Good specs for a gaming pc?

J

JesusFreak312

New Member
Hey, I'm looking at buying a new gaming PC for myself and my YouTube channel, since my old one is crap that doesn't handle 3D very well, ie. it doesn't run smoothly.
I was wondering if these specs would be ok for gaming. Keep in mind that I have a very low budget for this computer since I don't make much money.

Specs:
Processor: Dual-core; 2-3 GHz (preferably an Intel)
Graphics card: 1 GB memory
Memory:4GB of RAM
Hard drive: 512GB HDD

Thanks for your input and suggestions on improving it. I'd like to keep the cost under $1000
 
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First off, try not to be sucked in by all the buzz words like 'dual cores' ad how many GHz it is and stuff like that. You can't just look at a processor these days and see that it is a dual core @ 3ghz and be satisfied with that. It means nothing. I could find a single core processor under 3Ghz that could blow a quad core 3ghz processor right out of the water. It mattes what KIND of processor you have not how many cores or at what clock speed it runs. Same goes for the graphics card, don't get caught up entirely by the amount of video ram it has. There are other things to look at including what type of video ram it is (GDDR 3/5) what type of GPU it uses, etc.

That being said, for a thousand dollars you could get a much better computer than you described in your list there. 4GB ram is not much anymore (I'm not saying it isn't ENOUGH, just that most computers being sold today will have more).

If you want an idea how good a particular part is, check out a benchmarking website like passmark (Click HERE for GPU and HERE for CPU benchmarks.) and look how it compares.

Honestly, I'd just check out some of the sales at your local computer store, do a bit of research on the components it offers, compare a few and make a decision. If you're coming from an old computer that can barely handle 3D graphics, then it won't even matter WHAT you pick, you're going to love it. You can get QUITE the PC for under a thousand dollars these days.
 
davidireland said:
First off, try not to be sucked in by all the buzz words like 'dual cores' ad how many GHz it is and stuff like that. You can't just look at a processor these days and see that it is a dual core @ 3ghz and be satisfied with that. It means nothing. I could find a single core processor under 3Ghz that could blow a quad core 3ghz processor right out of the water. It mattes what KIND of processor you have not how many cores or at what clock speed it runs. Same goes for the graphics card, don't get caught up entirely by the amount of video ram it has. There are other things to look at including what type of video ram it is (GDDR 3/5) what type of GPU it uses, etc.

That being said, for a thousand dollars you could get a much better computer than you described in your list there. 4GB ram is not much anymore (I'm not saying it isn't ENOUGH, just that most computers being sold today will have more).

If you want an idea how good a particular part is, check out a benchmarking website like passmark (Click HERE for GPU and HERE for CPU benchmarks.) and look how it compares.

Honestly, I'd just check out some of the sales at your local computer store, do a bit of research on the components it offers, compare a few and make a decision. If you're coming from an old computer that can barely handle 3D graphics, then it won't even matter WHAT you pick, you're going to love it. You can get QUITE the PC for under a thousand dollars these days.
Click to expand...

Lol okay. I'm almost pro level at how electronics work, but an entire noob at evaluating specs. Thanks for the advice!
 
I didn't notice you said you were going to build one. I was thinking you were buying when i wrote the last part of my reply.

If you'ure building I'd have some more advice. Building is pretty easy and fun. You don't save as much money compared to retail PCs now as you did years ago, but it's still fun...

Buying the parts online is probably your best bet if you want to save as much money as possible. This way you can compare prices from several sources and see who has best price for the same part.

I'd put a good part of your budget into the CPU. Look for an intel core i7 or a good i5. Check out the benchmarking site I linked before when you are trying to decide which one to buy. There are A LOT of options. Hundreds. So this will help show you what the best value is because some of the more expensive processors dont perform as well as less expensive ones.

As far as the motherboard goes I'm partial to ASUS boards. They seem to work very well compared to a lot of crap I've seen from other manufacturers. That's just my oppinion though. Make sure the board you select is compatible with the socket type of the CPU you chose.

Look to see how many slots of RAM the mobo has and find a good sale. When you're looking at RAM the clock speed is one thing to look at. You're going to be buying DDR3 so the RAM will be PC3[12800/10600/etc] the number after PC3 is the speed of the RAM. If you put one stick of a slower speed with one with a faster speed, you will slow the faster one down. So buy all in the same speed.

I'd reccomend an SSD (solid state) SATA 3 drive for the operating system to be installed on (make sure the MOBO has SATA 3 if you do buy a SATA 3 drive). They tend to fail more than a hard drive, but as so much faster to boot up with. As in, 13 second boot times into Windows. Also, I'd get a SATA 3 HDD to hold all other data (anything not the OS or installed programs..not even games)

I'm not much of an expert on video cards. But like I said check out some benchmarks. Pick a card with 1GB or more of GRRD5 preferably. But to find which is the best chipset look at the benchmarks. The model number of the card/chipset/GPU is more important than how much video ram it has. The board and the card will almot definitely be PCI-Express x 16.

Then make sure that you get a power supply with enough wattage and also one that has the correct power cable type for the video card you bought. Look at the specs for the video card you choose for what kind of power it uses (how many pins) and cross reference that with the power supply specs.

Good luck!
 
davidireland said:
I didn't notice you said you were going to build one. I was thinking you were buying when i wrote the last part of my reply.

If you'ure building I'd have some more advice. Building is pretty easy and fun. You don't save as much money compared to retail PCs now as you did years ago, but it's still fun...

Buying the parts online is probably your best bet if you want to save as much money as possible. This way you can compare prices from several sources and see who has best price for the same part.

I'd put a good part of your budget into the CPU. Look for an intel core i7 or a good i5. Check out the benchmarking site I linked before when you are trying to decide which one to buy. There are A LOT of options. Hundreds. So this will help show you what the best value is because some of the more expensive processors dont perform as well as less expensive ones.

As far as the motherboard goes I'm partial to ASUS boards. They seem to work very well compared to a lot of crap I've seen from other manufacturers. That's just my oppinion though. Make sure the board you select is compatible with the socket type of the CPU you chose.

Look to see how many slots of RAM the mobo has and find a good sale. When you're looking at RAM the clock speed is one thing to look at. You're going to be buying DDR3 so the RAM will be PC3[12800/10600/etc] the number after PC3 is the speed of the RAM. If you put one stick of a slower speed with one with a faster speed, you will slow the faster one down. So buy all in the same speed.

I'd reccomend an SSD (solid state) SATA 3 drive for the operating system to be installed on (make sure the MOBO has SATA 3 if you do buy a SATA 3 drive). They tend to fail more than a hard drive, but as so much faster to boot up with. As in, 13 second boot times into Windows. Also, I'd get a SATA 3 HDD to hold all other data (anything not the OS or installed programs..not even games)

I'm not much of an expert on video cards. But like I said check out some benchmarks. Pick a card with 1GB or more of GRRD5 preferably. But to find which is the best chipset look at the benchmarks. The model number of the card/chipset/GPU is more important than how much video ram it has. The board and the card will almot definitely be PCI-Express x 16.

Then make sure that you get a power supply with enough wattage and also one that has the correct power cable type for the video card you bought. Look at the specs for the video card you choose for what kind of power it uses (how many pins) and cross reference that with the power supply specs.

Good luck!
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, I am actually buying, not building. Thx for noticing the typo.
 
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