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Forums - PC Discussion - How To Build A Solid $500 Gaming PC For Fallout 4 And GTA V

Ganoncrotch on 17 November 2015

Just one pointer here if anyone is actually in this thread considering buying OP's PC and reading the many instances of "use whatever controller you happen to have in the house with it" Well there is an exception to that, while you can use both ps3/x360 controllers with a PC, it has to either be the wired variant of the X360 controller or else you need to buy a usb adapter to use it with a PC, the wireless controller with a play and charge cable is only used for charging the batteries in the controller, no actual controller data can use that usb connection for PC gaming.

Like I said you can get adapters to use them with the PC but going with a ps3 or a wired 360 pad is just slightly easier if you happen to have those readily available.



Why not check me out on youtube and help me on the way to 2k subs over at www.youtube.com/stormcloudlive

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kitler53 on 17 November 2015
Tachikoma said:
SteamOS, problem solved.

problem..


Ars Technica wanted to test performance of games on Windows 10 as well as SteamOS, but one of the limiting factors points to SteamOS's biggest weaknesses, as games like Fallout 4 or Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 aren't available on the platform yet. If you play new releases on the PC, SteamOS is going to be a bum deal for now.

http://www.polygon.com/2015/11/13/9728888/steam-valve-steamos-framerate-windows

 



chapset on 17 November 2015
zero129 said:
chapset said:
Tachikoma said:
chapset said:

You do know you need a previous version of windows to get windows 10 right?

You can use the generic key given out during the insider program to activate windows 10 for the full free year, you can upgrade from even pirated versions of windows 7 to retail windows 10 for a full year, microsoft really don't care because they get to pip them at the post with a required payment in a years time, meanwhile in that year of Windows 10 usage, you could buy an earlier version of windows, such as 7 or 8 for cheap and replace the install at whatever time suits you.

Point is though, you don't actually need a previous version of windows to get it, that's a common misunderstanding.

chapset said:

you do know it's free for 1 year right?

Yes, which is what I said.

chapset said:

where did I say that the keyboard, mouse and disk drive was 250$, here in Canada an OS is 100$. 

You implied it by listing a price of $750, which is $250 over OP's.

chapset said:

 and if you are going to game on your pc why would you buy some cheap ass 10$ mouse or keyboard.

Because the majority of modern PC games can be played on gamepads, just about any gamepad, which most people already have.

chapset said:

Also before you give me steam OS or linux as an answer, know that Valve themselfs said that the steam OS wasn't a full OS but an OS geared toward gaming, and for linux good luck finding the linux version of you favorite programs.

SteamOS is geared towards just gaming, if you are building a PC just for games it's a viable option, it may not have as many caompatible games as windows but it still has over 1700, and hundreds are added every month, as for installing a vanilla version of Linux, a majority of windows applications can be used using software like Wine.

chapset said:

Also maybe it just happened to me but the reason why I added the optical drive is beucause when I build my pc a few months ago I couldn't even connect to the Internet because the drivers for my network card were not up to date, so I had to get the disk drive from my old pc to use the disk included with my mobo and update using that.

It's rare for a modern motherboard on a modern OS to not hahve compatible drivers out of the box, still, a bog standard SATA dvd drive is like $10 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9AX3HB2661

Additionally, if you already had a computer/laptop prior to building a new PC, common sense would be to download the latest available drivers for the components you ordered, before building the new pc, you can even download them on your phone then connect your phone via usb to the computer and copy the drivers over.

As for the OS argument in general, you can pretty reliably obtain a licensed copy of Windows for as little as $20 these days, as shown in an earlier post, but let's be honest here, there's always the piracy option, too, for both the OS and the games.

By the way the OP overall price is 550$. See how quick pc gaming prices go up.

and please I don't know anyone buying a gaming pc just for gaming, that's the advantage of a gaming pc, you can do way more with it then a console.

And using piracy as an option as for why pc gaming is cheap is not a good argument, and you as a mod should be ashamed of using that. Am sorry but I will have to post that to ioi on his my space.

Really?, your going to go running to ioi just cos of Tach acknowledging that many people on PC does use Piracy?. Hell the was many on last gen consoles too, and when mods come out for this gen consoles (Should be soon imo) the will be plenty on them. Fact is Tach didnt tell people "Go download pirate games" so i dont know why your getting so defensive about the last part of his post..

sarcasm buddy sarcasm



Bet reminder: I bet with Tboned51 that Splatoon won't reach the 1 million shipped mark by the end of 2015. I win if he loses and I lose if I lost.

Pemalite on 17 November 2015
hunter_alien said:
Yeah, and with this configuration you will need an upgrade for all the latest PC games in a year.


No you won't.

In-fact most of the components in that PC is already technically several years old anyway.

The AMD FX 6300 was released 3 years ago, based on a CPU family released 4 years ago.
Considering my Q6600 and Q9200 CPU's I have laying around are still capable of gaming even almost 8 years after release... These FX chips still have a few years of life left in them.

The Radeon R9 380 is a re-badged Radeon R9 290 an evolutionary step-up from the Radeon 7970 released 3 years ago, it is a card that handles gaming at 1440P and 1600P really well, 1080P will be a cake walk for it for a few more years yet.

sc94597 said:

 For many people, it is very easy to find a cheap WIndows 7 key (as cheap as $20-30) and upgrade to Windows 10.


Or free. You can go to a computer recyclers grab a Windows 7 key off an old OEM box, call up Microsoft, they will unlock it... Then make the free upgrade to Windows 10.

zero129 said:
Random_Matt said:
Yep, no monitor nor OS, click bait.

Is this a joke?, exactly how is it click bait?. Like others have said hook it up to your tv, also you can use steamos or linux for free or give an extra 20-30 euros for a windows license.


I find people dislike Apples to Apple's comparisons.

Tachikoma said:
SteamOS, problem solved.


Unfortunatly you still require Windows if you wish to take advantage of the largest games library on the planet.

LurkerJ said:
"CPU and GPU are miles ahead of what's in the consoles"

That doesn't mean you will get to play every game released on the PS4 for said PC years down the line. Optimization is key. We know by know that a lot publishers just don't put much effort into porting their games.


Pretty much all ports run and look better on PC.
Everything from Battlefield to Fallout 4, the PC can have just the "notch" higher in terms of fidelity. That isn't free.

PC is also on a quest for console-like optimizations... nVidia and AMD are investing allot of money and man-hours to improve efficiency at the driver level.
Microsoft with Direct X 12, AMD with Mantle, Vulkan greatly improve efficiency at the API level, Windows 10 brings with it a slew of efficiency improvements.

Developers are also taking note and are being a little less sloppy these days, it also helps that the PC isn't ahead by several generations in terms of graphics feature sets which makes life a little easier, everything can get utilized now.

hunter_alien said:

 

We had this discussion several times before and Im getting sick and tired of being called out, just because you do not like where I stand and that I do not neceseraly like where the PC industry is at the moment and where it is headed.

What you believe is irrellevant. If you do not wish to be called out on something, then don't say it to begin with.

You do not need to upgrade your PC to play the latest games on a yearly cadence, especially for the cake-walk 1080P resolution.

yoscrafty said:

Question; how important is the CPU cooler in this one (or any rig)? Doesn't the CPU you buy come with its own cooler/fan?


Yes.
AMD's coolers are typically fairly horrible though, very noisy.

hunter_alien said:

Yes they do, to bad that only 1/5th of PC developers know or are willing to put some effort behind optimization. As someone who has worked as a gaming QA for an outsource company, believe me, rushing in some fixes 3 weeks before launch, is far from enough.


Rubbish.

What makes you think a Developer needs to do mich if any optimizations to begin with?

Most developers utilize a game engine that is already optimized for various platforms and it's API's and hardware.

Pretty much every EA game will use Frostbite which runs, plays and looks better on PC.
Cry Engine, Unreal, Gamebryo... You name it, are all PC optimized and perform great.

hunter_alien said:


Buying a better cooler is always a plus. The standartd ones are often not up to the task when you try and squeeze out every performance you cvan from your rig. So in most cases I would most deffinatly recomend a good, 3rd party cooling system.

Rubbish. This proves you don't know what you are talking about.

The only time a stock cooler is going to be insufficient is with heavy overclocking. The stock coolers can even tolerate moderate overclocks just fine.

And at stock are more than sufficient.

hunter_alien said:

 

Also, I wonder, how many PC gamers actually payed less then 200$ for their monitors? I know I payed almost 300, and I can say that the quality is pretty much OK, but you can easily go far higher. Oh, and what about a mouse or keyboard? How many of them play on sub 20$ mouse? I doubt that many...


I paid $700 for mine. But I also got three of them for triple monitor 1440P gaming.

I have a $10 cheap keyboard and mouse from Kmart, does the job.

pokoko said:
I'm sure I'll get another PC within the next couple of years, though, or maybe even the next time I see a great deal. Right now, I'm struggling between processors. AMD 8300 series or should I pay the extra for an i5? Do I need an i5? I don't care at all about Ultra settings, by the way. I just want stable frames per second.

I would do neither.

I would overclock that Phenom. Get a decent cooler, Overclock the NB clock by about 15% (Which starts to push your chip towards Nahelem levels of performance.) Then overclock that CPU to 4Ghz. (Most can achieve this with 1.38 - 1.45v)
Or get a second hand Phenom 2 x6 off ebay for cheap and overclock that.

That should then tie you over untill Zen is released or Intel's next gen.

Otherwise, mid-range i5 should be sufficient.

Plus DDR4 is something I would wait for in the mainstream before upgrading.

sc94597 said:
hershel_layton said:
Why AMD? I thought Intel i3/i5/i7 processors were better.

Also, I have a home computer with a intel i5 vPro quad-core processor with 8 GB Ram and Iris pro graphics 4600. Do you think I'd be able to play fallout 4 or not?

Here is a video of somebody playing it with those specs.http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_9QtZfImnsY

The big difference between AMD and Intel is minimum framerates. I have both platforms, whilst AMD is more than sufficient... For most games. It falls flat on it's face for demanding lightly-threaded games.




--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--

Tachikoma on 17 November 2015
kitler53 said:
Tachikoma said:
SteamOS, problem solved.

problem..


Ars Technica wanted to test performance of games on Windows 10 as well as SteamOS, but one of the limiting factors points to SteamOS's biggest weaknesses, as games like Fallout 4 or Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 aren't available on the platform yet. If you play new releases on the PC, SteamOS is going to be a bum deal for now.

http://www.polygon.com/2015/11/13/9728888/steam-valve-steamos-framerate-windows

 

The benefit here is that Steam have a team, dedicated to working on compatibility and thus far are adding 30-60 new games to the support list every month, the the recent release of Steamboxes too that is set to increase, give it a couple years and it'll be 80-90% of Windows.



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hunter_alien on 19 November 2015
Pemalite said:
hunter_alien said:
Yeah, and with this configuration you will need an upgrade for all the latest PC games in a year.


No you won't.

In-fact most of the components in that PC is already technically several years old anyway.

The AMD FX 6300 was released 3 years ago, based on a CPU family released 4 years ago.
Considering my Q6600 and Q9200 CPU's I have laying around are still capable of gaming even almost 8 years after release... These FX chips still have a few years of life left in them.

The Radeon R9 380 is a re-badged Radeon R9 290 an evolutionary step-up from the Radeon 7970 released 3 years ago, it is a card that handles gaming at 1440P and 1600P really well, 1080P will be a cake walk for it for a few more years yet.




Yeah, to bad that I also use my PC for work, and multitasking. Shold I be ashamed that I actually like high-end PC-s?







hunter_alien said:

 

We had this discussion several times before and Im getting sick and tired of being called out, just because you do not like where I stand and that I do not neceseraly like where the PC industry is at the moment and where it is headed.

What you believe is irrellevant. If you do not wish to be called out on something, then don't say it to begin with.

You do not need to upgrade your PC to play the latest games on a yearly cadence, especially for the cake-walk 1080P resolution.

When it is a personal opinion I think I have a fair point of asking to not be called out. My believes are not irrelevant. They are just as relevant as any other posters on this site, believe it or not even yours. Thank you.


hunter_alien said:

Yes they do, to bad that only 1/5th of PC developers know or are willing to put some effort behind optimization. As someone who has worked as a gaming QA for an outsource company, believe me, rushing in some fixes 3 weeks before launch, is far from enough.


Rubbish.

What makes you think a Developer needs to do mich if any optimizations to begin with?

Most developers utilize a game engine that is already optimized for various platforms and it's API's and hardware.

Pretty much every EA game will use Frostbite which runs, plays and looks better on PC.
Cry Engine, Unreal, Gamebryo... You name it, are all PC optimized and perform great.

Please stop calling my opinion rubbish, or I will report you. No need to behave like a 12 year old. Other than that as somebody who actually worked as a QA tester for mobile, console and PC games, believe me that most developers barely have the monetary will or talent to properly optimize their software. If you ever go trough a one month testing rush period you will know. Dont believe me? I might be making this stuff up. Why dont you go and actually look this thing up in ANY developer or QA forum and you will find plenty of articles.

hunter_alien said:


Buying a better cooler is always a plus. The standartd ones are often not up to the task when you try and squeeze out every performance you cvan from your rig. So in most cases I would most deffinatly recomend a good, 3rd party cooling system.

Rubbish. This proves you don't know what you are talking about.

The only time a stock cooler is going to be insufficient is with heavy overclocking. The stock coolers can even tolerate moderate overclocks just fine.

And at stock are more than sufficient.

Again calling rubbish something that anyone who ever built a PC will know. And I never wrote that it is a must, just that it is a plus. A better cooler increases the systems life and in most case performance, especially when you are starting to push the limits... and yes, the possibility of overclocking is a huge plus. Never in the last 10 years did I play on a rig that didnt have anon-stock cooler, and Im glad for it.

hunter_alien said:

 

Also, I wonder, how many PC gamers actually payed less then 200$ for their monitors? I know I payed almost 300, and I can say that the quality is pretty much OK, but you can easily go far higher. Oh, and what about a mouse or keyboard? How many of them play on sub 20$ mouse? I doubt that many...


I paid $700 for mine. But I also got three of them for triple monitor 1440P gaming.

I have a $10 cheap keyboard and mouse from Kmart, does the job.

It does, but so does a good LG/ASUS/SAMSUNG gaming monitor and a Razor mouse. Hell, I bet they are actually doing a far better job at it to


 

All in all, you can always go on the budget route, and you will get budget performance and a shorter lifespan. Those are facts, and arguing them is pointless. But never the less, you are free to do so and to disagree completely with me.



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Arkaign on 19 November 2015

The PC in the OP isn't bad at all for a TV gaming rig. With midrange rigs, usually the key to enjoying it longer through the years is to be cognizant of the three things that usually kill performance with some titles : AA, Lighting, and Shadows. Trying to run that stuff at Ultra/Max on every title is not always feasible, so judiciously adjusting those settings down a bit while still leaving things at 1080P is a good idea if things aren't as smooth as you want.

I do corporate IT for law firms and health care, but I also still build gaming boxes for friends as a hobby. Long ago I built them as part of a business, dozens per week for years on end, so you get used to spotting what the best deals are and best practices.

That said, I often find for really budget-minded customers that the best thing to do is start with a used workstation, which has several key advantages :

You get lots of RAM for cheap.

The HDDs are often small or not included, which means you can focus on starting with an SSD, and you can add a big storage drive if you want, or wait until later to do so. This is better than starting with a slow spinning HDD.

The component quality of most big-brand workstations is AWESOME. You very seldom see cheap components on the mobo or psu level. Out of a few hundred that I've installed for various clients over the past few years, issues are incredibly rare.

You get a legal windows license included, which makes upgrading to W10 a snap.

Oh, and price :)

Here's a good example of a cheapo gaming box that I just built out one nearly identical a few weeks back :

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Precision-T3500-Workstation-Xeon-W3570-QC-3-20GHz-8MB-250G-1944877-/381369837427?hash=item58cb69e773:g:c~0AAOSwjVVV13ZR

http://flash.newegg.com/Product/N82E16814202043?nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-TechBargains-_-na-_-na-_-na&AID=12087162&PID=227502&SID=direct_dealdetail_Newegg+Flash_1119_22928&utm_medium=affiliates&utm_source=afc-TechBargains

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231922

So $453 after rebate, or $473 before for :

Xeon 3.2Ghz (this is akin to the early gen i7s with some minor advantages and a good clock speed. Faster than AMD FX series for most gaming situations even though it's quite old by now. Still, most bottlenecks occur on the GPU unless you have an absolute beast).

12GB RAM

240GB SSD

AMD R290 4GB GPU (not too far behind the Nvidia 970 surprisingly!)

Extremely well made stock 525W PSU

Legal Windows

Just pick your KB, Mouse, HDMI cable, and if desired a gamepad, and you're in the $500ish range (depending on how high you want to spend on that stuff).

There are some negatives of course.

The Precision 3500 mobo doesn't have native USB 3.0, though that can be added in a way that doesn't block the GPU with a PCIe card for around $10.

The case doesn't have a 2.5" bay for the SSD, but as they don't have exposed circuitry or produce notable heat, I just cut some foam or cardboard and tuck it into one of the 3.5" bays. (or you can buy a 3.5 to 2.5 converter for a few bucks)

Upgradability on the CPU tops out with the 3.46Ghz Xeon W3690 6-core 12-thread model, with 12MB L2 Cache. This is fairly awesome even today, but as the top dog for the socket it commands about $200 used, which isn't super cheap.

Anyway, here is someone running a Precision 3500 with an Nvidia 960 (way slower than AMD 290 4GB!), still running Battlefront in Ultra 1080P, it's pretty amazing how stout those Xeons were and still are for modern gaming :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peRKp-BN_9c

Edit : forgot, I had to throw one of these in to get the power going to his 290 : http://www.amazon.com/Express-Supply-Adapter-Converter-Splitter/dp/B00XB7PWB6/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1447973607&sr=1-1&keywords=4+pin+molex+to+8+pin+pcie



Farsala on 20 November 2015

This probably has already been said, but this is $550... Current prices of consoles are $350 or less.

Its like Buying XB1 or PS3 day one when their counterparts were $200 cheaper and had more optimized games.
This is not taking into account the rebate and tax which obviously makes the higher price even worse.



Arkaign on 20 November 2015
Farsala said:
This probably has already been said, but this is $550... Current prices of consoles are $350 or less.

Its like Buying XB1 or PS3 day one when their counterparts were $200 cheaper and had more optimized games.
This is not taking into account the rebate and tax which obviously makes the higher price even worse.

Oh definitely. The PS4 and X1 are way better deals today than they were on launch. Tons of games now, much better pricing when you consider all the extras.

The deals on PCs in the $500ish range aren't (or shouldn't be looked at as) intended to be an 'instead' thing, but I think they make a good companion. There are heaps of cool PC games that don't show up on consoles, heaps of mods (Fallout 4 is already getting pretty sweet ones, and I am hesitant to know how the console mods will turn out), super cheap Steam deals, etc. And for people like me who vastly prefer KBM for FPS, RTS, and anything where aiming precision is pretty important. Racing, flying, fighting, sports, etc I prefer with a controller. Of course, you can't escape the truth that many great exclusives show up on consoles.

In essence it should be : "IF you want a gaming PC, here's a good deal or two"

It shouldn't be : "Screw consoles, here's a gaming PC"

But many people do like to make it something confrontational. I like what I like, I'm not too concerned with what other people like, and it should be the same way all around imho. That's why I try to qualify my statements on things to clearly show that it's my perspective and as usual : YMMV.

"As far as I'm concerned personally, I prefer many games on PC for X, Y, and Z"

not

"Consoles suck, PC rulez!!!!!111111111oneoneoneoneoneone"

:)



Farsala on 20 November 2015
Arkaign said:
Farsala said:
This probably has already been said, but this is $550... Current prices of consoles are $350 or less.

Its like Buying XB1 or PS3 day one when their counterparts were $200 cheaper and had more optimized games.
This is not taking into account the rebate and tax which obviously makes the higher price even worse.

Oh definitely. The PS4 and X1 are way better deals today than they were on launch. Tons of games now, much better pricing when you consider all the extras.

The deals on PCs in the $500ish range aren't (or shouldn't be looked at as) intended to be an 'instead' thing, but I think they make a good companion. There are heaps of cool PC games that don't show up on consoles, heaps of mods (Fallout 4 is already getting pretty sweet ones, and I am hesitant to know how the console mods will turn out), super cheap Steam deals, etc. And for people like me who vastly prefer KBM for FPS, RTS, and anything where aiming precision is pretty important. Racing, flying, fighting, sports, etc I prefer with a controller. Of course, you can't escape the truth that many great exclusives show up on consoles.

In essence it should be : "IF you want a gaming PC, here's a good deal or two"

It shouldn't be : "Screw consoles, here's a gaming PC"

But many people do like to make it something confrontational. I like what I like, I'm not too concerned with what other people like, and it should be the same way all around imho. That's why I try to qualify my statements on things to clearly show that it's my perspective and as usual : YMMV.

"As far as I'm concerned personally, I prefer many games on PC for X, Y, and Z"

not

"Consoles suck, PC rulez!!!!!111111111oneoneoneoneoneone"

:)


Yeah, always been a companion for me. I used to buy all consoles and have a nice PC on top of it, now I am poor.

$900 laptop from 4 years ago still going strong.