PC Gaming Discussion

[Happenstance]

The new MS Flight Sim looks gorgeous. Can’t wait to get my hands on it.

[Will]

So I’m very tempted to buy a PC for gaming but don’t have a clue where to start. I know that I want:

• Something as small as possible, with a simple and sleek design (no crazy lights to gas turbines etc.)
• To be able to play racing sims on super high settings
• To be able to play flight simulator on super high settings

Budget-wise I’m not really sure what is acceptable, I have in my head up to £5k is fine but if adding more to that would give me a huge advantage I’d be fine too.

Does anyone have any tips for what I should look at?

[Happenstance]

You'll be able to get a high end PC for much cheaper than that, don't worry. The new load of graphics cards are out soon so it'll be best to wait for them and see what deals start coming up.

[Will]

33 minutes ago, Happenstance said:

The new load of graphics cards are out soon so it'll be best to wait for them and see what deals start coming up.

That’s really good info to know - thanks!

Any tips on good suppliers I should look out for?

[Happenstance]

Just now, will' said:

That’s really good info to know - thanks!

Any tips on good suppliers I should look out for?

I tend to buy Nvidia cards because that's just what I know but from what I hear AMD are a lot more impressive these days. Hopefully some other NE users will appear soon that keep more up to date on all of this than I do.

[Dufniall]

Some things to consider:

• Do you want to build yourself or a ready-made system?
• At what resolution are you planning to play? Getting super high settings with 60FPS is easier on Full HD then on 4K.
• Like @Happenstance said, the new NVIDIA generation is inbound (expected somewhere in October I think?) so may be worth waiting on that to either get the newest series or the rest drops in price. Although availability is often bad when it comes to new NVIDIA cards.

But in all honesty with that budget you should be safe and you can probably get anything you want. I'm not sure what the "biggest" size of graphics cards are that fit into a tiny case, but I think in a mini tower you can already fit a 2080 Super.

Edit: AMD is a very valid option, especially for the processor. For graphics cards I still have a slight bias for NVIDIA as most games are optimized for NVIDIA cards. But the AMD graphics cards have improved miles.

Edited August 28, 2020 by Vileplume2000

[Happenstance]

There are also mini versions of graphics cards if necessary. I have a smaller tower so had to get a 2060 Super Mini.

[Zell]

I built my first gaming PC about 2 years ago. Was a bit anxious at first, but putting it together was fun and rewarding in the end, just like adult lego. 

When I went about selecting my parts, I essentially looked at what end result I wanted. I basically aimed at getting 1080p at high framerates and high performance settings, and then selected the parts I needed from there. The box came to about £800 and the monitor £200 so fit nicely into my budget.

@will' is that budget just for the PC or is it also for the monitors, peripherals or even the desk and chair?

You could probably get a top of the line PC for way less than that, so wouldn't worry too much about that. If you're aiming for 4K with high settings, then you'll also need to look at monitors: how many, how big, and refresh rates. That could well eat into the budget if you don't already have these.

When it comes the the case, I have a cheap mid-sized standard case with no bells and whistles. Looks very bland and unstylish but that suits me. I think I initially wanted a smaller design but I find the standard case size to be absolutely fine, I guess it depends if you're going to be moving it around often (e.g. putting it in the living room to play on the big TV). Just beware that if you go with smaller cases, you need to also have a motherboard that fits the case.

[Nicktendo]

Definitely recommend building your own, will be much cheaper in the end. It's not difficult. I did it last year with zero experience in building PCs. Shouldn't be too hard to source parts at a good price in Singapore. YouTube videos can show you every aspect of building a PC and what to buy in terms of cases / power.

A budget of £5K is a bit extreme, you'll be able to build a competent beast for under £2K. Mine cost me just under a grand and I can run 99% of games at ultra settings in 1080p. Other run at 60FPS in 1440p or 4K if they're not super recent (last 2-3 years). Obviously if 4K60 is your target or higher framerates, you'll be closer to or even slightly over two grand.

A Ryzen processor is the way forward. The new models are generally better than Intel ones and priced much more competitively.

I have an AMD graphics card (RX580) and it does the job for me at this moment in time. Nvidia cards are a little more expensive but seem to run the majority of games better. If you're wanting to play at higher framerates (120hz or 144hz), Nvidia is your best bet in cooperation with a g-sync monitor. Like others have said, new cards are coming soon, so expect the prices of current cards to drop. With a high budget you'd want something that supports Ray-Tracing to future proof yourself. Nvidia also supports DLSS, which allows games to run in a lower res and uses AI to simulate higher res, works wonders for framerates. It's hard to tell the difference in some games, amazing technology. 

Go with M2 storage. It's still expensive, but lightning fast. I bought 512GB for £80, but it was absolutely worth it and reduces the load times massively. 

Not to up to date on mini-systems and gfx-cards as I have have a pretty big tower. 

 

[Will]

47 minutes ago, Vileplume2000 said:

Do you want to build yourself or a ready-made system?

My biggest concern with building something myself is knowing what to buy rather than putting it together. If pricing is beneficial then it would probably be fun to buy the bits and try it myself.

48 minutes ago, Vileplume2000 said:

At what resolution are you planning to play? Getting super high settings with 60FPS is easier on Full HD then on 4K

My plan is for this to be on the living room TV which is 4K HDR, so I’d ideally want it to support that properly.

49 minutes ago, Vileplume2000 said:

Like @Happenstance said, the new NVIDIA generation is inbound (expected somewhere in October I think?) so may be worth waiting on that to either get the newest series or the rest drops in price. Although availability is often bad when it comes to new NVIDIA cards.

Sounds like waiting a bit is definitely good to do then, gives me some time to work all of this out too.

31 minutes ago, Happenstance said:

There are also mini versions of graphics cards if necessary. I have a smaller tower so had to get a 2060 Super Mini.

I had no idea! Are they the same spec? Any downsides to getting a mini version over the full size one?

15 minutes ago, Zell said:

I built my first gaming PC about 2 years ago. Was a bit anxious at first, but putting it together was fun and rewarding in the end, just like adult lego.

I love lego, so this is encouraging.

15 minutes ago, Zell said:

@will' is that budget just for the PC or is it also for the monitors, peripherals or even the desk and chair?

Budget is for the PC only, anything left over will go into stuff like steering wheels but will budget for those separately.

16 minutes ago, Zell said:

When it comes the the case, I have a cheap mid-sized standard case with no bells and whistles. Looks very bland and unstylish but that suits me. I think I initially wanted a smaller design but I find the standard case size to be absolutely fine, I guess it depends if you're going to be moving it around often (e.g. putting it in the living room to play on the big TV). Just beware that if you go with smaller cases, you need to also have a motherboard that fits the case.

I don’t think it will get moved around much, but as it’s for the living room I definitely don’t want something huge. Something console size that can go under the TV is ideal.

18 minutes ago, Nicktendo said:

A budget of £5K is a bit extreme, you'll be able to build a competent beast for under £2K. Mine cost me just under a grand and I can run 99% of games at ultra settings in 1080p. Other run at 60FPS in 1440p or 4K if they're not super recent (last 2-3 years). Obviously if 4K60 is your target or higher framerates, you'll be closer to or even slightly over two grand.

The budget is definitely more what I’m OK with rather than what I expect it to cost, my knowledge on PCs is basically zero so learning from you guys. Looking more on the 4K60 side of things but good to know I can do that well under my original budget.

19 minutes ago, Nicktendo said:

A Ryzen processor is the way forward. The new models are generally better than Intel ones and priced much more competitively.

Excellent, will look into those.

20 minutes ago, Nicktendo said:

I have an AMD graphics card (RX580) and it does the job for me at this moment in time. Nvidia cards are a little more expensive but seem to run the majority of games better. If you're wanting to play at higher framerates (120hz or 144hz), Nvidia is your best bet in cooperation with a g-sync monitor. Like others have said, new cards are coming soon, so expect the prices of current cards to drop. With a high budget you'd want something that supports Ray-Tracing to future proof yourself. Nvidia also supports DLSS, which allows games to run in a lower res and uses AI to simulate higher res, works wonders for framerates. It's hard to tell the difference in some games, amazing technology.

Yeah looks like these new NVIDIA cards are what I should go with, more good tips!

21 minutes ago, Nicktendo said:

Go with M2 storage. It's still expensive, but lightning fast. I bought 512GB for £80, but it was absolutely worth it and reduces the load times massively. 

Another thing I had absolutely no idea about so will definitely look into this too - thanks!

So based off of these posts so far, I’m looking at:

• Ryzen Processor
• New NVIDIA graphics cards which come soon
• M2 storage

Anything else I should be keeping in mind?

[Happenstance]

1 minute ago, will' said:

Anything else I should be keeping in mind?

Everything needs to glow in some way!

[Dufniall]

For the Mini graphics cards: I think the maximum you can get is a 2060 Super, maybe there are 2070 Super cards. They should perform about the same as the bigger counterparts, only cooling may be less so the fans may be louder. If you are aiming at 4K high settings I wouldn't go under a 2070 Super. 

There are a lot of tiny builds to be found online so you can find inspiration there. m.2 is indeed a very good one, but it is almost becoming the standard now so I thought that was a given haha.

For the rest: Get dual channel RAM (e.g. 2x8 or 2x16 compared to 1x16 or 1x32. Helps a little bit in performance as well. And of course a quality power supply is adviced, don't go for the cheapest one out there but I have a feeling you will not.

And indeed:

[Happenstance]

Yeah there is also a 2070 Super Mini now. Last I heard people were expecting a 2080 Super Mini soonish as well.

I guess it doesn't matter too much anyway. If you are waiting for the newer cards then you won't want one of the last Gen's minis. You'll just need to make sure whatever case you get can handle the new ones.

[Will]

This is exactly why I’ve never been into PC gaming. As soon as I feel like I’m one step in it all seems so confusing. It’s also why I worry about building my own machine, as I really don’t feel confident about buying the right thing. I do really appreciate the advice from everyone, I’m going to put together a shopping list and will post it up here for review by you guys. Thank God I have you all to help!

[Happenstance]

To be honest once you are in you'll be fine. It's just that initial build and there are loads of people who love to help to make the best PCs they can along with websites that if you decide to build have checkers built in to help.

I know a lot of PC enthusiasts feel differently but I also think if you see a PC you like the look of then there's no issue just buying a pre-built system.

[Dufniall]

And if you don't feel up to building yourself, I believe @RedShell bought a pre-built system quite recently so he may have some good pointers there!

[Nicktendo]

37 minutes ago, will' said:

This is exactly why I’ve never been into PC gaming. As soon as I feel like I’m one step in it all seems so confusing. It’s also why I worry about building my own machine, as I really don’t feel confident about buying the right thing. I do really appreciate the advice from everyone, I’m going to put together a shopping list and will post it up here for review by you guys. Thank God I have you all to help!

Honestly I felt exactly the same. It's daunting.

Do your research, watch plenty of build / part tips on YT, read reviews, understand how stuff works and what you need to get what you want.

Once your self-built PC is sat running F1 in 4K, it'll have all been worth it. 

[Ike]

My advise would be decide on a CPU and case because those will dictate what Motherboard you need (sockets for CPU and size ATX/ATX-Mini). Power supply would probably come last as you need one powerful enough to power all your components.

Just search amazon or something for motherboards that will suit your CPU and then try to work out what features you want on it/read reviews.

Building it yourself is more fun/works out cheaper.

You can use https://pcpartpicker.com/list/ to add your components and it should tell you if anything is incompatible. You can also find other people's builds for inspiration if you want.

I want to upgrade my graphics card, currently running a  GTX 1070 Ti. My monitor is only 1080p but I want to be able to at least run games a little better at 1440p and supersample and get some higher framerates since my monitor supports 144hz. Waiting to see what these new cards bring.

[RedShell]

46 minutes ago, Vileplume2000 said:

And if you don't feel up to building yourself, I believe @RedShell bought a pre-built system quite recently so he may have some good pointers there!

Just what has already been recommended really, which is to do as much research as possible. And get some advice from the experts on here too of course.  

Also, while buying a pre-built system will get you out of having to mess around with the hardware side of things, don’t assume it’ll be plain sailing from there. As I’ve rediscovered recently, PC gaming can be a right faff to get setup and running correctly on the software side too, so expect to have to do some tinkering now and then.  

But yeah, I have no regrets with going the pre-built route so far, and have been enjoying loads of games this month thanks to Game Pass!  @will', definitely check out Game Pass once you get a PC, it is insane!  

[bob]

I imagine if@will' has a budget of £5k, he isn't that worried about building it on the cheap. Just buy a pre-built one and let some other chump do all the work.

[Happenstance]

My PC was one I bought from a site and got to choose a few upgrades but one thing I'll recommend if you do go the pre-built route is just think about future proofing it. I mentioned before that I have the 2060 Super Mini and that's because my case is too small for newer cards and to be honest for most other upgrades now. I was looking to add some USB C ports recently and I don't think I'm going to be able to.

[ArtMediocre]

I'll chime in on this discussion too For my part, I started out with buying a pre-built PC with okay-ish components a good 7 years ago. I then started upgrading each part as I wanted a better system. That's a way to go too, which gives you quite a smooth entry into the crazy world of PC. 

If you decide to go and build a system from scratch though, there's been a lot of good advice here already. Read @Ike's post, that's solid advice. Choose a cabinet of your liking, and decide on a good CPU. That way you know a lot of what to look for in the other components. 

And if you're gonna be mainly playing racing and flight sims, do keep in mind to go with a VR-ready setup. Playing sim games in VR is insane. It. Will. Blow. Your. Mind!

[Will]

On 8/28/2020 at 11:55 PM, Ike said:

My advise would be decide on a CPU and case because those will dictate what Motherboard you need (sockets for CPU and size ATX/ATX-Mini). Power supply would probably come last as you need one powerful enough to power all your components.

Just search amazon or something for motherboards that will suit your CPU and then try to work out what features you want on it/read reviews.

That’s a great starting point, still running through ideas that are all over the place - will use this to narrow things down.

On 8/29/2020 at 1:10 AM, RedShell said:

But yeah, I have no regrets with going the pre-built route so far, and have been enjoying loads of games this month thanks to Game Pass!  @will', definitely check out Game Pass once you get a PC, it is insane!  

Will definitely do this! I guess a secondary benefit of going the PC route is it will serve me instead of buying a new XBox for the exclusive content not on PS5.

On 8/30/2020 at 4:00 AM, ArtMediocre said:

And if you're gonna be mainly playing racing and flight sims, do keep in mind to go with a VR-ready setup. Playing sim games in VR is insane. It. Will. Blow. Your. Mind!

Will definitely build it with this in mind. Love PSVR so if I can have something playing the content I really love in VR it will be a winner.

[Ike]

https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/geforce/news/introducing-rtx-30-series-graphics-cards/

I think I’ll get the 3080, seems really impressive for the price POINT.

The 3070 has the same performance as the RTX 2080 Ti.

[bob]

Goddamnit, not you too!