Almost finished uni for another semester and i'm thinking of getting a gaming pc, never had one only had laptops…
Would it be cheap around christmas/boxing day time to get one? and where should i look?
how much would it set me back? Ive bought a 23'' monitor through the help of ozbargain earlier this year.(I have no idea im clueless when it comes to technology).
do you think $1500 is enough? or a bit more?
thanx in advance
ynotidas
$1500 will get you a very powerful gaming build. In fact you can make do with just $1000 for the main system and probably $300 for LCD monitor, mouse and keyboard.
The most popular computer shops for WP'ers are:
MSY (Sydney, Auburn)
ARC Computers (Paramatta, Silverwater, Chatswood)
Umart (VIC)
PCCG (VIC)
Since you live in Sydney I'd recommend either MSY or ARC Computers. It's usually better to spec a computer yourself and get the shop to build it for you rather than buying a "prebuilt" system. The MSY prebuilts for e.g all use crappy SHAW cases and generic PSU's.
The Whirlpool Desktop Building forum is a good place to start if you want to know what sort of system you can get for the money:
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/7?g=77
MSY charges a $70 fee for building and installing systems. To order from MSY, just shoot them an email stating that you want a system built for you, using what parts — they will inform that it's ready for pickup when it's done.
Thank you! I'll definately check those sites out. As for prices, do they change much? would it be a massive difference if i bought the set up before/after xmas?
Prices of computer parts always fluctuate — depending on the US/AU currency and also depending on supply and demand. Obviously we're seeing major price hikes on hard drives due to the lack of supply.
The AUD is steadily dropping so it's likely prices may rise in the future.
There are rumours of new AMD graphics cards coming out in December/January, then again Australia is always a month behind getting the new tech. It's up to you whether you want to wait.
Hard drive prices have gone up incredibly due to the Thailand floods affecting the factories there.
Eg. I bought Seagate 2TB internal hard drives for $79 before the floods from MSY, now they're $169. So just buy a single hard drive now, and (if you can wait) then when the prices come down again add a few more to your system.
So just buy a single hard drive now, and (if you can wait) then when the prices come down again add a few more to your system.
At the $1500 price point, the main drive should be SSD (Solid State). The hard drive therefore would only be for storage anyway.
Yes, but I was thinking since OP wants a gaming pc, and with the install sizes of current games, you'd fill up a 64/128GB SSD very fast (256gb+ drives still aren't good value IMO, especially with a $1500 budget - better to invest the extra in other components such as graphics card, monitor etc. as storage space drops in value the fastest) Eg. I have a modest collection of games on Steam, and my Steam folder is 100GB by itself.
A more usable/cost effective alternative is just have a small 64gb SSD with Windows and frequently used programs on it (eg. Adobe CS, Microsoft Office etc), and then have 2x 1TB mechanical hard drives in a RAID0 striped setup - you still get a big speed boost (since loading games is a largely continuous process), and also get a ton of space to store other stuff on.
Just my 2 cents on building gaming rigs :)
GTA IV + Liberty City Stories on Steam is 32GB in total….
Most games are huge these days with the exception of Skyrim which was only around 6GB amazingly.
It entirely depends on how frugal you are with your space. I never play more than 1 or 2 games at a time so 60gb is more than enough for me. What I do though is:
Have 2 seperate steam folders, one on an ssd and one on a storage drive. Keep the games you are playing at the time on the SSD and keep the other games i've downloaded on the storage drive. If i want to play another game and i do have it downloaded, i just move the game across to the SSD. It only takes a few seconds with the speed of an ssd. All you need to do is move them into the correct folders (games are located in steam/steamapps/common/) and get steam to download the game after - it'll just make sure all the files are there, if they are it's ready to play immediately.
Hohoha you should check out Steam Mover:
http://www.ghacks.net/2010/09/03/steam-mover-automated-tool-…
It's a automated tool that lets you move Steam games to other drives. No need for copyin' and pastin'.
Prices won't go down around christmas because it is christmas. Only time prices really go down is if new tech comes out.
Places like MSY don't really rely on markups to make their money but rather volume IIRC. You might get the odd place that'll do free shipping or something though.
SSD HDD's haven't gone up, fyi.
IMHO depends on how long you can hold out. if its just for gaming then now is as good as any time, but there are some neat software and hardware changes around the corner, with windows 8 early 2012 and intel's 3D gate technology hitting retail availability around march 2012. From what I understand from articles about the tech, its theoretically is quite an improvement. i know im waiting for it and seeing if its revolutionary or merely evolutionary.
none of those things are really worth waiting for.
The only thing I would ever wait for is if a video card generation is about to come out.
You're right as for gaming that's probably the primary performance factor, that's why my previous comment was qualified.
But there's still the post purchase dissonance of knowing that there's products in the immediate future that renders a build at this time obsolete to some degree.
Just putting it out there for the purposes of discussion as varying views empowers the op's to make a better informed decision
Nevertheless, a good read if the OP is interested:
http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2011/05/intel-re-invent…
Thanks for all the info everyone, honestly i am very un-techy, so i actaully have no idea what you mean when you say "SSD" and other words (yes shame on me), i got a couple mates who just got new computers builds, but im pretty lost on how to even start to build a gaming pc, not too sure whether they did what was the best thing to do, i might just find a build thats already posted on whirlpool that has alot of upvotes?
im pretty simple, i just want to give someone $1500 and have a nice gaming pc in my room. Any suggestions?
The only issue with taking a build from whirlpool is it might be outdated and the build won't be designed around what you need the computer to do.
$1500 can achieve many different things, there is no one correct answer.
For example do you plan to upgrade the PC, do you want the most high end machine you can get while getting a cheap motherboard and case etc.
I've had my case for 5 years because I purchased one specifically to last that long but it doesn't mean it would suit you to do the same.
, i might just find a build thats already posted on whirlpool that has alot of upvotes?
Have you tried posting a question on Whirlpool yet?
However your needs seem fairly generic (you just want a fast gaming PC, and I take it you want it to be a fairly long-lasting build) so even a build taken directly out of Gaming Desktops Wiki should meet your needs.
This is my recommendation. It's basically a reworked version of the $1500 wiki build.
Main System
CPU: Core i5 2500k
Asrock Z68 Extreme3 Gen 3 motherboard
8GB of 1600mhz RAM
Samsung Spinpoint F3 hard disk
GTX 560 Ti graphics card
Coolermaster CM 690 Advanced 2 with USB3 front ports Computer case
Antec Neo Eco 520 watt power supply unit
LG DVD burner
Optional Heatsink Not required if not overclocking.
Coolermaster Evo processor heatsink
Optional SSD
Solid state drive. A hard drive with no moving parts, it's around 10x faster than a traditional hard drive and greatly improves the speed at which your computer boots up, shuts down, open programs etc. However, they are expensive compared to hard drives (per gigabyte, they cost more) and unless you're rich or building a super-high end desktop you don't usually get an SSD over 128GB in size.
Because SSD's are limited in size, a conventional hard drive is usually used alongside an SSD. You would install Windows on the SSD drive and keep your large media files on a normal HDD.
Crucial M4 SSD Pick either the 64gb or 128GB.
Software
Windows 7 OEM SP1 x64
Gaming Peripherals
Logitech Gaming Keyboard
Logitech G500 mouse
Haven't bothered to add the totals up, but I think it should be just shy of $1400.
I do want one that lasts long, at least 3-4 years if possible yup, you're right my needs are just generic, gaming pc, nothing more than that :D
thanks for the recommendation, I just posted a whirlpoot thread asking what they recommend under the same username 'ynotidas'
thanks again! :D
Dumb question: Is there a reason why i5 are used instead of i7?
Because in this case it's much better value. The cheaper i7 after this processor costs ~100 more, and would add little to gaming, given it has the same no. of cores just hyperthreaded.
if your near the north shore i could build you one? ill write up a quote depending on how much you can spend and ill set it all up for you, i build my own so im pretty good at it
$1500 should get you a decent PC.
Whirlpool has alot of good ideas on what build is good
http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/rmp_sg_whirlpoolpcs_gaming_conf…
You could get all the parts yourself and have a go building it (not too hard to do) or get a techy friend to do it for you. Cheapest way and best bang for buck