Since no one has said anything against the rules, I take it that everybody is ok with them. So let's start designing your PCs! (I know some of you have already started, don't lie).

Remember that you have time until the end of Wednesday to think about them.

Some warning regarding Skylake CPUs and third party coolers

Intel Skylake CPUs are bending under the pressure of some coolers

http://www.pcgamer.com/intel-skylake-cpus-are-bending-under-the-pressure-of-some-coolers/?utm_content=buffer68f30&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=buffer_pcgfb

And here's the proof

Note how Haswell (left) is thicker than Skylake (right)?

So, I've started look at the components for the PCs and man, it's a lot harder than I remember! XD

I'm starting to have second thoughts about it .

The news, part 1

HITMAN – BETA PHASE BEGINS ON FEBRUARY 19TH, GETS NEW TRAILER

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/hitman-beta-phase-begins-on-february-19th-gets-new-trailer/

Square Enix announced today that the beta phase of Hitman will begin on February 19th for the PC. As the company noted, the HITMAN Beta is set twenty years in the past at a top-secret ICA recruitment and training facility.

>>And the trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzhg4bpMrD8

EPIC GAMES’ PARAGON REVEALED – IT’S A MOBA THIRD-PERSON GAME, COMING ON BOTH PC & PS4

http://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/epic-games-paragon-revealed-its-a-moba-third-person-game-coming-on-both-pc-ps4/

Epic Games today revealed its new title, Paragon. Paragon is a MOBA game that will put you in the fight with explosive action, direct third-person control, and deep strategic choice. In order to celebrate this announcement, Epic Games released a new set of screenshots and a gameplay trailer that can be viewed below.

>>Follow the link to see the screenshots, and click here for the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Gw9fJGKvcc

LIGHTNING RETURNS: FINAL FANTASY XIII – NEW PC SCREENSHOTS RELEASED

http://www.dsogaming.com/screenshot-news/lightning-returns-final-fantasy-xiii-new-pc-screenshots-released/

Square Enix has released some new screenshots for the PC version of Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. Lightning Returns is the concluding chapter of the Final Fantasy XIII saga and series heroine Lightning’s final battle, and its PC version will support 60fps, resolutions up to 1080p, as well as the following PC graphics options (Rendering resolution, Scaling of the display area, Shadow processing, Texture filters, Colour correction, Depth of field, Lighting and Glare).

DYING LIGHT: ENHANCED EDITION ANNOUNCED + 10 MINUTES OF GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE FROM DYING LIGHT: THE FOLLOWING

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/dying-light-enhanced-edition-announced-10-minutes-of-gameplay-footage-from-dying-light-the-following/

Techland announced today the Enhanced Edition for Dying Light. This new Edition for Dying Light features – among other things – improved Human Enemy AI, new parkour moves, gameplay quality improvements, enhanced facial expressions and overall game look and feel improvements.

>>Check the link to see the new features of this enhanced edition, and here's the The Following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwLhJtpZac8

TUROK: DINOSAUR HUNTER REMASTER – NEW SCREENSHOTS RELEASED

http://www.dsogaming.com/screenshot-news/turok-dinosaur-hunter-remaster-new-screenshots-released/

Night Dive Studios has released three new screenshots from its upcoming Turok Remaster. Unfortunately, Night Dive Studios has not improved the game’s assets (textures or meshes). The team, however, has simply increased the game’s draw distance, so at least now we can see the environments without that annoying fog.

>>Go check the screenshots and cry.

FOOTBALL MANAGER 2016, GTA V & DRAGON QUEST HEROES ARE THIS WEEK’S BEST SELLING PC GAMES

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/football-manager-2016-gta-v-dragon-quest-heroes-are-this-weeks-best-selling-pc-games/

The latest PC UK retail, Steam Digital and Green Man Gaming charts have been revealed and as we can see, Football Manager 2016, Grand Theft Auto V and DRAGON QUEST HEROES Slime Edition are this week’s best selling games in UK, on Steam and on GMG.

The news, part 2 and final

HALF-LIFE 2: EPISODE 4 IS STILL CANCELLED, BUT HERE ARE SOME NEW SCREENSHOTS

http://www.pcgamer.com/half-life-2-episode-4-is-still-cancelled-but-here-are-some-new-screenshots/

Pining for Half-Life 2: Episode 3 is so passe. I'm more interested in Episode 4, which was being developed by Arkane until it was killed for being too good for this world. Or, for sensible reasons as revealed by Valve's Marc Laidlaw three years ago. It was to return players to Ravenholm, hence the name 'Return to Ravenholm', and some legit-looking screenshots seemed to bear that out.

NEXUS MODS USER DATABASE MAY HAVE BEEN BREACHED

http://www.pcgamer.com/nexus-mods-user-database-may-have-been-breached/

Change your password if you have an account at Nexus Mods—the situation isn't clear, but there are indications that internet miscreants might have got at the user database.

FULL THROTTLE IS GETTING A REMASTER TOO

http://www.pcgamer.com/full-throttle-is-getting-a-remaster-too/

Double Fine had a big presence at the PlayStation Experience yesterday, announcing a new Psychonauts game (no, not the one you're thinking of) in the form of Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin, a between-game VR thingy heading to PlayStation VR. But the company also announced two games that are definitely coming to PC: a futuristic platformer named Headlander, and a remaster of their cult classic adventure game Full Throttle.

>>It's not Full Throttle, but here's a new trailer of Day of The Tentacle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Kgj_rPON80

DIRT RALLY LEAVES EARLY ACCESS

http://www.pcgamer.com/dirt-rally-leaves-early-access/

DiRT Rally has drifted out of Early Access onto Steam proper, and can be yours for £28/$42. Far from the stunt-driven, flashy entertainment of previous DiRTs, Rally is a deep and brutal sim that is out to ensure you fail your next MOT. Driving into trees, flooding the engine and going too off-road—in a range of weather conditions, naturally—will punish like no karting game you've played. And, if you can believe such a thing, it's a PC exclusive. Until April, anyway.

UBISOFT ANNOUNCES VR EXCLUSIVE EAGLE FLIGHT

http://www.pcgamer.com/ubisoft-announces-vr-exclusive-eagle-flight/

First we had owl binoculars and now comes eagle VR: give Ubisoft some lenses and an aviary and there's nothing it can't do. Eagle Flight was announced on Saturday at PlayStation Experience 2015, but as with most things VR, you can be sure it's on course for PC. You take on the feathery form of an eagle swooping through the streets of Paris 50 years after their abandonment by humans. From the trailer it looks like you'll be taking wing alongside friends, plus there's dogfighting, reminding us that eagles are best appreciated from a distance.

>>Here's the reveal trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoxTdZ0AO34

That tells me that you haven't seen the screenshots XD.

Hm, they could do like Nordic Games with the Darksiders 2 D.E. and use this remaster to increase awareness and interest for the next Turok game.

I hope so.

A bit bummed about that Dying Light enhanced edition with updates that could have been used for the regular base game, I feel a bit duped that I'll have to buy the game again just to get better AI (that should have been the staple and there in the first place), new moves and gameplay quality. I was hoping they would patch the current game so we can disable effects like Chromatic abberration since that blurs the image on purpose and saps some good fps, I have to mod DoF and CA out to make my game look crystal clear to see but in doing so I cannot play co-op or VS with anyone and this is all because techland have a bad stance against mods/modders =/.

I feel this is a bad move tbh, because I already love the game but they announce those things I've wanted in the game to make it better and having to pay extra but not being able to remove those fx just rubs me the wrong way, I'll also never get that proper full screen border windowless mode since the current one doesn't do it right.

Also I feel to mention that the human AI is already good enough since they always manage to block a lot of your moves, loads of times have I thrown all sorts of throwing stars from close range and long distance only for them to accurately deflect every single one of them with ease, even times I;d throw a Mol to their face and watch them burn while they sometimes shrug it off, to me that's immersion breaking and a bit unfair, not every human can deflect sharp metal objects from closr range/long with 100% accuracy and definitely cannot shrug off being set aflame and then shrugging it off.

Edit: nvm I caught the tiny poster which details how you get those changes and udnerstand the sitch, thank god they are good souls still, though I wish they supported modding more.

The community update for Galactic Civilization II is available as an opt-in on Steam and GOG. For more information read here.

• Vastly improved AI research
• Vastly improved AI planetary management
• Re-balanced weapons
• Re-balanced defenses
• Re-balanced abilities
• Re-balanced techtrade
• Lore friendly new tech and improvement descriptions
• Better custom races.
• A 100+ page manual written from scratch
• Fully working AI's thanks to an update to the EXE

So, given that I was the fool that came up with the idea, I think it's fitting that I'm the first one to post his work. I'll give example, even if it's a "don't do that" kind of example ; ).

So far, I've only done the "Low" budget rig and I must say that I found several problems in the way. First of all, I ended up ditching the idea of using multiple shops as that soon became a mess, so I've just decided to use one store across all the regions, and that is Amazon. And man, I don't know if Amazon hates you guys in the UK or if it's the same across every store, but while it was kind of easy to make the euro and dollar builds, it really hard to make a build for the set budget of pounds.

Anyway, here's what I've come with. Sorry for the formating

**edit** Damn it! You'll have to quote me to see the list in pounds while I try to fix it.

**edit2** Still doesn't look good, but it's miles better than the last try so I'll leave it like this. Sorry.

I've tried to build the same PC in all three cases but either because some components weren't available in every region or because of price differences, it was not possible. I've market in yellow the parts that differ.

And here's why I've gone with those parts

+CPU: With this gen of consoles forcing developers to work with multiple cores in mind, we're finally seeing how PC games scale past the two typical cores of yesteryear. With the budget we had, the only Intel processors that I could find are i3 dual core ones that I fear might not be enough, so instead I went with
an AMD CPU.

+Motherboard: I'll be honest, it's the cheapest one I found across all 3 stores that didin't look bad.

+RAM: I couldn't get to 16GB, but given the low(-ish) nature of this build, I think that 8GB is enough.

+Storage: 1TB is large enough to install a lot of games. 

+GPU: Lucky americans get lower prices than the rest, so I've been able to reach up to an old but faster R9 280X. Meanwhile, for the other two build I managed to find two 380 2GB cards that will be enough for 1080p for a while.

+CASE: I know, Sharkoon cases aren't what we would like, but that model has three fans (2x Intake, 1x Exhaust) and the interior doesn't seem so bad. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it in the US store but given that the prices are a bit lower, I found an Antec One.

+PSU: 500W is enough for the build we have in mind, and EVGA is not a bad brand.

+Optical Drive: Yes, I decided to include one to avoid problems and because it's not a bad idea to have one and not need it, than need one and don't have it.

+Keyboard & Mouse: I went with a Logitech combo. It won't sent the world in flames, but it does the job.

+Windows: I've looked as much as I could, but I didn't find anything cheaper. I hope you guys have more luck.

Aditionally, I've put the controolers as optinal and did it in two separate ways. For those who have an Xbox360, I've listed the wireless adapter to use it with the PC, and for those that don't have a controller I've listed the controller plus the wireless adapter.