General / Off-Topic Advice on Investing in a Gaming PC

[OSUPhantom]

Hello PC Forum,

So after many years of refusing to get a gaming desktop I've decided to finally join the club. The problem is I'm pretty clueless when it comes to specs and hardware which leaves me a little overwhelmed when trying to find a good fit. I was hoping y'all might have some suggestions of what would be a middle/high range gaming PC that would play (obviously Planet Coaster) but other games such as Cities: Skylines. I don't see myself using it for games outside of this genre but you never know. Would there be any good affordable options that balance price with quality? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

 

[LeglessBloke]

The games you're interested in (simulation sandbox) tend to favour machines with as much processing grunt as possible. It's to hard to recommend anything concrete without a budget but make sure to opt for something with a decent amount of processing horsepower. I'd recommend building around something like an i7 6700k as a great processor that will work with anything you can currently throw at it. AMD's current processor line up is a little underwhelming however they have a new architecture just around the corner that could be worth waiting for to see how it fares vs the intels.

 

[OSUPhantom]

Sorry about forgetting the price part. Ideally I'd like to keep the investment in the $750-900 range but I have have no idea if this is a realistic number for what I'm looking for.

 

[Rbase]

Since most pre-build computers are overpriced and unlikely to meet all of your standards, It might be a good idea to build your own PC, or have a company build one for you.
There are many companies that will assemble your computer and give you some good advice for less than $50. However, this only works if you are willing to invest the time to search for the components you want and where you can get them cheap.

A couple of months ago, I had my computer built that way, for the same reason as you (skylines, PC, etc.). I spent at least 50 hours reading reviews, checking prices, etc. That said, I did not have much knowledge about computers at the time, so it might be less for you. It sure was a good learning experience for me.

As for the specs you need, there are a lot of topics on this forum debating about the required graphics card, memory etc. I would really advise you to get an SSD (to run windows, planet coaster and skylines and maybe other heavy games in the future), 16 gb of RAM (DDR4) (memory) and a GTX 960 or 970 (newer is faster). In your price range, I think you may have to settle for an older processor (I5 6400 or I7 4770), although the prices in Europe and the US sometimes differ quite a lot.

Good luck!

 

[Dante80]

Sorry about forgetting the price part. Ideally I'd like to keep the investment in the $750-900 range but I have have no idea if this is a realistic number for what I'm looking for.

Do you need :

1. Keyboard and mouse?
2. Monitor?
3. Operating system?

Also, if you plan to use an existing monitor, what is its resolution? I'll try to mix up something that would fit your budget, but I need an answer on the above. [up]

 

[OSUPhantom]

Yes to all three. However based on some research online I think bumping up my budget to $1,000-1,100 is the best bet. So financially I'm flexible within reason.