WTB Low to Mid range gaming PC

[Arximiro]

I'm looking for a low to mid range gaming PC for my GF so she can play ARR with me. I can't afford to build her a nice one right now though so I'm trying my luck with you guys.

I'd like to spend around $400-$500 on one, shipping included in the price.


The specs I'd like to get are are
--A quad core or higher end dual core
--6-8ishGB of RAM
--A Decent graphics card (one capable of running ARR decently)
--A power supply capable of running the machine with a little left in the tank. I Don't want one that is barely able to handle the load and likely to poop out under duress quickly.

I don't need a hard drive or optical disc drive or OS discs, I have all that covered. I would prefer a machine that is 64-bit capable. (But that is about any PC made in the last 5 years) I'll be able to make the purchase on the 28th, but I'm getting the post up early to hopefully have something lined up in the pipes.

Thanks for any offers

[Arximiro]

I forgot to mention in the op but I'm fully expecting a used pc, not like a newly built one. I doubt anyone was confused but just incase I wanted to clarify.

[notorious bum]

I don't understand, a $500 barebones PC will run anything on high settings released in the next couple of years if you built one yourself. You'd be throwing away money on having to pay someone to ship you an older used PC.

[Arkanna]

I don't understand, a $500 barebones PC will run anything on high settings released in the next couple of years if you built one yourself. You'd be throwing away money on having to pay someone to ship you an older used PC.

Ehhh... that's really pushing it a bit.

[Arximiro]

Most barebones don't come with graphics cards and the power supplies are usually shit. At least from what I seen. If you know of a good one somewhere I'd be interested though.

[Intervention]

It's worth looking into the AMD A series CPUs. They have relatively strong integrate graphics, equal to about a $100 card, built into the CPU. I believe you can get the highest model for like $150. My wife's computer uses a A10-5800k and it runs WoW on ultra, not too hard of a feet, ARR and GW2 40 to 60 fps no problem without a discrete card. I recently bought a A8 laptop and runs ARR at 15-30 fps for like $350. Though mobile versions of the processors are weaker than desktop of course so the desktop equivalent will be substantially stronger.

Oh ya having the fast ram and it being in dual channel effects the graphics a lot, just wanted to throw that in as well.

Edit: Something I found on Newegg with basically the same setup as my wife.
http://www.Newegg.com/Product/ComboD...=Combo.1321555

[Arximiro]

It's worth looking into the AMD A series CPUs. They have relatively strong integrate graphics, equal to about a $100 card, built into the CPU. I believe you can get the highest model for like $150. My wife's computer uses a A10-5800k and it runs WoW on ultra, not too hard of a feet, ARR and GW2 40 to 60 fps no problem without a discrete card. I recently bought a A8 laptop and runs ARR at 15-30 fps for like $350. Though mobile versions of the processors are weaker than desktop of course so the desktop equivalent will be substantially stronger.

Oh ya having the fast ram and it being in dual channel effects the graphics a lot, just wanted to throw that in as well.

You mean like a motherboard with integrated graphics but the cpu powers the graphics port like a high end gcard? The world is certainly changing lol. Do you have a link to where I could look into that a bit more? That is a completely new concept to me.

[Arkanna]

You mean like a motherboard with integrated graphics but the cpu powers the graphics port like a high end gcard? The world is certainly changing lol. Do you have a link to where I could look into that a bit more? That is a completely new concept to me.

Specifically, the integrated graphics are part of the CPU but are on-par with I believe a Radeon HD 4000 series discrete card. I built one for one of my friend's kids who is a big Left 4 Dead 2 fan. It does "ok" with that game at 1680x1050, just to give some perspective.

[Intervention]

You mean like a motherboard with integrated graphics but the cpu powers the graphics port like a high end gcard? The world is certainly changing lol. Do you have a link to where I could look into that a bit more? That is a completely new concept to me.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...ew,3528-6.html

This is for the Richland, newest refresh but you'll get the idea. By no means its a power house but for the price and size, having no card, its pretty damn good.

[Intervention]

Specifically, the integrated graphics are part of the CPU but are on-par with I believe a Radeon HD 4000 series discrete card. I built one for one of my friend's kids who is a big Left 4 Dead 2 fan. It does "ok" with that game at 1680x1050, just to give some perspective.

For sure my wife's build was super cheap and the only thing she cares about is the game running and looking good enough. My plan is using it as a starting place and when she needs a better graphics we'll but a good video card. But for everything she plays it's been perfectly fine for her.

[Stromgarde]

If you're planning on building it for ARR, I highly suggest you look at the benchmark thread to get a good idea of where to get value for your money. There's a threshold, but by far GPU is the most important component and the combination of AMD CPU + integrated graphics seems to be asking for a terrible experience.

[Arximiro]

If you're planning on building it for ARR, I highly suggest you look at the benchmark thread to get a good idea of where to get value for your money. There's a threshold, but by far GPU is the most important component and the combination of AMD CPU + integrated graphics seems to be asking for a terrible experience.

Yeah I was hoping to find a decent used one on here that is good enough to run ARR. If I have no luck though I'll probably just save up and build her one.

[Stromgarde]

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/...-april-2013/2/
That's a link to Ars Technica's most recent budget system building guide, you're going to be over budget but I think this is in pretty in line with what you're looking for.

[Intervention]

If you're planning on building it for ARR, I highly suggest you look at the benchmark thread to get a good idea of where to get value for your money. There's a threshold, but by far GPU is the most important component and the combination of AMD CPU + integrated graphics seems to be asking for a terrible experience.

As mentioned, it's a good starting off point. It's not like you can't introduce a discrete card. Only weird issue we had is that it is every reliant on RAM. I initially placed the RAM incorrectly for dual channel, cause it to crash a lot and under perform, and placing it correctly upped the performance and made it more stable.

I went through some old chats when we were testing it. With the resolution set for 720p I believe she got 3579 on standard settings. I think she'll rerun the test and post it.

[Cayos]

I was considering selling my current desktop. It ran ARR pretty well, my benchmark score is somewhere deep in the benchmarking thread. If I remember correctly I got 30-60 FPS at 1920x1080 and medium graphics as long as I wasn't in a group of like 200 people during the alpha.

Here are the specs:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600, overclocked to 3.0 from 2.4
Cooler Master V8 aftermarket heatsink
Gigabyte Motherboard
NVIDIA Geforce GTX 470
4 GB RAM
600 W Power Supply
Thermaltake Case
Unfortunately I'm out of town for the next 2 months, and won't be getting back to my desktop until probably around August 20th. Let me know if you're interested and we can try and work something out.

[Stromgarde]

tbh the integrated graphics aren't the biggest problem, it's that AMD CPUs have had horrifically bad results across the board, although getting enough data on that has admittedly been a large problem. While the bench those scores were based on is beta code, it's not something I would count on changing. 3579 isn't terrible though, it may be worth holding out until the PS4 version comes out if you're amenable to that.

[Intervention]

tbh the integrated graphics aren't the biggest problem, it's that AMD CPUs have had horrifically bad results across the board, although getting enough data on that has admittedly been a large problem. While the bench those scores were based on is beta code, it's not something I would count on changing. 3579 isn't terrible though, it may be worth holding out until the PS4 version comes out if you're amenable to that.

Oh for sure, from the number crunching standpoint a high end graphics card for sure would be bottlenecked by the specific processor we are using. I'm basing it off of pure fps and in all honesty the other number don't really matter as long as the framerate holds up, when you are talking just about basic gaming. We are talking about low to mid here as well.

Oh ya here is the new benchmark that my wife ran:


edit: To think of it, I think may have saved the previous settings I set for it. So this is probably with various tweaks to get better numbers. Turned off depth of field, etc.

Once again very playable, for something that doesn't have an Discrete GPU.

[Arximiro]

Do you have a link to where you buy these at? Like possibly one posted on NewEgg or something.

Ty

Edit: I did find this, what do you guys think of this? I've always used Intel so I don't really know what quality of an AMD processor that is.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboB...=Combo.1321549

[Intervention]

I linked that exact build earlier. This is pretty much the same build as my wife's computer.

[Arximiro]

I linked that exact build earlier. This is pretty much the same build as my wife's computer.

Oh damn I didn't see your edit.

Edit: Also the one you linked me too is even cheaper, damn. Much better than the one I found.