Specs for new PC?

jdthoosier

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My 7-year old generic HP is dying a slow death. The front USB ports are all gone, and I'm juggling the back ones as needed. I will not be playing any AAA titles such as TW3 or HZD, those are for the PS4. I will be playing some of the forthcoming games such as The Bards Tale and Underworld Ascendant. Appreciate if folks could provide some recommendations as to specs such as CPU / video / memory, etc.

Thanks!
 
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What's your budget? Are you planning to do any serious work on this PC (normal office stuff doesn't count)? Do you *need* many CPU cores for something?

If you don't expect to put your PC under heavy load, buy:
a) 16 GB RAM, major brand only
b) GeForce 1060 6GB or Radeon 580 8 GB (-> = mainstream segment GPU); Don't settle for less. More is okay. ;)
c) Intel i5 latest gen, version ending with "k"; or comparable AMD Ryzen (-> more CPU cores, slightly less speed per core); there are good reasons for any of them
d) carefully chosen mainboard suiting a) and c); stay in the mainstream segment
e) 500 GB SDD
f) a HDD
g) 500W to 700W PSU, major brand only

Such a PC should cost 1200$ or so (rough guess by a European). It completely blows a PS4 out of the water. Buy a Steam Link - on sale right now for 5$ or so - to connect it to your TV.

95% of the games today are GPU limited. This means the CPU has little influence. So just get something reasonable, aka "fast enough". Avoid cheap components, but don't waste money on luxury items you don't need. Priority is on stability (-> RAM, PSU, mainboard) and the performance as advertised (CPU, GPU, SDD).
The GPUs above are fast enough for max details @1080p in new AAA games. Or at least very close to that. Replace the graphics card a couple of years down the line to get an extra life for your PC.


edit:
Here is a German article with concrete parts lists for PCs from 500€ to 1500€. Gamestar used to be the world's biggest print mag for PC gaming. The article is just a week young.
 
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Thanks Gorath.

No serious personal stuff. All my job-related work is cloud-based now. Just a general purpose home PC with the ability to play some games. My budget is in the range of $1500 but I'd like to get a new monitor also. For a core PC, I'm seeing like $1250 (Black Friday specials) for a configuration such as:

i5 8400, GTX 1060, 16G memory, and 256G SSD/1TB SATA.
 
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I just looked the CPU up. It's the perfect choice. Six cores, gaming performance comparable to an i7 6700k, price only 220€. Overclocking is impossible.

That's a fine configuration for 1080p. The 1060 is defnitely too slow for serious gaming in 4k, except for older games. The intermediate resolution might be worth a shot with high details.

I can't say anything about the price.
 
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I would look at the monitor first. Those things can last a decade! I expect we'll be talking VR or AR or some such by the time whatever monitor you buy is done.

If you're getting a pretty big monitor, look for 2560x1600. 4K is just too much, IMHO. I *think* a 1060 can drive that OK but you'll want to replace it in a couple of years for sure. If it's not all that big, stick with good old 1080p. No sense buying pixels you can't see.
 
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I would go with a kaby lake-r i5 (non k version) and 1060. The blackfriday deal seems expensive. You can build a very nice itx system for $950. Here is a simple price list:
i5-7600(k) - $190 or i5-8400 ($195)
asrock z270m-itx/ac $100 or sarock z370m-utx/ac ($132 if you go with i5-8400)
evo 850 1tb ssd $270
gskill ripjaws 2400 or 3200 140 or 155
rosewill quark 550 watt psu $35
or
seasonic 550px for $80 (better tahn rosewell but 2x price)
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lian-li pc-q33b mini itx $95 (love this case also works well with nh-u9s heat sink but intel stock heat sink should be fine)
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eva 1060 $180
(note that some of hte prices i quoted are sale prices)
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total is 1030 (you can save a bit on ssd going with a crucial or going with 500gb) and if you went with 1050 another $100 (not sure if 1050 can drive your target monitor when gaminig)
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If you go with the case I suggested be sure to check video card length as it is restricted. I use my case with mini 1070; but if you want a full length card then you will require a different case. I hate the elite 130 but it also works (I have two of those; if you are in near my house I can give you one for free).
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AMD has some decent gpu but i'm not sure hwich model or how much it cost as I stopped following gpu when I purchsaed my 1070 1.5 years ago.
 
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Can pretty much to agree to everything which is said here.
If you want a new monitor in your budget as well, you are somewhat restricted though.
I might actually do the opposite of what zloth mentioned though.
First I think 1440p (16:9) is the more standard format (instead of 1600p = 16:10) if you want to go high resolution but this might actually be a bit more resource costly (and more pricey) than what you want to couple your PC with.
Generally I'd proabbly say
1080p -> GTX 1060, from personal experience I can say that the gtx 1070 is already overkill ^^
1440p/1600p -> 1060 might work okish, 1070 or 1070 ti are better.

Also IPS Panels are superior to TN panels (and more expensive) but imho it's worth it.
144hz are a plus over 60hz but more expensive.
And Gsync is an extremely costly extra feature, which imho is unnecessary on 144hz anyways.
I am personally using a LG 27MP68VQ and I would have recommended it as a very cheap option (~250€) but it seems like it's nowhere to be found in the US.
Edit: Found it on NCIX, costs 330 CAD there (260 USD).

So while you could pay like 700€ for a really good monitor which lasts for 5-10 years. It might be better to just buy a good albeit cheaper one for 250€ and replace it in 3 years or so, when 144Hz, higher resolutions and even gsync become more affordable.

The configuration you mentioned (i5 8400, GTX 1060, 16G memory, and 256G SSD/1TB SATA. ) is actually quite good. Personally I'd want to get a 500Gb SSD though, as otherwise you will start to constantly swap games on the drive and think about where you can get some free space from, which can be more annoying then a few fps less.

If possible I'd buy a CPU of the latest generation (leading with an 8) from the i5 segment.

The memory used on this type of chipset should be 2666MHz, make sure you don't buy the old "standard" of 2333Mhz. You can buy RAM which is faster, if it is cheaper, but it will fall back to 2666Mhz then, making extra money wasted put into faster RAM if you don't run an board made for overclocking (which would be board starting with a z and a CPU ending with a K).
 
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My 7-year old generic HP is dying a slow death. The front USB ports are all gone, and I'm juggling the back ones as needed. I will not be playing any AAA titles such as TW3 or HZD, those are for the PS4. I will be playing some of the forthcoming games such as The Bards Tale and Underworld Ascendant. Appreciate if folks could provide some recommendations as to specs such as CPU / video / memory, etc.

Thanks!

TW3 is for PC - PS4 can't do hairworks so play that damned game on PC.
About HZD you're right, it's PS4 exclusive.

Bard's Tale screenshot suspiciously looks like Unity. Unity on PC is optimized like a common Ubisoft game which means you need more horsepower for games in that engine than for TW3. Note that the very same Unity has problem with loading times.

Which means, quadcore or hexacore CPU is a must and don't even think about skipping SSD. Note that I'm also always saying: whatever you do, just don't buy i7.
The build you've asked about "i5 8400, GTX 1060, 16G memory, and 256G SSD/1TB SATA" is good.
1080p -> GTX 1060, from personal experience I can say that the gtx 1070 is already overkill ^^
I can confirm this any day. There is no product out there that was able to put my GTX 1070 to misery. Buying it for 1080p monitor is wasting at least 100€.
Note that DX:MD does contain certain options that are ment for technologies that don't exist yet and even i9 combined with pair of 1080ti can't run 60FPS with those few enabled.
 
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Bard's Tale screenshot suspiciously looks like Unity.
Unreal4 engine!

Speaking of which, this popular engine uses 4GB video ram on EPIC settings. If you go with a 1060 make sure its the 6GB version.

I'd seriously consider a 1070 for Unreal4 engine as it performs almost identically to a 1080 in epic settings while the 1060 falls behind. (based on Paragon and Fortnite)
 
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Unreal4? Okay I guess, maybe I need a new pair of glasses when it comes to screenshots. :)

Can't say anything about it though, I didn't play those two MMOs and I don't remember any game I did play that uses it.
Consortium 2 and Shenmue 3 are still in development.
 
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You can't really generalise about what a particular engine demands, though. It depends on what the devs implement. With Unreal, you could easily make a game that runs happily on integrated graphics, or you could implement something like VXGI, which can grind a 1080 into the dust even at standard resolutions.
 
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That is true but I think seeing how Epic games themselves are using it is going to be an example of some of the best implementation. I think its 4GB use in Unreal Tournament too, but I forget.

It's important to look at what the consoles can do, too. If they have 8GB shared ram they can't use it all on video and even if they did the 1070 still has room for it. That's one of its advantages over 980ti

Another recent example would be NIOH the PS4 port which uses 3GB vram and doesn't look as good as unreal4 as displayed in Paragon. Very nice looking game!
 
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First of all, appreciate the responses as they helped greatly to clarify my search.

I no longer have the patience to do my own builds as I used to years ago when I was a far more serious gamer. With that said, I spent hours perusing various sites/configurations and checking reviews. I finally ended up with a Dell, where there was a 15% off coupon, plus, I got a 15% cash back from Ebates, making my total cost $1210 for the following:

Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 8400 (6-Core, 9MB Cache, up to 4GHz with Intel(R) Turbo Boost Technology)
NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) GTX 1070 with 8GB GDDR5
16GB Dual Channel DDR4 at 2666MHz (2X8GB)
512GB M.2 PCIe Solid State Drive
Tray load DVD Drive (Reads and Writes to DVD/CD)

That leaves $290 (roughly) in my budget for a new monitor, and somewhere, I've got an Amazon gift certificate or two lurking, so I think I may have up to $340. Note that I spent a bit of time on Dell, trying one way or the other to get that specific configuration.
 
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Yep, I was late to the party, but you got a decent rig for the money.
 
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Nice rig. With so much firepower I would consider buying a 4k TV for your gaming instead of a monitor. You can still use your old monitor for office stuff.
 
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Good choice on the 1070, it will keep up with challenging upcoming games in the future. I dont think the PC could run at 4k in the future but 1440p is perfect for it.
 
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Yeah, I'd probably also go for a 27" 1440p IPS panel which start right at your remaining budget.
 
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I'd probably go with 1080p resolution and a high refresh rate monitor and try to match my FPS with monitor refresh rate (eg. 144fps and 144Hz)

I'm all about the performance in online competitive shooters like CSGO and in the end the details can all go down if it means more performance and clarity.

To me the idea of using a 1070 to drive 4k res is laughable!

Also, GSYNC or at least some ULMB monitor technology at high refresh is good
 
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Since part of the project description is that AAA gaming will be done on the PS4, I would buy a smallish 4k TV in the 80 - 100 cm range. I suppose it can also scale down to 1440p and 1080p if necessary.
I dont really care about frame rates though.
 
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