Hi all First post so be gentle! I'm a console gamer. Always have been right from Master System days up until now with a 360. However in the last few years, with the onset of a wife and kids my gaming time has been cut dramatically! I need a PC for Photoshop work ( currently using a laptop and external screen), and I've always wanted to tackle a build myself, so I figured why not throw a little more into it and shift my gaming to there as well! After all, if I only get a limited time to play, I want the highest quality gaming experience I can get! So id be very interested to hear from anyone here who has made the switch to PC gaming. And to see what I'll love and also maybe not like so much about the move..... Cheers for looking!
Welcome to the forums first and foremost These days you can get a respectable build for decent money (6-800), though that is substantially higher than any console, but you do get so much more for your money. I got a 360 a few years ago and it was the biggest waste of money I've ever had. Console, pads, games, mic, €450 down the tubes after 2 RROD. Will be steering well clear for a long time to come. The fun of building your own PC is learning more about how it all fits together and you get a better understanding of it all. It's a bit daunting at first, but once you go through it carefully, it's nothing to be afraid of. There's a lot more tinkering to be done with them, drivers, updates etc, but what you get in return for some patience is definitely a greater return than on a console, in my opinion anyway. If you're going to make a build, set yourself a realistic budget as to what you can afford comfortably without putting yourself out of pocket in a way that will affect your new situation. Have a look at the titles that you'd like to play and what they require and if you can, aim for a little bit above those specs so that you can "future-proof" to some extent. Accept that PC gaming can be very expensive in terms of parts, however, longevity of them is better now than it ever was. I'm on a 3 year old graphics card and it still takes everything I throw at it. There are dozens of people here who have vast amounts of information and can give you great advice on how to spec your build, don't be afraid to ask Welcome again.
Thanks for the reply and the friendly welcome ! I have a budget of around £900 ( maybe a little more than my wife will think I've spent though.....). As I say I need a PC regardless for photo editing, and it seems silly not to be able to game as well. I realise that it's not as simple as gaming with a console, but to be honest that's one of the things that appeals to me most! I love to tinker and tweak things, so drivers, settings etc are all actually a plus point for me, although I'm sure they will cause frustration at some point! Also I can find the online community with the Xbox a little immature at times. Does the PC community differ or can it be as bad?
£900 will get a a respectable rig I think. haha the PC community has its idiots too mate but its a higher class of idiot.
It all depends on who you're playing with and what you're playing! Same as on the 360 I would imagine, there are so many people out there to game with and you'll meet all kinds of folk. I play with the ZiiP Gaming Community primarily, but we have crossover with a fair few Bit-Tech members as well, in that we have members on both sides. I play for the laugh, nothing more, not to win matches or other stuff like that. Winning is nice, but so long as the game is fun, I don't really care. I would rarely use public VOIP in a game as you do tend to get those who just yell like a lunatic and scream obscenities, so I use our communities TeamSpeak server, as many Bit-Tech members would use the Bit-Tech Mumble to communicate in-game. I would assume that you're looking for a complete scratch build and you have absolutely nothing to work with at the moment (case, monitor, etc)?
I have a monitor ( Dell 22 inch ) and ill have an OS, but apart from that its all from scratch! I was thinking about an i5 3570k, as I would like to learn about over clocking as time goes on. But I've been out of the loop so long I'm not really up to date on what's what with PC tech these days! So I'm welcome to any suggestions people may have! I enjoy and play most types of games, but Skyrim is a particular favourite at the moment, and I'm not adverse to a little CoD etc to! Graphics cards bewilder me a little though. There's so many options to choose from!
I can't wait for your reaction to a 64 player BF3 Zerg server. Might be worthwhile taking your budget and desires to the Hardware section and posting a thread there.. You'll get lots of help, and its more likely to be seen that in here. Oh, and welcome
Having a monitor and an OS is a good start as they can be pricey. In all likelihood, you'll get a GPU that is more than what is required for a 22", but no doubt you'll be sizing up for Photoshop work anyway
having fairly recently built a PC that does more than gaming, I'd think about your set up of your room as well. If I was rebuilding my PC now, I'd pick a smaller, more portable case (like the Bitfenix Prodigy) or arrange the set up so I can easily play console style games (like Sleeping Dogs/XCom) on the Big TV. The PC is a master race
Now there's a point. I would love to be able to shift the PC into the living room when the missus is asleep and game in there. One of the things I would miss is being able to game on the sofa!
Yep. I love pc gaming from the sofa. I usually go by the rule of; If it's an fps, it's keyboard and mouse. If it's 3rd person, platform etc; I use a 360 controller. Simple
I suppose, if you're feeling crazy and want to jump straight into the deep end; You could build it all into a Bitfenix Prodigy, jam a GTX 670 in there for pure performance, and suddenly you'd have a PC that you can just pick up and move. Although temperatures would suffer a little, simply because that case is tiny. Gimme a minute to throw together a theoretical build, should be interesting to see what I can churn up. Edit; Hokay. If we assume that you want every last frame and go balls to the wall with the budget; You can just about squeeze a 3750K, GTX 670, 8GB of Ram and an SSD into that budget, along with 600W PSU, Fractal Design Case and an extra 1TB HDD. Another £50 ontop and I could shuffle it around for a Bitfenix Prodigy, but then you'd have to pay a little more on shipping. Scan, sadly, don't sell the Prodigy. Example. Bonus note; If you achieve 50 posts here: you can get free shipping from Scan. Thankfully; you can just get away with a 600W PSU, 670's are remarkably frugal with power, and Intel chips don't drink down too much at stock, either. You might run into a few issues if you try exceeding around 4.7ghz, but other than that; it should all run without a hitch.
20* posts. What you reccomended is almost spot on although you can be even more flexible and get something like the silverstone tj08e as a case as it is smaller than the prodigy and supports matx which is slightly cheaper.
