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I am looking for a decent gaming PC for my son. I'm out of touch with what is the basic requirements for ram, video card, HD etc...apparently liquid cooling is common? Jeesh. Anyhow, can anyone recommend one? Dell has something called the X51 that looks ok, but reviews look bad. Budget is about $1200 for the tower. Any feedback appreciated..thanks!
Terry how old is your son and where does he rank on a scale of 1-5 (is he just getting into gaming or would you be more likely to find him glued to the screen at 3AM with a hand in a bag of Doritos while chugging back a case of Mountain Dew)?
I'm not as technical as I used to be but for the latter I'd go with minimum Intel Core i5 processor and 8GB memory.. Personally I'd recommend an i7 and if budget allows go to 16GB (can be done at a later time easily enough).
A dedicated graphics card is a must for serious gaming and shouldn't be overlooked.. I always preferred NVIDIA over the other guys but AMD also makes some great cards. The GeForce GTX 970 4GB is a strong contender and supports the new virtual reality technology. Even if he never goes down the VR path it's still a big performer.
Alienware has a certain cult-like following and for some it's the crème de la crème of the PC gaming world. The x51 is a solid machine. I'm not sure what the reviews say but in Porsche terms I'd compare the X51 to a Carrera S, and the Area 51 to a GT3. The X51 still offers a lot of bang for your buck but you can spend a whole lot more to get into the upper echelon of PC gaming.
The Dell XPS 8900 is also a respectable machine and you can get one nicely equipped and a good performer. If your son isn't a diehard gamer you can go this path and still get an awesome PC without the crazy graphics card and save a few bucks.
Check out these links, if you decide to go ahead feel free to PM me and I can hook you up with my employee discount.
Couple shops dt that can put one together for you. If you are local to downtown I can show you where I got mine built. Build cost me around $900 and I can run pretty much anything on max settings right now. Also agree with zer026T's basic specs.
Terry how old is your son and where does he rank on a scale of 1-5 (is he just getting into gaming or would you be more likely to find him glued to the screen at 3AM with a hand in a bag of Doritos while chugging back a case of Mountain Dew)?
I'm not as technical as I used to be but for the latter I'd go with minimum Intel Core i5 processor and 8GB memory.. Personally I'd recommend an i7 and if budget allows go to 16GB (can be done at a later time easily enough).
A dedicated graphics card is a must for serious gaming and shouldn't be overlooked.. I always preferred NVIDIA over the other guys but AMD also makes some great cards. The GeForce GTX 970 4GB is a strong contender and supports the new virtual reality technology. Even if he never goes down the VR path it's still a big performer.
Alienware has a certain cult-like following and for some it's the crème de la crème of the PC gaming world. The x51 is a solid machine. I'm not sure what the reviews say but in Porsche terms I'd compare the X51 to a Carrera S, and the Area 51 to a GT3. The X51 still offers a lot of bang for your buck but you can spend a whole lot more to get into the upper echelon of PC gaming.
The Dell XPS 8900 is also a respectable machine and you can get one nicely equipped and a good performer. If your son isn't a diehard gamer you can go this path and still get an awesome PC without the crazy graphics card and save a few bucks.
Check out these links, if you decide to go ahead feel free to PM me and I can hook you up with my employee discount.
Awesome info Justin, thanks for those details! He is not an all nighter, but I always want to get something that has room to grow. I appreciate you taking the time for the details response and the discount offer!
Couple shops dt that can put one together for you. If you are local to downtown I can show you where I got mine built. Build cost me around $900 and I can run pretty much anything on max settings right now. Also agree with zer026T's basic specs.
Nice to get some solid and consistent advice, thanks! I am in Toronto, so pm me the location where you had yours built and I'll check them out. Thanks.
The GTX 970 is a great card, and excellent value for money. However, it is almost 2 years old and it's successor (GTX 1070) was just recently announced. If you're willing to wait a couple weeks, you should start seeing desktop towers with the GTX 1070. The card itself is scheduled to release June 10th.
In terms of performance, it is a pretty significant jump. It's just a hair faster than the GTX Titan X (a $1000 card) for less than half its price. And you're looking at around 70 percent performance bump on top of the GTX 970.
I work with tech so I guess I'm a bit of a nerd also.. I go through gaming hardware alot but it's for password hashing, not gaming proper.
There's a dozen ways to do this, and lots of different parts specs that will work. But first decide if you want a laptop or desktop, then store bought or custom made.
I personally would go for a laptop but it has to be high end. MSI gt72 or ASUS ROG are my recommendations. And then get a gtx 980 in those and that is a great machine.
You can save a bit and have future upgrade options if you get a desktop. If you don't want to build your own Dell xps and alienware are good.
I would walk into a Canada computers and get the guy behind the counter to walk you through building a custom box. They can put it together and recommend specs based on your budget. Video card is very important for gaming and I would get the new nvidia 1080 or a gtx980ti as a minimum. But again you'll have to make balance sacrifices (ram, CPU,video, hdd) based on your budget.
This makes getting a gaming laptop attractive. Its portable, small footprint, and just as powerful as a gaming desktop.
Just my opinion, and i purchase probably 10 gaming type machines a year at work.
Terry - all solid advice so far (another IT nerd here)... the only thing that's out of line is your budget. I don't know what fenixv8 had built for $900, but a decent gaming video card and a power supply alone are going to exceed $1200. Just a heads-up. I've build several rigs for customers over the last few months - a gaming PC is easily going to run you about $3-4K without the monitor(s).
Ya good point I missed the $1200 budget. I'd say you need to juggle your specs and lower the expectations but you can still manage a decent system.
I got a (for my son) $2800 gaming laptop on kijiji for $1400. It was top of the line (but 2 years ago) and it's still a top tier gamer. So if you're confident enough in what you want I'd suggest kijiji for a used rig.
yeah it all comes down to budget budget budget. But if you are Budget conscious you cn still put a decent gaming rig together. here are some genera pointers.
you don't need an i7 for a gaming rig. Save you money for the video card and go with I-5 .
you wont need watercooling unless you plan on a K series cpu ( overcloking ) . normal clocked hardware will do fine with air cooling . ( and we all know air cooled is far superior to water cooling )
get good quality dual channel ram and an SSD ( although is great for boot time run most of your games off a standard drive to save cash on mega size ssd )
get a modular power supply so you don't have a bunch of cables flopping around you wont need ( gold class )
The heart of gaming comes down to video , you can go crossfire with multiple vide cards so it all depends. Nvidea pretty well owns the top end but some good budget cards are available . I have a gtx 970 and its a very decent card and supports multiple monitors no problem all running smooth.
AMD is coming out with the RX480 at the end of the month and is a budget card with reportedly good performance so check that out.
I think around 1700 will get you a very decent gaming rig.
Thanks for the feedback and info from everyone! Very helpful. Looks like shopping for a rig is most of the fun. I think I'll go to Canada computers armed with the tech knowledge I just gained and try to put something together!
My secret I amassed a list of all the parts I wanted from a few US websites then took the list to a place near Spadina and college. The guy thought they were Canadian prices and did his best to price match what he could. Instant $400 savings from all the parts. I think $4000 is a bit overkill? For someone that probably wants to just run Overwatch etc.
Just had to trash a $12,000 gaming computer from Falcon Northwest (it's a long story). I saved the monitor. A top of the line Asus 27". I would sell it for $250 in perfect condition if interested.
06-06-2016, 07:31 AM
Gaming PC - recommendations.
