What's the best gaming pc setup I could get in the 600-800$ range?

As a nerdy gamer I think I have to explain something to you as there is a common misconception floating around that graphics make a great game. Honestly, I’m not impressed with most of the newer stuff on the market today. Take a game like Final Fantasy 7 for example. It’s challenging, it has a great story line and my copy was made for the PS1 system!

Before you go spending lots of money on the latest and shiniest I would advise you ask yourself exactly what you want out of a system. I’d hate to see you spend lots of money on stuff that you’re really not happy with.

I’m a little old school and I don’t know if that’s the direction you had in mind but I’m happy with my PS2 as a PS1 memory card works with it and I can play PS1 games on it. I’m also happy with my Xbox 360 which has a rather diverse portfolio of great games like Fable and my Xbox 360 will play older Xbox games like Mortal Combat. (slightly modified…)

The best part about it is I could go on Ebay right now and sink $100 in both systems. Why would I get something new if I’m happy with what I have? Anyway, if you’re looking for a family system, personally I’d go with a PS2 as there are a TON of games and being that it’s been of the market for a few years you can pick them up at flea markets just about everywhere for super cheap!

Some will probably disagree but that’s my answer and I’m sticking to it. :)

If assembling your own appeals to you, here are a couple of guides:

Lifehacker – The Best PCs You Can Build for $300, $600, and $1200

Ars Technica System Guide: July 2013

@jaytkay That’s a good site. I think there’s a fella on fluther here somewhere floating around that builds computers like that but I can’t remember the name. Anyway, I suggested consoles only because it’s a personal preference and I think reviewing all the options on the table makes for a more aware and happier customer. What do you think about the selection on Overstock.com? I found a beast of a system… :) Some of them are on sale!

http://www.overstock.com/Electronics/CyberpowerPC-Gamer-Xtreme-GUA250-w-AMD-FX-4130-3.8GHz-Gaming-Computer/6325729/product.html?cid=202290&kid=9553000357392&track=pspla&ef_id=UbJTkAAAAeDQdHEU:20130909145746:s

@keobooks I hope that helped! I’m a little impressed that you asked because a lot of folks just dive in and aren’t satisfied with what they get. It’s good to be savvy and ask a lot of questions!

i stopped reading at the amd cpu

I specifically want it to play Sims3 at the highest settings. That is basically it. If it can do that, it can run everything else. TS3 won’t take up more than 4g memory to play, but it demands high graphics to play even at medium settings .I want about 8g ram so that I can multitask while I play.

I could show you the specs, but EA SUCKS. They lowball the minimum specs for a game and then they never put into consideration that most ‘hardcore’ Sims players play with all of the expansion packs at the same time. They only give the requirements of what you need with the base game and the current EP they are selling. So I am going with what I’ve heard is the maximum memory that the game uses anyway.

But for the other stuff, I just don’t know what I need. It’s hard to tell when EA lowballs what you need and there isn’t really an easy to read “TO play TS3 with all of the expansion packs, you need… x amount of Vram. There are also issues because of licensing agreements—there are some kickass video cards that EA won’t bother to make their games compatible with. So not only do I need a high end card, I need the “right” one that is on this huge list of specific cards you can use. Or else I will get a black screen.

I am NOT happy with what I have. Right now, my husband and I—who are both gamers—are sharing one machine because the others are several years old and not anywhere near minimum specs to play our games. So we need another machine because we need 2 in the house.

Sorry to double post: This thread is where sims players are talking about the best rigs. But the technical talk is way over my head. If anyone can translate this into English and suggest a decent premade desktop that sounds equivolent to these custom specs I’d appreciate it.

I had a machine built from Tiger Direct, but that was about 10 years ago and I’m not up on the tech talk anymore. I don’t want to build unless I have to.

@keobooks I love sims! :)

I just found out Tigerdirect no longer makes custom builds. Could anyone direct me to a site that still does? I do NOT want to built it by hand myself. I am just going to put in the specs that someone else made and have them build it for me.

I know of a couple… It’s enough to make you dizzy… Have you ever considered building one yourself? Anyway, here are some sites.

http://www.digitalstormonline.com/

http://www.maingear.com/

http://www.ibuypower.com

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/

I will check these sites thanks. As I said before I do NOTE want to build it by hand myself. I have a toddler and I’m clumsy.

I tried ibuypower and maingear and found 2 systems that match the specs the poster put out in the 700$ range.

I wish I knew which of these games was the graphic equivalent to the sims3, because they have a nice setup on ibuypower for selecting a gaming system to play certain games.

* Skyrim
* SC II
* Far Cry III
* Black OPs II
* Crysis III
* Mass Effect III
* Star Wars Old Republic
* League of Legends
* Battlefield 3
* World of Warcraft

My first instinct is to go with Skyrim or Mass Effect as they are both EA games, but I have no idea if that means anything at all. Any idea which game is the graphically closest to TS3?

@keobooks Honestly bud that’s why I stick to consoles for gaming. I really don’t know. Although my wife is in to WOW and apparently can get that one to work on most anything.

Yeah, WoW has such a wide range of graphic options. You can get the low end to play on anything, but if you want “ULTRA” options you need to shell out over a thousand. I cant imagine what playing WoW on full graphics would look like. Probably awesome and amazing landscape but the people still look like poorly rendered hair-lipped steroid freaks.

I am not a console gamer at all. Never got into it. The console versions of the sims aren’t sandbox, so I avoid it.

Edited to add: Found a WoW machine for 700 bucks..ULTRA WOW WOOO! hehe but I don’t play anymore.

I do perfectly fine on a 3 year old Gateway that I bought for $500… and dropped, my old 650W power supply and an nVidia GTX465 into. World of Tanks runs ~30 frames/sec on High at 1920×1080, and that’s enough for me.

You can get systems equal to mine for around $700. The video card and a power supply that can support it are what really separates gaming rigs from normal computers.

Thanks. I was wondering what was the difference was. I see lots of systems that claim to run most of the games I listed in highest graphics mode in the 700 range. And this is a good time to buy with summer specials and all.

While a powerful CPU helps to a point, much of the processing required for games is handled by the video card. In fact, some people build computers based on video card GPUs rather than regular CPUs as they are built more massively parallel processing the same way multi-million dollar supercomputers are.

More RAM helps to a point, but even under heavy gaming, I’ve rarely used more than 4 of the 6 GB I have.

Bigger hard drives don’t help much, though faster hard drives lead to faster load times. But aside from loading faster, they don’t help much; they don’t really affect any other aspect of performance.

A good video card is where the biggest gains in gaming performance are to be found, but a good video card draws a lot of power; enough to melt the PSU in most stock computers. They also generate a lot of heat, usually handled by adding case fans. A good video card will cost at least $100, and there’s a huge difference between a $100 card and an $80 card, thoughmnot much difference between a $300 and a $500 card. $100–150 seems to be the sweet spot.

For better or worse, I bought the machine. I tried all of the sites and couldn’t decide between two. My husband said he was willing to spend extra money and get off the Dell site so I went with Dell just to please him.

I used some specs from the site I mentioned and some specs from this forum thread and selected my requirements on dell based on what was recommended for running the Sims at max settings. Then I went to the Dell site and put in my configuration requirements into their site to select the best machine at the best price. I ended up with this machine and it was 100 bucks more than I initially wanted to spend, but my husband was satisfied that it would be a good machine with a good warranty and customer support.

I never thought I’d buy Alienware, but this one was reasonably priced and more than met my needs.

Looks good, good job! I would dither for weeks before I figured out what I wanted.

Alienware is slightly overpriced, but then again, I am the type that typically buys components on sale and puts them together myself. I got lazy on my current rig. For those that don’t feel like chasing deals and turning screws, it’s worth a little more to get a pre-built.

That particular machine looks decent enough. The i5 is a solid CPU, 8GB is plenty of RAM, and I know what the GTX 465 is capable of (not the best card out there, but one of the best values). It will get the job done, and the price isn’t bad for what you are getting.

Two things bug me though.

1) The power supply…. I don’t know if I would run a GTX 465 (or any decent card for that matter) on less than a 450W unit. Maybe they did something to make it work on a 330W unit, but I’d keep an eye on it.

2) Please tell me you went with Windows 7 instead of 8!

I didn’t really want an Alienware. I should have elaborated when I said “I never thought I’d buy one.” I found cheaper rigs with the same specs on every site I looked at. But my husband suddenly bolted and wanted me to go with Dell only. So long as I got the specs I wanted, I didn’t really care enough to argue to save 100 or so dollars—and I knew this argument I’d never win. He doesn’t put his foot down often, but he gets an idea…

I do like that its a very small case and with some creativity, I could do all sorts of fun things with it. I do worry about the power supply myself. It’s underpowered IMO, but I haven’t seen any reviews saying it was dangerous. The only negative things I heard about the power supply was that it was too large (size of a man’s shoe, according to one review) and heavy. It’s external, btw. I wonder if I can find a better power supply for it. Sigh.. more cash.

And oh yes it’s on Win7 instead of 8. That’s one thing that limited my options on Dell. I refused to get Win8, and they are almost totally converted to it. This reminded me of when I bought a laptop from them and they refused to put XP on it—only Vista. I’m lucky that any machines at all were running Win7 on that site.

BTW @jerv Thanks for pointing out the power supply because it has a 240watt standard and cost 99$ to upgrade to 330watt. And for some reason, it doesn’t allow you to upgrade this when you buy the package. So I sneaked on and bought the upgraded power supply.

MANY reviews claim the 330 watt runs GTX 645 perfectly fine and there have not been any issues.

UPDATE: After reading about “pink screens of doom” and “five beeps of death” I was really worried. And then after finding a review on Amazon where they guy said he loved the machine, but he had to open the case and glue something down with gorilla glue before it worked—I thought—this thing is a glass cannon.

This is NOT what I wanted and I only got it because my husband kept going on about dell being the only option. So I told my husband that my gut said now and that dell may have been it 10 years ago, but it isn’t it now and everyone I knew told me to go with Ibuypower.com and I had a nice system picked out for over 100$ less (200$ less when you factor in that I upgraded the power supply)

So he relented and felt really bad that he pressured me into dell. He finally trusted that I did my research better than him.

Here is the rig I built and was considering. Could you give it a lookseee? Sorry for all these posts.

Gamer Mage D245
* Case ( AZZA Armour Gaming Case – Blue )
* Processor ( AMD FX-6300 )
* Processor Cooling ( Liquid CPU Cooling System [AMD] – Standard 120mm Fan )
* Memory ( 8 GB [4 GB X2] DDR3–1600 Memory Module – Corsair or Major Brand )
* Video Card ( AMD Radeon HD 7790 – 1GB – Single Card )
* Motherboard ( ASUS M5A97 R2.0—AMD 970 )
* Power Supply ( 500 Watt – Corsair CX500 V2 )
* Hard Drive ( 2 TB SATA HARD DRIVE—32M Cache, 7200 RPM, 6.0Gb/s – Single Drive
* Optical Drive ( 24x Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive – Black )
* Flash Media Reader / Writer ( 12-In-1 Internal Flash Media Card Reader/Writer – Black )
* Sound Card ( 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard )
* Network Card ( Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100) )
* Operating System ( Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium + Office Starter 2010 (Includes basic versions of Word and Excel) – 64-Bit )
* Warranty ( 3 Year Standard Warranty Service ) (Dell only had 1 year!!)

Corsair PSU and RAM… they mean business! That right there tells me it’s quality. 500w is enough for a single-card system. Nice 6-core CPU, video card slightly better than mine…

I think I want one!

Thanks. Someone told me the GPU was a little weak. You think so? Oh and the liquid cooling is a free upgrade this month on the site btw.

I used NCIX instead of ibuypower, but I basically got this same system. You buy the parts piece by piece and pay them 50 bucks to put it together and give you a year warranty.

The 7790 is a solid mid-range card. In fact, it’s closest nVidia competitor is the GTX465, a card I know well. You’ll be fine.