Want to join the PC Master Race, but I'm lacking direction

Hello everyone,

I am a long time console person, and I am feeling like the time has come to move back over to PC for the first time since the 90s. I have some money (Christmas Bonus!), and I am pretty computer savvy (I already have an NAS based home media network set up), but there is just so much out there, and so many compatibility questions, that I think I'd be better off getting some straightforward advice before I dive in. So, here is what I am looking at:

Budget: Appox. $400ish and I would feel good about it (I could go higher if needed, but I'd like to stay around current console price range)

Desired:

- 1080p gaming with good to great graphics on most modern games (I know playing battlefront is a stretch, but if i could play that, I'd be happy. I also like sports games like madden and 2k).

- Ability to lay the PC horizontally (I have an 8"h x 14"w space on my entertainment center I'd like to use. I also know i can just tilt the tower over, but I don't want it to look like crap)

- The ability to efficiently upgrade (I'm fine with the GPU or CPU not being cutting edge, but if a year from now I want to play some new games, I'd like to not have to replace the whole thing just to up the specs)

- No crazy LEDs (I know some people like them, but I want something quiet and subtle that you'd barely notice. Just part of my apartment's motif).

- a Blu-Ray? (It's not a necessity, as all my media is on my NAS, but if I do toss out the consoles down the line, I'd like to have something that could play a disc).

- Ability to use a controller (I'd probably have one of those mini keyboard/mouse combos and an xbox/ps3 controller for the actual games. I know this is pretty much universally doable, but I thought to mention it).

That's all I can think of. Any guidance would be helpful, and if you guys/gals have any questions for me to help with your responses, I'd be happy to answer them.

Looking forward to joining the team.

Thanks!

That budget is a bit low, especially if you don't already own a copy of windows.

@Nick3306: I do have a copy of windows 7 Ultimate, and there's always SteamOS, so that shouldn't be a problem. What kind of budget should I have?

"I could go higher if needed, but I'd like to stay around current console price range"

You don't join the Master Race by staying around console price range.

Honestly, if you truly want to take full advantage of the PC, I would recommend doubling that budget. $800 would get you a system that is vastly superior to the consoles. It will make you wonder why you were gaming on consoles in the first place. With $400, you are not realizing the potential of the PC platform. If you can not afford $800 right now, I would save up as it will be worth it in the end. In the end, you get what you pay for. You have to pay for quality. Consoles are cheap, but they are shit. A PC with similar cost to a console will not be much better. Of course it will be better than a console because you can do a lot more on it, but it will not be a good gaming rig.

Personally I feel a $600 system wouldnt be too bad for someone who says he can upgrade later.

@Nick3306: We want to make sure the core of the system is good. CPU, RAM, Motherboard. Those are things that you do not upgrade often. So, we need to make sure the initial investment is there. I don't feel comfortable recommending low budget systems as it is not something I would buy myself. $600 is certainly a lot better than $400, but we want to make sure that we are taking care of him and he will not be disappointed. I don't think he should be left out of any game. He should be confident that his system will play Battlefront or any other game with good settings and performance.

@BassMan: I understand that but I feel the odds of him doubling his budget are pretty low so I was trying to meet in the middle somewhere so he could get some help.

Let's see what Coseniath or PredatorRules can come up with on a $600 budget and we will go from there....

@Nick3306: Thank you Nick and Bassman. Honestly, $500-$600 seems palatable, and like I said, I'd be willing to upgrade other things over time as it became appropriate, forgo some things for now (ODD), and probably have some things lying around (HDD). I'd really just like to know a good Motherboard/CPU/GPU/Case combo that is not going to all be obsolete in a year or two. Think minimum requirements for recent games, but recommended specs for games 2-3 years old. I've been researching and come across so much conflicting information that it is really hard to know just what is what.

Like,

Is AMD or Intel better? Will one prevent me from playing certain games?

How many fans should I have?

How many watts should my power supply be?

Is DDR3 RAM going to be obsolete anytime soon?

Does having an SSD really make that much of a difference?

Is it really that bad to have a horizontal, desktop orientation?

What could be an issue that I'm not aware of?

I know these are a lot of questions, but although I'm pretty good with computers, I just have not yet been able to wrap my head around it all yet.

@BassMan: @Nick3306: Thanks again guys. I'm glad I came to this forum.

Here is a list of the core components. You can add whichever case you like and then re-use whatever drives you have. With this system, you will be good for a while and not have to worry about upgrading. You could play Battlefront on max settings too.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/736ChM

@BassMan: That is fantastic! Thank you so much. I was actually looking at some of these items earlier. One question though, is the GeForce 960 a significant step down from the 970? It is significantly cheaper, and I know the GPU is a critical part of everything, but would it make that much of a difference?

@BassMan: Only thing I would change is the psu making it at least 600W for that 970. know you can run it on 500W but with low end psu's it's not recommended.

If that is still expensive for you Jateed, you can replace the 970 with a 960 and still play games really well.

It is significantly worse. The cheaper model of the 960 only has 2GB of VRAM and would lock you out of certain settings in games. The 4GB 960 cost more and when you spend that much more, you are much better off getting the 970 (way better performance). The 970 is absolutely worth every penny. It is the difference between a decent gaming rig and a serious gaming rig that you are proud of.

It is worth making the extra sacrifice and getting the 970. It may stretch your budget a bit, but you won't have to upgrade your GPU in the near future. This will save you money in the long run.

@BassMan: @nick3306 I was thinking of the 4gb 960. It's on amazon for $200 and the cheapest I could find the 970 was for $325. Plus, there's still the case to get too. Do you guys know of any good horizontal cases? I saw a few, but I honestly have no idea if they're good or not.

I haven't used a horizontal case since the 286 days. So, I don't have any recommendations. Just look at user reviews or google the case and I am sure there are reviews. 960 4GB is not bad. I would strongly encourage you to get the 970, but you know your budget best.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-960,4038-4.html

Notice how the 960 fails to average 60fps. Also, pay attention to the minimum frame rates.

I own a GTX 960, so I can comment on the matter. If you're looking to max game settings and average 60 fps, this is not the card. It can achieve 60 fps on high for most games. Battlefront for example averages around 60 fps on high but drops to 45-50 fps maxed. It is not a bad card if you're not obsessed with 60 fps in every game and don't mind tweaking settings down the road.

@jateed: Hi.

@BassMan did a very good, build, I checked the combinations and prices and you can't remove/change anything without lowering the performance/quality (maybe giving $6 more for EVGA 500B but nothing else).

A good value for money case is Corsair SPEC-01 which make the total cost to $680.

Now the question is... Do you want to spend the extra $80? (if you can ofcourse...)

What he told you about the difference between GTX960 and GTX970 is explained with one picture in the end the the link he gave:

GTX960 is a nice card, that will play all games better than consoles but GTX970 is on a different tier, offering 60% more performance.

I was in your place around 14months ago. I wanted to buy a new GPU but GTX970 had a 400 euro price back then. I was waiting for a GTX960 / GTX960ti in order to buy something cheaper (sometimes the difference might be even 100 euros) but with a slightly less performance (used to be like 15-20% less in previous generations).

Then Nvidia released GTX960 and the performance difference was so high that made me to order a GTX970 after careful thought and research.

So a 60% gaming performance increase isn't worth a 12% total budget increase?

Its your choice...

You better have lots of money and be prepared to upgrade your system every 2 to 3 years.

He can use the $$hundreds he will earn from the far lower PC games prices.

Btw. Steam sale is coming...

@Coseniath: Cool.

Why do people say this? I rocked a 9800 GTX+ and a intel Q processor for 7 years. It boils down to the individual and if they care about turning down settings or not.

Im still rocking with an i7 860 (over 6 year old cpu, oc to 3.8ghz just a year ago). Upgrading has only been important for the graphics card (gtx 970 atm). I would actually have the money to buy the new skylake cpu's with the new mobo's / ram's, but its just not worth that small increase of performance.

+1.

A 5year old mainstream CPU i5 2500K is still gaming top tier without the need of any upgrade after 5 years.

The only thing he might want to upgrade is after 3 years his GPU...

I use this case in my entertainment center, it appears to be bigger than will fit yours but maybe they make a smaller version? I doubt it honestly. I gutted a lot of the interior of the case to make room for larger video cards, closed loop CPU cooler, more fans and even cut the side out of the case to mount a couple fans on the outside to make room for the CPU cooler. I also drilled holes in my entertainment center to give proper airflow. This was just a build I did with old parts I didn't feel like trying to sell... but I really like the look of the case and size of the whole thing.

I've got my i5 2500k at 4.5ghz and don't see needing to upgrade it for quite some time still. The only thing I've upgraded that mattered (I semi frequently upgrade things for aesthetic reasons like cases etc.) in the last 5 years was my GPU and that was only because my system was poorly packed by movers causing it to fail.

Do you have a desktop right now? If yes, what are the specs? All you might need to do is drop in a 250-dollar video card (maybe a new power supply depending on the one you have).

If no, you will need to increase your budget.

Well, I wanted to say again that I appreciate everyone's input, and I learned a lot about what goes into a proper gaming pc. I have to say that I was browsing for parts on the cheap when I saw a used rig for sale right in my price range. I've always been better at reverse engineering anyway, so I bought the pc after running benchmarks to make sure it wasn't burned out. These are the specs:

Case: BLACK NZXT PHANTOM 410

Processor: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHZ

Motherboard: SROCK AMD 990FX EXTREME9 3-WAY SLI & CROSSFIREX AM3+

Graphics Card: AMD RADEON R9 290 4GB PCI-E 3.0

Ram: 8GB Ram 1600mhz

Power Supply: Corsair TX 750 Watt Power Supply

Hard Drive: 1TB SATA III 2.5" HARD DRIVE

Water Cooler: CyberPower Custom Water Cooling Loop

It priced out at $800+, so I thought it was worth it, especially with the r9 290x. I'm going to use my leftover budget to get a new cpu (fx-8350?) and upgrade the ram. I do still have the parts list for the one bassman suggested, so I might very well return to it depending on how things go.

Again, I really want to thank everyone for their help, and I look forward to enjoying games the right way and finally getting out of the console doldrums (as soon as I find a place for this giant thing).

@jateed: Congrats! Looks like a decent rig. How much did u pay?

@jateed: Honestly if your going to upgrade your cpu later I would just wait till you can get a decent i5 or even an i7.

@jateed: Its a nice system for the money you will spend.

But as you said, give a few $$ more and go for FX8350.

Also two more things about your GPU. This isn't an R9 290X but an R9 290 (unless you misstyped the speccs). The difference is small and it shouldn't matter.

What it should matter most is if the GPU is a reference or a non-reference card. Can you check this?

If its a reference, is it getting water cooled too? If not the give a few $$ here as well to get a non-reference.

If its not reference it doesn't matter. :P

@BassMan: Only $330! When I saw that the GPU was almost that much by itself, I felt I had to jump on it.

@fogirony: If I got an i5 or i7 though, wouldn't I have to update the Motherboard as well? The fx-8350 uses AM3+, so I could just pop it in, right?

@Coseniath: You're right, it is just a r9 290, which is just as well, as I want to avoid overclocking if possible (I not only fear burnout, but I don't want it sounding like a wind tunnel). As for whether it is reference, I am not sure as I haven't disassembled anything yet. However, it does have 'Radeon' written on the side of the card, so it's probably a reference card. It's not getting water cooled, but it does have an exhaust fan right above it. Would that do the trick? Any why would I want a non-reference over a reference? I would think that staying closer to the standard design would be better.

@jateed: $330 is a very good deal. That system is much better than a console.

@jateed: Non-reference R9 290 and R9 290X have no problems with noise or with temps.

On the other hand the refence card was full of problems.

High noise, 95C temps at load had result on throttling.

That means lower performance aswell.

Take a look at Tom's Hardware test between R9 290 and R9 290X various models. Look how low the reference models are:

As you can see reference models are suffering from their cooler.

Thats the reason AMD decided not to design a reference cooler on their rebrands R9 390 and R9 390X.

An exhaust fan might do the trick. If it doesn't you can always place a costum cooler like Arctic Accelero.