Badger
Watcher
- Joined
- October 18, 2006
- Messages
- 36
Mornin All
How's things? Long time no speak and all that.
I don't think I've ever been over on this side of the forums before. But today I'm hoping for some tech advice from you brainy types, on the thorny subject of buying a new PC.
It shouldn't be a thorny subject of course! Oh no, it should be a great thing, a fantastic position to be in and a fun problem to have. But being largely non technical I'm finding that the pressure to buy the right machine and not get stuck with a lemon, is completely spoiling the experience for me.
Mrs Badger told me a while ago that I could buy a new PC (she's not a bad old stick really) and could spend up to £1000. Now I know in high spech gaming PC terms this is not a huge amount these days, but to me it's a vast sum and one which is turning me into a bag of nerves.
So much so that I've had two months so far to think about it and am still no closer to deciding what I want to buy!
So I've decided that I've been going about it the wrong way. sure I don't know what I want, but I DO know what I want to do with it. There are two specific games on the horizon that I'm really looking forward to being able to play. (Before this I'd never dreamed I'd be able to.) They are "X-Rebirth" and "Arma 3". So I decided to look at the specs they would need and this should give me a clue as to what I should be looking to buy….. right?
Well it seems the folks developing "X" (would it be "Deep Silver"?) are being a little on the cagey side and not releasing specs. The best I could find were educated guesses. But the "Arma" folks have been much more accommodating and have published this;
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/05/19/arma-3-system-requirements-revealed/
Not that this means a whole lot to me, but I get the gist of it and I guess it gives me a jumping off point.
But what to do with this information? Clearly I'm not clever enough to assemble components and build the machine myself (and before anyone, however well meaning, says oh yes you are and it's like building lego… honestly..I'm not) but I do know a man who can.
Trouble is…… he's a really nice chap and all but…well he's not a gamer and while we've been chatting about what I'd like he's missed my point a few times when he talks tech and I talk gaming.
Anyone here read "PC Gamer"? Well I don't know about the US edition, but the UK mag publishes each month the specs for their gaming rig. The makes and prices of the components and a couple of months back (so not current anymore of course) it came to about £800. thinking I was being clever, I copied the specs, took them to the engineer fella and said, this is what I want, can you do this?
He uses specific suppliers of course, but as it turned out he was able to quote for most of the items on the list as they stood, but by the time he was done, not only was it not £800, but it was over the £1000 top ceiling.
He has to make some profit of this of course and I'm certainly not going to begrudge him that. But this coupled with the fact that at the end of the day I'm not 100% sure he understands what I'm looking for in terms of a gaming machine, has given me pause for thought.
But what options does that leave me with? Buying off the shelf? If so, which machine and from who? There are so many and I just know I'll screw this up if I just go out and choose one based on a partial understanding of specs for a game that's not been released yet.
The friendly engineer on the other hand comes with the benefit of being on hand should there be problems. It's so tempting a potential solution.
I just don't know which way to jump. Help! What would the smart party do?
All the best
Yours (with a technically challenged stripe) Badger
How's things? Long time no speak and all that.
I don't think I've ever been over on this side of the forums before. But today I'm hoping for some tech advice from you brainy types, on the thorny subject of buying a new PC.
It shouldn't be a thorny subject of course! Oh no, it should be a great thing, a fantastic position to be in and a fun problem to have. But being largely non technical I'm finding that the pressure to buy the right machine and not get stuck with a lemon, is completely spoiling the experience for me.
Mrs Badger told me a while ago that I could buy a new PC (she's not a bad old stick really) and could spend up to £1000. Now I know in high spech gaming PC terms this is not a huge amount these days, but to me it's a vast sum and one which is turning me into a bag of nerves.
So much so that I've had two months so far to think about it and am still no closer to deciding what I want to buy!
So I've decided that I've been going about it the wrong way. sure I don't know what I want, but I DO know what I want to do with it. There are two specific games on the horizon that I'm really looking forward to being able to play. (Before this I'd never dreamed I'd be able to.) They are "X-Rebirth" and "Arma 3". So I decided to look at the specs they would need and this should give me a clue as to what I should be looking to buy….. right?
Well it seems the folks developing "X" (would it be "Deep Silver"?) are being a little on the cagey side and not releasing specs. The best I could find were educated guesses. But the "Arma" folks have been much more accommodating and have published this;
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/05/19/arma-3-system-requirements-revealed/
Not that this means a whole lot to me, but I get the gist of it and I guess it gives me a jumping off point.
But what to do with this information? Clearly I'm not clever enough to assemble components and build the machine myself (and before anyone, however well meaning, says oh yes you are and it's like building lego… honestly..I'm not) but I do know a man who can.
Trouble is…… he's a really nice chap and all but…well he's not a gamer and while we've been chatting about what I'd like he's missed my point a few times when he talks tech and I talk gaming.
Anyone here read "PC Gamer"? Well I don't know about the US edition, but the UK mag publishes each month the specs for their gaming rig. The makes and prices of the components and a couple of months back (so not current anymore of course) it came to about £800. thinking I was being clever, I copied the specs, took them to the engineer fella and said, this is what I want, can you do this?
He uses specific suppliers of course, but as it turned out he was able to quote for most of the items on the list as they stood, but by the time he was done, not only was it not £800, but it was over the £1000 top ceiling.
He has to make some profit of this of course and I'm certainly not going to begrudge him that. But this coupled with the fact that at the end of the day I'm not 100% sure he understands what I'm looking for in terms of a gaming machine, has given me pause for thought.
But what options does that leave me with? Buying off the shelf? If so, which machine and from who? There are so many and I just know I'll screw this up if I just go out and choose one based on a partial understanding of specs for a game that's not been released yet.
The friendly engineer on the other hand comes with the benefit of being on hand should there be problems. It's so tempting a potential solution.
I just don't know which way to jump. Help! What would the smart party do?
All the best
Yours (with a technically challenged stripe) Badger
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2006
- Messages
- 36