speed barely matters at 4K (video card becomes the bottleneck), and at low resolution, where the processor can become the bottleneck, faster per core clocks are generally favoured by older game titles (the ones mostly used in the pro level competitive shooter world). Now don’t take the numbers I quoted and believe that you NEED 4.6Ghz. (certainly it will help to have more speed, but with a limited budget, we should spend EVERY CENT very practically with the total system ‘balance’ in mind).. Every generational improvement in processors bring slight/subtle performance per clock increases. Meaning a four core/four thread 4Ghz machine from four years ago wouldn’t be as quick as a 3.7Ghz machine today (with the same four core/four threads). So 120 frames per second target huh? Good aim- for a few reasons. 120hz monitors are more common and lower cost than 200hz monitors etc. If cost considerations are a factor, giving up the slight ‘bleeding edge’ 24 frames per second difference that a 144hz monitor would require hugely reduces the cost to balance the video card and the processor to hit those targets. Also; I have 120 hz top of the line gaming screens (when 120hz was the fastest they could do), and when I got a 75hz freesync screen I couldn’t believe how much better than ‘60hz’ it performed. -It was better than 15 extra frames per second that the math might suggest. Freesync actually processes the info onto the screen faster. 75hz freesync feels like 100hz ‘brute force’ high speed monitors. I couldn’t believe it but have tested for many many hours, and can confirm a 75hz freesync is entry level enough for great online competitiveness. G-sync actually has to hold a frame (buffer) and I cannot speak 75hz gsync is equal in terms of perceived speed, but it wont matter as an AMD video card SHOULD BE 100% your best consideration (Nvidia price to performance isn’t worth it in the long run, but I haven’t checked those older games framerate graphs and if they all magically favour nvidia, which might be true, as they are generally older version of direct X gaming titles, then doing what all your friends recommend (and the guy at the PC shop no doubt), who say ‘buy NVIDIA’, it isn’t worth making your tech team think you are an idiot or to put them ‘offside’ when building your project. Keep em happy and let the green team take your money, and again next year, and again the next year...) My serious recommendation (I have to go, breakfast with family) is to consider hacking a PSVR onto your PC. Generally they are cheap as chips (I paid $112.50 Australian dollars for ‘brand new at Target’ clearance stock). These PSVRs can be made to work with PC, offer 120hz, are OLED (impressive contrast and colour) and offer such a large screen, that, even forgo’ing 3D, running it as one large screen (2D) will equate to playing on a MASSIVE PROJECTOR or, like playing games on an IMAX theatre screen. (my childhood fantasy). Headshots become easy peasy, my kill to death ratio in battlefield TRIPPLED (! x3 !) They are a seriously great screen for competitive gaming, are relatively comfortable, offer private screen, but might prove uncomfortable over long periods of time. For the $15 driver software requirement to make PSVR work with a PC (and 2x HDMI if you wish to keep things easy, although adaptors can get around that), they are a very good consideration, and who knows, there might already be one in the house, or certainly, second hand for budget prices.... Dont waste any of your budget on ‘super fast’ performance RAM (the cost to performance gain the expensive RAM chips offer is not good value) You could get away with 2x4Gb chips (if trying to put more money into CPU/GPU) which would be my recommendation.. but obviously 16Gb is the happy comfort amount to seek. (Do not buy more, RAM can only help if it is needed, and more than 16Gb is NOT NEEDED especially when we are building a budget PC and not running a desktop design power house with virtual OSs and RAM DISKs) I always recommend spend money on a nice power supply (do not buy based on output power, but more so ‘weight’), and a reliable motherboard. They are the basis of your PC. Personally I always try to find a full metal case. It is shielding. We don’t need to see inside, although ‘less shielding’ saves money and you shouldn’t need to give up 10% of your budget to case. (although I would, as the case and power supply often are keepers for ‘several builds’) 2c- hope these general guidelines help - i ran out of time .. reply and if you still are assembling, I would love to offer more advice. (and maybe a cheap gaming sound card;-)

Oct 7, 2019

xKore

Oct 8, 2019

WhitedragemI really really do appreciate you putting time into writing that full piece for me, (grats on x3 battlefield kd), Im planning to just somewhat professionally play some games such as Minecraft, CSGO, etc and stream them. I definitely need some decent ram storage and a Processor that can handle streaming as that is was i want to do, i read you full post explaining that old cpu's and processor's still work great and some of the new cpus and graphics cards are overkill for the modern game. I'm not a professional gaming and will plan to use it for personal gaming and streaming. my budgets 1grand and ill see what i can get from that

(Edited)

Oct 8, 2019

Whitedragem

185

Oct 11, 2019

xKoreDo not go with this build,.. but, given your aim is to have a total build offered to you, I took a super quick crack at it using centre.com.au (whom I personally have NEVER considered using as I have generally considered their prices ‘high’) The prices given are listed on their webpage, and NO DOUBT, if you were building a total system there, they would be able to sharpen their pencils considerably. I give this BASIC UNRESEARCHED build, certainly not as a ‘best foot forward’, but as an example of how to split your budget based on ‘common sense build’ splitting the total money into reasonable parts based on reliability and ease of use. I would do a few things differently, and I will talk about OPTIONS in a second...

A link looking at this build with a graphics card affordable in this budget.. https://www.gpucheck.com/gpu/amd-radeon-rx-580/amd-ryzen-5-2600/ its a little tech heavy as articles go, and the framerate they are quoting is at ULTRA level graphics, generally you drop shadows to medium, and get rid of antialiasing (change a few variables) and you get considerably higher framerates. (with graphics that would leave the console behind signifcantly... So looking at my “chikken scribble”, the page on the right has the parts needed down the left column, and Centre.com.au parts and prices following. The ‘Power’ (supply) (/“PSU” =power supply unit) line is left blank as the first case option listed, a nice case, has a ‘usable’ power supply inside. A better power supply will be more efficient, and will lower the monthly power bill, but it won’t make a difference of a $1 per month, and, given you are trying to save money upfront, a mega high quality power supply isn’t really ‘on the table’. At the bottom of the page I gave some alternative CASE and PSU options so you could choose something you like the look of.. again this isn’t researched, so if you like this build and want to ‘go ahead’: lets talk more- I will do some quick research and find the best PSU for the money from the range available at whichever shop you deem will get your money... The Graphics card hasn’t been filled in, as you always want the best GPU your money can get when building a gaming machine.. (it does need to balance with the rest of the rig, or a AAA grade video card will be held back by a weaker CPU, and won’t prove ‘good value’).. even a kick butt video card with a ‘weak CPU’ is nice to have as you can just crank up the details and resolution (or resolution ‘scale’ in the graphics card control panel.. eg I scaled my AMD VEGA to push out 4K res into my Full HD TV as it had power to burn... it does sharpen the graphics noticably when doing tricks like this... but don’t worry about ‘parts matching’ for now.. we are just BALLPARKING some pieces to show what your budget can get.) This build come in a little over $700 and leaves a decent budget towards a nice graphics card. So before I suggest the graphics cards to go with; lets talk ‘flexibility’. Some of this flexibility is assuming you are learning a hobby, and are willing to do some basic servicing yourself, or that your ‘tech team’ (family member/friend) are willing to revisit the build in a few weeks/months to add another drive etc. So you have some drive options... I listed 2 (M2) Solid State drives.. a 512Gb and a 1024Gb selection. On a budget I would buy the cheapest one, but, given the pain down the track to upgrade this part, and given the exceptional value for money the double sized drive here costs, and that it is slightly better performing, I would HIGHLY encourage you to go to the 1Terabyte (1024Gigabytes) SSD part. If you went the 1Terabyte SSD, you wouldn’t need the 2Terabyte hard drive to go with the SSD drive for a month or two.. as you would certainly have enough space. As SSD drives are expensive, most people, gamers especially, get BOTH an SSD and a HDD (a solid state drive (fast), and a hard disk drive (large capacity, slow, for cheap). The hard drive is for storing media (music and movies, and record streaming etc), and the Solid State drive is for the operating system and games installations. having two drives will massively increase your system capabilities ‘in real world usage scenarios’, better than having 32Gigabytes of RAM etc.. but we can talk more about this later... I suggest get a large SSD now (@best bang for buck price), and simply install another drive, likely a 2Terabyte unit like the Seagate Barracuda I listed, in a few months time, when you have a few more dollars to add to the build. The only reason we would do this is to try and get a better video card and CPU based on your present budget. Adding RAM and storage drives (any drive that isn’t the Operating system disk drive) down the track are really easy to do... generally take less than half an hour time (which might include the time to drive to the store and buy the part if you have an experienced IT person on your ‘build team’) I did list two RAM options, both at the same price, one is by a reliable company, the other is ‘a faster part’. I would like to do ‘a little reseach’ before saying implicitly which one you should go with.. (I know I would take the Corsair Vengeance, but again, a little reseach and it might turn out the 3200mhz Team T-Force is the better buy.. it was listed as ‘on sale’ and looks like the better value).. So; graphics card!!! Sadly the best options here are a little convoluted... I personally would ‘set up an afterpay account, and have it for a few weeks and hope they give a $500 budget to buy A DREAM CARD’ which could be payed off over 4 fortnightly payments.. with the $300 present budget, two of those payments are basically covered, meaning there would be six weeks to save up $130, and then another two weeks for the final payment... I gather you are fifteen, and your parents are probably hating me for even suggesting this. Afterpay doesn’t increase a persons ‘credit score’, and if you were about to ‘buy a house’ it would set you back on the ability to get a loan. At fifteen years of age, it just works in your favour, and probably helps you ultimately build a credit score, but this is all an aside or ‘tangent’; Afterpay costs the retailers that support it around 7%, and I believe the money probably goes to China and not your local economy so much... Why go to the trouble? -radeon 5700 is why!! A AMD/Radeon 5700 is based on Navi chipset architecture and is the GPU design that will feature in next years Playstation 5. To say that games will be ‘highly optomised’ for it for the next five years is AN UNDERSTATEMENT. Spending $300 on a graphics card today will have you spending $300 on another graphics card maybe three years from now... Or spend less today and enjoy better gaming for the next five or more years! (It is a vastly more economical approach that would net you much higher framerates, and be vastly more ‘futureproof’) That ‘dream’ aside, from Centrecom, for $300~ pricepoints you could get a top tier RX580 the they have two to choose from around that price, the ASUS one would probably be brilliant on the ASUS mainboard, and the combo of ASUS mainboard, with ASUS graphics card, with an AMD CPU and AMD graphics card, I bet there would be some super easy overclocking software that would raise your system speed by a nice easy 10-15% (for free). Before pulling the pin though, lets talk more if this is the way you are going, as the Aorus board by gigabyte looks like has some amazing cooling and might be a noticably quicker part. To be fair the RX580s are not the best ‘bang for buck’ (that would be the ~$200ish RX570, which would probably be 10% slower in use for 33% less cash!) Myself, I’d go the RX570, and put the cash saved to the next card upgrade, and just upgrade sooner,.. but then it is easy for me to swap graphics card confidently.. The only reason I am not completely happy to push the RX5X0 cards is that they are rebrandings of rx4X0 cards and the whole range were ‘mid tier’ to begin with and are ‘quite a few years old’ now. The much better buy would be a ‘second hand’ AMD Vega- as you get an easy 30% more frames, have an easier time of hitting 100+ frames per second, and the card would last you for many more years, whilst delivering much more performance. I have a Vega I’d be happy to post you (its a golden sample with Samsung memory that happily runs battlefield ‘silently’ in my rig). The only reason I would say grab mine over someone in Melbournes is that I can vouch for the reliability on this one and I’d sell it for $100 less than what they generally go for. (I was a teenager once myself, and I know the joy that a killer gaming PC can bring)... Not trying to turn this into a sales pitch,.. but I would certainly look at ‘second hand’ graphics card options, as you would get an easy 30-50% more grunt for your money.. and likely have a part that is more attractive to resell in a couple of years .. I can scour gumtree and make some suggestions if you feel happy with the ‘slight gamble’ that a second hand part might be.. the reality is most graphics cards are pretty tough, the fan being the only moving parts, and the ‘self protection’ they have built in usually saves them from overheating. The sort of parts that a $300 odd dollar budget would give you are all around two years (or less) in age, and likely will come from a miners rig’, quite likely undervolted to save $$ on power bills (miners would be running them 24/7 to ‘make money’ and would have done some basic science/tests to figure out the best $$ to make.. ). All the second hand cards I have found from ‘miners’ have been the best second hand buys available, which isn’t what my brain would tell me (why would I want a ‘well used’ part?), but the reality is computer components suffer the most wear when booting and rebooting. Running constantly on high end power supplies and motherboards, generally not at ‘full speed’ is ‘best use scenario’ for second hand purchasing :-) Probably the only thing I missed was a cooler,.. and I would probably consider a cheap water cooler (all in one/sealed system).. Not quite the cyberpunk factor of good water cooling, but can go a long way towards silent/near silent PCing, and will likely net a little more speed from the CPU. We would need to do a little more discussion on this as the motherboard and CPU we choose would be important to figure out if watercooling is worth the extra $40 over a simple effecive ‘fan cooler’... Here are some other miscellaneous photos I saved when researching the RX580 video card/ Ryzen 5 2600 CPU.. one of the CPU graphs shows the CPU overclocked, and a few lines lower, running default clockspeeds.. the main reason I give these graphs is to show how much a CPU might affect frame rates.. (generally not as much as we might think, of course there is a range of usage scenarios, and most advice isn’t factoring that BUDGET is the number one consideration here) Sorry, again, for the long post. Hope this is all FUN :-D

Oh yeah Centrecom (but more likely AMD) have a promo that comes with some games or a games pass. I didn’t read up on it, but thought this might be ‘cool to know’

Oct 11, 2019

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xKore

Oct 11, 2019

WhitedragemThat was a nice and refreshing long post, I really appreciate you putting all this effort for me, I’m getting a job at red rooster so in 3-6 weeks I’ll have around 1-2k which will be enough to get me a great pc, 700$ for a build without gpu and cooling is pretty good cause most would cost around 800-900 without the card, I’m definitely going to do some research on this and yea, I’ve been looking for a job for 1-2 months and got one down at red rooster, so I’ll have some income to upgrade the pc

Oct 11, 2019

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Whitedragem

185

Oct 12, 2019

xKorethose prices are likely ‘fair’; they usually feature the most basic/budget parts (trying to be cheapest)- they should factor in an operating system and assembly/service time. I have bought windows direct from microsoft a few times for $40-$45 aus. edit; centrecom have a ‘gaming system’ weekend sale till sunday close. not much off, two systems around your pricepoint. include wifi and windows.

(Edited)

Oct 12, 2019

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xKore

Oct 16, 2019

WhitedragemI was unfortunately away this weekend so oppurtunity missed, also I got the job at red rooster so that’ll greatly help out with the funds, it’ll take me 3-4 weeks to get enough I’d say

Oct 16, 2019