I want to escape consoles and finally build a gaming pc but I’ve seen the prices…
Everything is really overwhelming for me and I have no clue what I should go for and everyone is giving me differing answers so I ask you.
Is building a PC ACTUALLY cheaper than buying one?
What specs would I even need? All I wanna do is play arc raiders comfortably at high settings and play heavily modded Garry’s mod.
It had been cheaper to wait for component sales. But certain components are getting so expensive that my local Memory Express shop stopped putting the price tag on their RAM and graphics cards, so it’s market price as if it’s fancy whole lobster at a restaurant. So now it’s not much different and a good deal on a pre-built might get you the best bang for buck at this moment. I think I’ve seen decent quality/price builds at Costco.
Canadian examples: https://www.costco.ca/.product.4201008598.html for 1700 CAD (1200 USD) as of today.
https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX00138751 same price, slightly better CPU.
For what you want (arc raiders and gmod) these will work great. An 8 gb card will do great for all except maybe some games’ “Ultra” settings with textures filling up all your vram. 16 gb of DRAM is about the standard for games, gmod is old so it doesn’t need much at base, the modded servers it depends but it will probably handle okay unless you go super overboard with it. Luckily RAM is one of the easiest components to upgrade on most desktops, it’s just being hoarded between AI companies and the greedy cartel of companies that make memory.
For a new CPU I’d recommend i5 12th generation or later, or AMD Ryzen 5 3600 or later, but newer is better, these are the oldest ‘minimums’ I could recommend picking up. I use cpubenchmark.net to know the relative score between chips.
From the advice I’ve seen on Gamer’s Nexus, it’s currently cheaper to buy pre-builts at the moment since their systems are priced from RAM they for 3-6 months ago.
As much as I hate to admit it as I don’t like Linus, LTT has some good secret shopper episodes (and so does GN to a lesser extent). Just watch the conclusion episodes where they rate how each system integrator performed. Stay away from big brands like Dell, HP, etc.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that you don’t need to water cool or add a hundred oversized fans for a computer you’re not going to overclock. So long as the graphics card has room to breathe, modern electronics are way more power efficient than older stuff and will stay plenty cool on air.
Also spend the extra money on a motherboard and power supply. Everything else is splitting hairs for fps or style. Especially ram, you don’t need crazy high numbers unless you know how to tweak the motherboard clock speed without breaking shit.
An easy way to come up with some starting places is to search for “rate my build” type communities for recent posts at around the budget you have, see how people respond with suggestions or critiques and go from there.
Prebuilt is actually cheaper now with the ram crisis. There are some very good deals if you get lucky. They sell out really fast though.
Thanks!
Ram prices suck bad.
Just throwing it out there but why not go DDR4? Your motherboard and CPU might be slightly older but I’ve literally used the same mobo for like 10 years. Currently I have a Ryzen 5800x, Radeon 9070xt, 32gb ddr4. I upgraded the CPU in 2020 and the GPU this spring, selling my 6700xt to make up some of the hurt from GPU prices.
I can play cyberpunk on like max settings. The rig works great on Linux. I don’t know how much of a difference DDR5 really makes since I’ve never had it but I feel like it’s getting into diminishing returns for PC gaming, it can’t really be noticeable that frames load 5-10% faster or whatnot.
On top of that, the 5800x3D is still regularly recommended despite being 4 years old. For arc raiders and older titles, some slightly older hardware could do wonders for you. I’d probably go this route than dropping $2k on a pre-built unless you really want Nvidia for some reason.
I’m very pleased with the specs I listed, like I said I can play the newest titles on max settings. You can prob build it for somewhere around $1k, mostly due to GPU prices. And if you build it yourself you get a better power supply, cabling, case, etc.
I’m not sure if this is still true, but in the very recent past you could find better deals on DDR5 RAM when buying it in a bundle with a CPU. A lot of stores did this as a way to try to prevent scalping.
Interesting…
I’ll certainly take note of that!
Prebuilts often cut corners all over the place. Especially Walmart. Typically in the power supply, wiring, and other small things that no one looks at on a spec sheet. And the prices usually aren’t much lower. Plus building a PC is fun, educational and will help you troubleshoot inevitable issues and failures in the future.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, PCPartPicker has a bunch of good builds at very price points and resolutions.
Arc Raiders is not a terribly demanding game.
In my experience you can’t really do cheaper than a cheap pc although some loss leader parts maybe. Building a pc allows you to make something that is cheaper for the level of quality of the parts used.
I was in your position two years ago, I was super scared when building… and it was totally fine, fun, and interesting! Besides planning everything via PCPartPicker, I would recommend getting a big-ish case if you can fit it, which makes everything a bit easier for the beginner.
You don’t need to build your own, but I would at least recommend buying a pre-built that gives you the option to upgrade later on. Some pre-builts (cough cough Alienware) go out of their way to make sure their computers can’t be upgraded.
I would recommend taking a look at Starforge. I’ve been pretty impressed by their prices.
If you want Linux, you’ll definitely want AMD. Nvidia works, but AMD works better.
Also, don’t feel bad about not getting the best and most expensive model. Low-mid end is really the sweet spot for price-to-performance. And games typically play pretty well, just not on max settings. And you can always upgrade later on
I’ve never been much of a graphics person to be honest. I mainly play shooters and I would much rather have fps over graphics lmao
I will prioritize graphics for games that are less action and more story focused though because I wanna be there. I don’t mind 30 fps once in a while. (I’m currently playing through assassins creed 3 on ps5)
I’ll be sure to check them out, thanks!
Building your own used to be a lot cheaper.
If you live near a Best Buy (or wherever you’re seeing prebuilt computers for sale), take a picture of the shelf tag with the specs. Alternatively, since it runs Windows 11, go to Start (Windows flag) → System, scroll all the way down to About. It’ll tell you what CPU it has and how much RAM. You might be able to find the GPU stuff here. A little help, Windows guys? Mac user here but I use a PC at work and I generally know my way around them. Take a picture of that.
Now go to PCPartPicker.com and try to build a system around that.
Building a PC isn’t hard, but it’s not easy either. I’d call it an intermediate skill. I would recommend against listening to anyone who says it’s easy. It may be easy for them but they may be setting you up for expensive failure. And now computers are largely sold water cooled. That’s cool and all, but I’ve built PCs across two decades, and I’ve never built with a water cooler. If I were gonna get a gaming PC again, I’d go prebuilt. Just save myself the hassle.
Look at what they cost. Save up the money or get your money ready. If you see a computer you want and the price looks fair, go for it.
Look for open box deals. You really don’t want a computer that’s been worked hard and hung up wet, as it were. Store computer displays rarely get worked, though. If anything, they get dirty. So you clean the thing. I wouldn’t use an open box keyboard, though. I’d be looking for a deal on just the computer that was out for people to play with. Mostly they just shake the mouse and bang on the keyboard a bit. Hit the web browser. The wise gamer is going to nuke and pave anyway — that means, when you get it home, before you put it on your network, you’re gonna wipe the drive and reinstall Windows (or better yet Linux) fresh so you don’t have any badware on the machine.
You can just hit the Windows key to bring up the start menu, then type “About PC” and that will have all the usual hardware info you need.
Shoutout pcpartpicker.
Nice. I’ll try to remember that at work.
jfc I just went on there to build the same machine I have sitting on my desk from a year and a half or so ago and it would be $5.5k if I built it again today
Talk about timing the market…
I’ve seen some pretty good deals on prebuilts at everywhere but best buy lmao. Reinstalling windows won’t be a problem for me since I use linux!
If I may ask what’s wrong with water-cooling? Should I avoid it or is it personal preference?
Nothing is wrong with water cooling! All I meant was, I’ve never built with it so that would be something I’d have to learn and would create a higher barrier to building.
Most PC gamers will use Windows. I wouldn’t.
For 75% of gaming builds water cooling doesn’t really matter. Air cooling is good enough these days that unless you’re overclocking there isn’t really a point. It is, however, much quieter if you do a custom loop, but that can easily add an extra $500 - $1000 to your build cost, especially if you don’t have the proper tools already. Stick with air cooling.
Water cooling is just air cooling with extra steps.
It’s definitely a personal preference, but it’s a very… strong personal preference and in many cases that’s for good reason, in both directions. Water cooling performance is typically incredible and if you are overclocking or otherwise generating a lot of heat in a small space or pursuing very high performance, it not only can manage that effectively but it can do it while being quiet, properly designed it can be pretty close to silent, that’s real nice. The downside is that it’s expensive and it’s… water. It’s not necessarily maintenance-free, unless you’re using an all-in-one (AIO) but that comes with its own limitations, but the biggest problem in my opinion is that when (not if) it fails, it has a high chance of being a computer-ending event. When an air-cooler fails your PC will start throttling, might shut down, in a rare case something might be damaged from overheating, but 99% of the time you just replace a fan, blow out some fins, and it’s happy as can be again after that little hiccup. When a water-cooler fails… it’s typically a big mess. Both practically and financially.
With water cooling, I think it’s fair to say they are either people who have regretted water cooling a PC at least once, or they are people who haven’t regretted water cooling a PC yet. Few people can ever say they’ve regretted using air-cooling in a PC, and I suspect anyone who would say they regret air-cooling a PC, probably also falls into the category of someone who hasn’t regretted water cooling a PC yet.
Oh dear. Totally not going water cooling I guess
I have water cooling in my PC, which I have had to replace as the one that originally came with it from the shop failed after about a year and a half.
The failure was not catastrophic however. The failure was in the sealing of the cooler, so when it got hot enough the water eventually evaporated out of it.
I haven’t had an issue with my new cooler since.
There’s nothing generally wrong with water cooling depending on your skill and commitment to the building process. There’s 2 ways to go with water cooling: an AIO (all in one) cooler, like this, or a custom loop, like this. The AIO you just follow the instruction manual and you’re set, a custom loop you have to buy all the parts, all the tubing, all the fittings, and assemble it all yourself. You have to really know what you’re doing.
My personal preference, however, is also to stick with air cooling. When an AIO breaks, the entire unit has to be replaced. When a tower air cooler breaks, its just the fan, which you can swap out more cheaply and easily.
OP if you live near a Microcenter, go check them out! They don’t do delivery orders, but they are a goldmine of hardware and enthusiast knowledge, and their prices are usually pretty reasonable********.
Oh, yeah I’ll probably roll with air cooling then. I don’t wanna do all that.
Lowkey don’t know if there’s even a microcenter here but I’ll check them out if I can manage it :)
Water-cooling is more expensive and needs to be replaced periodically, where air coolers cost way less and basically just last forever because they have no moving parts. I don’t think anyone should buy them but obviously that’s something of a hot take.
PCs are adult legos. Put your components in PC part picker and make sure they are compatible. At this point, look for a used system on Craigslist or etc to take the ram and hdd from. The other components might be a little inflated but not as bad.
Pcpartpicker is your friend. You can even check other builds if you’re not sure about part compatibility
and barring the occasional extremely good deal, building your own is usually much cheaper.(I stand correctd, it may be different state-side)Other than that, it all depends on how you game: if you want good fps in 1440p you’ll want one of 12gb+ GPUs, otherwise for 1080p you can get away with a nvidia 5060 / amd 9060. RAM pricing is absolutely obscene as you well know, but you can do a DDR4 build if it’s significantly cheaper than the current DDR5 in your area. Also if you do do a DDR4 build, you might go for a AMD AM4-socket cpu, since they’re easier to find.
I was in your position, and was lucky enough to have a roommate at the time who actually knew about and built his own PC. His advice to me was to buy a pre-built one if you really don’t know what you’re doing or getting into, which I didn’t. So far I’ve been using it happily almost every day for the last 6+ years, and I’ve only replaced the cooling unit in it. Though I do tend to play games that aren’t super intensive, I think the only game(s) I have/played that are are Spider-Man 2 and Jedi Survivor
The entry fee kinda hurts but ig once you buy one you don’t really replace the whole thing right?
If you get tired of a component you just replace it easily (at least I’ve been told it’s just “adult nerd Lego”
Any suggestions of where I should try shopping for one?
Can you just replace parts as you go with a PC? Yes, but not indefinitely. There will become a point where you would likely have to replace almost all of the components in a PC in order to upgrade, like when a new RAM or CPU socket type is introduced.
But that’s probably not often…
I assume at that point buying a new one is recommended.
I remember my roommate once had to upgrade his entire PC because the components weren’t compatible when he got a new motherboard. At that point it was basically just a second PC he built, using only a few parts from his old one that could work with the new stuff.
I got mine from iBuyPower, which he recommended to me. I got mine for about $2500 including the monitor, and it came in a couple weeks. It was basically just plug and play when I got it.
Interesting. Definitely don’t feel like spending 2000$ lmao.
100% just buying a new prebuilt if that happens
If you’re not opposed to it coming with Linux, all data says that the Steam Machine is a good deal for its specs. It’ll even have the added bonus of feeling familiar while still being a PC.
If you really wanna build one yourself, you can always check Newegg for parts. I think they’re going to be having their bit Black Friday sale going on soon too.
Otherwise, shop around for pre-builts! You might be able to get some at a good price, especially if it’s a model that’s on clearance.
I was looking at the steam machine but I’ve seen prebuilts with better specs than it. It’s not the 1st option on my list but I’m keeping an eye on it!
As whole electronic world suffer from RAM shortage and few super greedy fucks… aye, all the prices are stupidly high.
Buying market premade is often worst idea to - they put one nice part and 5 others are lowest tier possible, but then, drop ads that one part is super awesome (and not even always is)… making it whole barely handle unmoded minecraft (quite old game, with much simple graphics).
Buying all parts as You see them on stores now - its freaky expensive, yes… ImHo… don’t, unless You don’t care for wallet.
How to - again, we are in shitty times, but how it used to work before dramas - hunt the promos. You make a list of compatible parts (mostly CPU vs motherboard - they have to be same type, having same “socket type”). And seek promos daily on all stores around, if You see something fairly cheap - get it, then hunt other parts… It may take even few months to complete. Making it work together is no big deal, but for first time, could recommend getting a friend who did that before (there’s plenty).
Sadge, the promo hunt tactic, even if should be waaaay cheaper… is risky now - after few months, we may end with few great parts bought for silly monies… but the last one or two parts may get fucky high prices by the time… market is fucky crazy now, the way is risky, still should be cheapest for strong pc.
Note for hunt, sometimes, it may be even worthy getting whole cheap pc from market mentioned earlier - and throw bad parts out, keeping only 1-2 good parts for friendly price, it happens too, many tech markets don’t care the current prices, if some old stuff block warehouse, they may push them out for whatever, to just make warehouse space for newer things.
Yeah, market is sick… some called me mad, but few solid pro premades are on the market too… Personally, I’m standing with SteamMachine - went for it at moment of preorders, at moment, price of it was called high… today (half year later), price is still same, and everything else is stupidly higher. The power of SteamMachine is just a mid tier, nothing fancy. Some hunted could still be cheaper and-or stronger, at cost of daily checking lots of places for promos, if some have time for that, maybe maybe…
Note for SteamMachine being fairly cheap now, but being only mid tier… The rush for photorealistic graphics is gone. New mid tier pc from 2005-2015 would last 4-5 years before newest games wouldn’t run on this mid pc of back then. Currently, it all slowed down a lot - current mid tier pc, like SM… I expect it to handle new games just fine in 6-8 years in mid settings, so still playable.
Woah, wall of text. Welcome to the herd of PCMR.
Have a play around on PPP. They have build guides so pick one that is close to your budget and change around some parts so you learn what’s available.
Also RandomGamingHD on YouTube is great for beginners and helping understand what’s possible.
Oh thank you! Never heard of that channel so I’ll give it a check.
It’s a great channel for budget and older tech because it’s easy to overlook PC parts and what they are still capable of.
PC gamers can be quite obsessive of the newest tech and their FPS so I love channel like this that keep it real.
