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Author Topic: PC  (Read 10962 times)

Offline Late

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PC
« on: March 25, 2015, 03:12:18 PM »
Don't put links in the first post, Late...
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Offline Late

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Re: PC
« Reply #1 on: March 25, 2015, 03:14:49 PM »
So after much umming and ahhing I've finally gotten round to buying a new pc. I'm on a tight budget, and am too scared to build my own.

Includes OS. Pretty much pre-built.

Cube Slim pre-built desktop £229
Intel i3 Dual Core 3.5Ghz Processor
Kingston 4Gb DDR3 1600Mhz Memory
500Gb SATA3 Hard Drive & Samsung 16x DVD RW
Windows 8.1 with Bing 64 Bit Preinstalled

Have bought an extra 4 gig ram for £26, and a new kb & mouse for £27.

£282 all in.
Budget, newb-friendly, and has reasonable upgrade options.

At some point I'll have to put a graphics card in there, but I'm in no rush. The onboard graphics chip is laughable by today's gaming standards, but it massively outperforms my current pc (current pc benchmark 196, new pc benchmark 538).
I'm toying with the 750 ti (low profile, as the case is very slim) (benchmark 3687) - currently around £110. I'll wait for it to drop in price a bit, or weigh up other options, but like I say - I'm in no rush.

I've got a few external hard drives kicking around (mainly WD MyBooks - I think I have a 1.0Tb, a 1.5TB, and a 2.0TB). Fingers crossed I should be able to crack the case on one of those and bung it into this pc. I don't need all that external storage, so it makes sense to put one in this machine if I can, as a second drive. I'm happy to leave the 500GB drive in there as C: for most programs, and put Steam etc. onto the second drive.
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Offline harv

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Re: PC
« Reply #2 on: March 25, 2015, 03:39:38 PM »
You'll be better of spending a little extra for an i5 mate. Then I think you'll only need a half decent GPU and you'll have a PC at the minimum spec for Oculus Rift.

It's great using a PC upgrade for the first time, if you're anything like me you won't be able to keep the smile off your face for a while lol ;D
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Offline Late

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Re: PC
« Reply #3 on: March 25, 2015, 04:21:36 PM »
Don't tell people what they'd be better off buying after they've bought something!  ;D

With PCs it's all too easy to look at every single component and say "you'd be better off paying a little extra and getting..." but they add up to a lot when you do that. I budgeted myself £250-£300 and I'm happy enough with what I got there for £282.
Like I say, the graphics chip is the main weakness, but it's better than what I currently have (and my current pc plays most games I want it to) and is something that's easily remedied in the future.
With the 750 ti in it it should be a pretty capable budget gaming pc - but I don't intend getting many top end games to play on it. I'll still do most of my premium gaming on the One - but it'll be nice to have something that can take advantage of all the cheap steam keys, though, not to mention my vast unplayed steam catalogue (I have nearly 400 steam games on my account, and have played only about 20 of them). :D

Ordered it at about 1am (last night/this morning), with delivery within five working days. Got a dispatch email at lunchtime today saying it's getting delivered tomorrow. Nice!
The kb & mouse come tomorrow, too, but the ram won't be delivered until Monday. (Annoyingly, I got it from Amazon and I have couple of Prime trials I can activate whenever I need them, but I didn't bother because I didn't think the pc was coming until next week.)



You're right, though - I'm going to be grinning like a Cheshire Cat when I get on it. The old machine was second hand when I bought it nearly eight years ago, it's running xp, takes forever to boot up, the ram is maxed out at 3gb, and it's always crashing. This is going to be such a massive improvement! :D
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Offline jman

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Re: PC
« Reply #4 on: March 26, 2015, 08:22:31 AM »
Yeah its not a bad price to get a pc + extras too mate..

Its definitely the CPU that kept the price down though.. its not the best in the world... but even with the integrated graphics, it'll have no problems playing older games or less graphic intense games... so you shouldn't have to buy a graphics card unless you want to play newly released games or older graphic intense games on it

Personally I'd be ready to bin the OS straight away though.. Windows 8 is a bit pants, you might struggle at first if you haven't used it before  ;D  I'm still using Windows 7, but have played around with Windows 10 recently and its much better than 8.

I've got a small 200GB SSD and a 1TB HD in my pc at home - all the stuff that's important gets bunged on the SSD as its less likely to die on me.  However I've been bunging games on the SSD as obviously an SSD has its advantages with its R/W speed and now its full to the brim lol.

Offline harv

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Re: PC
« Reply #5 on: March 26, 2015, 01:01:34 PM »
I'm still on Vista, might switch to 7 at some point. I tend to stay away from Windows versions until Service Pack 2 is available, too many vulnerabilities otherwise.
"This you have to understand. There's only one way to hurt a man who's lost everything. Give him back something broken."

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Offline Late

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Re: PC
« Reply #6 on: March 27, 2015, 02:18:40 AM »
First time I've ever owned a legal version of Windows tbh. Will stick with 8 until the free update to 10 later this year.
Have had a little bit of experience with 8, and definitely prefer 7, but I'm happy to give it a proper try. Can always "classic shell" it effectively back to Win7 if I don't take to 8.

Have been watching the price of SSDs drop over the last few years and toyed with getting one, but windows 8 boots so quickly I figured SSD should be low priority for me. Not that I worry much about boot speed - the computer only gets turned off about once a month.
« Last Edit: May 26, 2015, 12:44:54 PM by Late »
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Offline harv

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Re: PC
« Reply #7 on: May 26, 2015, 03:35:20 PM »
First time I've owned a 'legal' version of Windows too. I've used quotes there because the version I have is a legitimate copy, which updates and everything...but it's an OEM version that someone leaked from Currys or Dixons lol ;D :P
"This you have to understand. There's only one way to hurt a man who's lost everything. Give him back something broken."

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Offline Late

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Re: PC
« Reply #8 on: April 11, 2016, 04:05:06 AM »
https://steamdb.info/calculator/76561198118728924/?cc=uk

Some scary stats there.

£4396 Current account value
591 Games owned
1,832h Hours on record
18.3h Average playtime
491 Games not played
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Offline jman

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Re: PC
« Reply #9 on: April 11, 2016, 08:29:53 AM »
That's crazy...   ;D

Mines much more moderate... (except the playtime.. lol)

£166 Current account value
23 Games owned
3,718 Hours on record
247.9 Average playtime
8 Games not played

https://steamdb.info/calculator/76561198008188829/?cc=uk
« Last Edit: April 11, 2016, 08:40:47 AM by jman »

Offline harv

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Re: PC
« Reply #10 on: April 11, 2016, 10:24:05 PM »
It won't show me mine :(
"This you have to understand. There's only one way to hurt a man who's lost everything. Give him back something broken."

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Offline jman

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Re: PC
« Reply #11 on: April 12, 2016, 07:44:51 AM »
Try logging in to steam from that page harv.. mine didn't work until I did that - I think because I hadn't set up a vanity URL or whatever that is.

It's not entirely accurate on the games not played.. it says 8 on mine.. but there's quite clearly only 6 without a game time logged.
Then out of those six - 2 of them are betas (which came with the full game I did purchase - so why would I play them).. and 1 is a resource archiver for FM2014.

So there should only be 3 I haven't played.. and they are some of the older Sid Meier games.. and I only downloaded them because they came free with the Civ add-ons which is actually what I wanted.
« Last Edit: April 12, 2016, 07:54:12 AM by jman »

Offline harv

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Re: PC
« Reply #12 on: April 12, 2016, 05:44:18 PM »
Yup, I tried that last night but didn't work. Oh well, I know that there's a load that I haven't played but I'm waiting until I get my Rift before I play some of them, I've got 34 games in my library that are either native Rift compatible or can be played in VR via VorpX.

I'm certainly not going to be short of games to play when I get my Rift in November. I'm also planning to get Dreadhalls, Chronos, Edge Of Nowhere, The Climb, Adr1ft, Windlands, P.O.L.L.E.N., Albino Lullaby and Esper 2 at some point.

Should have some cash from my Mum for my birthday in October and for Christmas which is going to help me get my Rift in November and some games for Christmas. ;D 8)

Out of all of those games I'm looking forward to playing Dreadhalls the most, it's supposed to be bloomin terrifying lol :o :P
"This you have to understand. There's only one way to hurt a man who's lost everything. Give him back something broken."

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Offline jman

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Re: PC
« Reply #13 on: January 18, 2019, 12:30:32 PM »
Finally upgraded my pc last weekend after my last one blew up about a year ago, this was my shopping list - I was going for Mid.. it's probably a highish mid-range pc:

Processor Intel Core i7 8700k 3.7GHz Socket 1151 Processor
Fan CoolerMaster MasterAir MA610P RGB CPU Tower Cooler
GPU Gigabyte Nvidia GTX 1060 WF2 6GB
Motherboard Asus LGA 1151 STRIX Gaming Z390 Motherboard
SSD Samsung 970 EVO V-NAND M.2 500GB SSD
Memory Corsair CMK16GX4M2B3200C16 Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4 3200 MHz
PSU Corsair RM750x Gold Modular PSU
Case CoolerMaster MasterCase MC500Mt Mid Tower Case

Plus I bought two monitors
Monitors Phillips 273V7QDAB 27” HD IPS Monitor x 2

Few pictures of the build and next to my old shitty pc:






Need to get an extender for the CPU cable though so I can use the cable management system properly, then tidy up the rest of the cables and I also didn't plug in the 3.1 USB front header because I wasn't sure what it was at the time lol.. also need to install my other normal hard-drive.

I haven't really given it a good stress test yet because I'm become addicted to Civilization again lol... knew I shouldn't have started playing.


Offline harv

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Re: PC
« Reply #14 on: January 18, 2019, 11:40:45 PM »
Nice! I love building new machines, that moment when you turn it on and you realise how much faster it is than your old one is an awesome feeling lol ;D

Means you can get a Rift now and experience the wonders of VR :P

Don't make the mistake of getting one of those cheaper Windows MR headsets though, they're mid-range headsets at best because the tracking is pants.

The Rift now has a permanent price cut to £349, if we were living in the States I'd be able to give you a Referral and you'd be able to get 10% off but they're not doing that here in the UK yet which is a pain in the arse  >:(
"This you have to understand. There's only one way to hurt a man who's lost everything. Give him back something broken."

Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever