best gaming computer components 2013
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Jesse Pink
I donât like computers very much. In fact, they rather bore me. But even I can put together a basic PC that can do what I want it to â surf the web and do a bit of gaming.
I built my current semi-powerful computer about a year ago and spent $700. If I had to guess, if I bought a similarly powered PC retail I may have spent twice that or more. A similarly powered Mac may cost $2,000 or more. I donât even know.
From what I understand, itâs very difficult, maybe impossible, unless you really know your stuff, to effectively build your own Mac â and even if you can, the component parts are more expensive.
Even if the Mac OS is more stable, so what? If Windows goes kaput, formatting everything and starting over is a pain, may take a few hours, but nearly anyone can do it.
Thus, is there a good reason for a casual user to use a Mac?
Answer
First of all, building a mac is quite simple. Essentially you are building a pc, and as the other answerer has stated there are programs which make it rather easy to install the mac OS. Now in my personal opinion, there is literally one reason to own a mac, and that is some of the exclusive software. For example, music production on a mac is generally superior thanks to programs such as logic pro, etc. Other than that, a PC just gives you so many more options. If one is a basic computer user with very limited knowledge, a mac generally makes things extremely easy for you, but in my opinion, its 2013...anyone could/should be able to function on a computer. PC takes the cake by far, not to mention that all of apples products are EXTREMELY overpriced as well. Hope I helped.
I'm looking to upgrade my desktop to improve gaming performance. What should i upgrade?
Frank
Hello everybody. I mainly play Arma 2 OA (Day z and Wasteland) the problem I'm experiencing are as such. When I'm pretty much anywhere I'm lucky to be getting 10 frames per second and if I'm in a major city If i get 5 Frames it's a very good day for me! What I would like to know is what component of my computer should i upgrade for a significant increase in my frame rates and general gaming performance? A gentleman I was speaking with told me that i should upgrade my motherboard, graphics card and try to get 16gb of ddr3 ram. Being new to upgrading computers I don't have a clue whether or not that is sound advice. So I was wondering if you wonderful people would be able to help me out? I'm able to supply my current computer specs if you ask me for them. Thank you very much in advance! (Just remembered something before I hit continue I'd like to play Arma 3 *for wasteland* and obviously the day z standalone.) Thanks again.
cpu - AMD A8-3820.
motherboard - Medion MS-7748
Ram - 4096MB ddr3
Graphics card- Amd Radeon HD 6550d 512mb
Any other specs you'd like?
Answer
EDIT:
You added your info.
A spec that would be helpful is your monitor resolution because that plays a huge factor in your gaming performance because if your monitor is 1280x1024 it's going to require a lot less than gaming in 1920x1080.
The A8 APU is actually kind of bad because of it's low clock speed, but we can work with that. Gaming depends more on the video card anyways. Also, I wouldn't upgrade your whole system because your computer is pretty new and it'd be kind of a waste. 4GB is enough for gaming.
I still stick with my video card recommendations. The APU+discreet AMD GPUs are just not really that great imo so don't get a cheap AMD video card to match your APU and expect great results. Again, I recommend GeForce cards to take advantage of PhysX. It's pretty cool if you play games that actually use it.
The other guy recommended the 7770 and 7850 which are $100 and $180 respectively. Not bad choices, the 7770 is between the GTX 650 and 650 Ti. The 7850 is between the 560 Ti and the 660 (performance-wise).
If you email me your monitor resolution, I'll be better able to suggest the right card for you, but to be safe, I'd get a GTX 560 Ti which would basically handle almost every game on high setting. It's better just to go a bit higher than you actually need so that you won't have to upgrade later when a newer more demanding game comes out down the road. justain@gmail
Original answer:
For a gaming computer, these are the minimum requirements:
Dual core 3 GHz or higher (preferably an AMD quad core or Intel i3 or i5 cpu)
4GB DDR3 1600 ram
Good video card (depends on what games you want to play)
Power supply that can handle your video card
So Arma 3 is the most demanding game that you listed. Arma 3 uses PhysX so you should get a NVidia card to take advantage of the PhysX eye-candy. It says get a GTX 260 or better. They don't sell those anymore. I would recommend either the GTX 650, GTX 650 Ti, GTX 560, or GTX 560 Ti (I sorted these in lowest to highest to make it easier). If you can afford it, the GTX 660 and 660 Ti are better options, and you probably won't have to upgrade your video card for at least 4 years.
If you don't have a dual core with 3GHz, then you'll have to upgrade your CPU and Motherboard, and probably your ram as well. Like I stated above, you're going to want an AMD quad core, Intel i3 (2nd generation or higher), or Intel i5 (2nd generation or higher) CPU. You can tell which generation an intel cpu is by the 4 digit number following the i3, i5, or i7. The first number of that 4 digit # is the generation number. So an Intel i5-3570k is 3rd gen, i3-2120 is 2nd gen, i3-770 is 1st gen. Anything else is a dinosaur. Choosing your motherboard is just making sure that it'll work with your CPU. Choose one from Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, and Asrock and you'll be good. Make sure it has SATA3, USB3.
CPU part 2: The best CPU for gaming is the Intel i5-3570k. It's $220 at newegg. I think the prices on Intel CPUs might drop soon because Intel's new CPUs (Haswell) is coming out June 2, 2013. With that said, you can get an AMD quad core CPU for around $70-130, and the motherboards are a bit cheaper than Intel mobos, so that might be a better option. For gaming, the Intel i3s (dual core with hyperthreading) are actually very similar and slightly better than the AMD quad cores, and i3 CPUs are cheaper than AMD quad cores so that's another option. Just make sure you get the 2nd gen cpus (Sandy Bridge) or 3rd gen (Ivy Bridge).
Ram, all you need is 4GB of 1600MHz DDR3 ram, but 8GB is usually like $10-15 more so you might as well just get 8GB (2x4GB modules so that you can run them in dual-channel).
Power supply: Get a Corsair or Antec 430w or 500w PSU. The 430w PSUs will be good enough for the video cards I listed, but it's always good to have a little headroom on your PSU. Also, get a Corsair or Antec. Thermaltake is okay. They are the best PSUs for the price. A lot of PSUs lie about how much wattage it can produce, so a 500w PSU can actually be a 250w PSU. There are hundreds of different PSUs so I can't give advice on all of those, so just stick with Antec/Corsair and you'll be good.
If you decide to get an i3+motherboard+ram+GTX 650+PSU, that should run you around $300 total.
If you decide to get an i5+motherboard+ram+GTX 660 Ti+PSU, that should run you around $600.
the i5+660Ti option will more than double the gaming performance and you'll be able to play basically every game on the market on max settings.
The i3+650 option will be more than enough for your needs now, and it will be an extremely good day for you.
If you have any further questions, email me at justain@gmail
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