Advice needed: New gaming PC

[leerob]

Pretty much the title.


My current PC has been built from scratch by my ex and me about 4 or 5 years ago and at this point it is loud, hot when it shouldn't be, turns off when it shouldn't, the power source seems to be out of whack, etc... in short, it's senile. Every time I move (unplug everything for the transport etc) I need to set up the complete fucker from scratch because otherwise it just doesn't work right, and I move a lot so fuck that.

Current System information:
OS: Win 8.1
HDD: 2 TB
Processor: AMD FX™-8320 Eight-Core Processor 3.51GHz
Installed memory: 16.0 GB
System type 64 bit OS , x64-based processor

For OS: While I don't want Win 10, I am aware that at this point I probably should go for it.
HDD can stay at 2TB but no less.
I would like memory and processor better in the new computer but am unsure what to look for.


I will probably try to order off amazon or some other website because in Ireland it seems to be the case that computers are more expensive than elsewhere (based on same build etc). 
So yea, I'd be happy to hear some suggestions or if you have some links I would love to check those out as well.

Thanks
Rob

[EvieTheAvocado]

I love my Fujitsu laptop

The most powerful game my laptop can run is the newest Doom, that came out in 2016.

But I never really need to play anything higher end than that.

My old laptop was low end for 2012. This one is high end for 2015.

My old one couldn't even run Terraria without lagging ... but I love my new one. All the games I actually play regularly I get no lag with.

It can also run things like WoW and Diablo 3 fine on the maximum graphics settings.

What sort of games are you wanting to be able to run?

[JesseB]

https://www.sagernotebook.com/Notebook-NP9175.html

^ This, best bang for your buck, if you can afford to blow more money get similar unit from MSI better quality but more expensive.
I run the Sager NP9877 they no longer make that model it's been replaced by the model linked.


Might wanna put how much money you can blow on a laptop their chief

[Dom]

In a gaming PC, you want the best graphics card out there. As far as I know, that would be nividia.

[leerob]

@EvieTheAvocado Thanks. Can you please tell me what model you have so I can google it (and probably the newer versions of it)
@JesseB Thanks for the link. I checked it as well as the other laptops on their site and it is unfortunately way above my budget.
@Dom At this point I am even thinking about just custom building again and using NVIDIA this time. I had an NVIDIA one in my old laptop and it ran fine until the whole thing died.

I'll see what amazon has that I can afford... maybe...

[JesseB]

@EvieTheAvocado Thanks. Can you please tell me what model you have so I can google it (and probably the newer versions of it)
@JesseB Thanks for the link. I checked it as well as the other laptops on their site and it is unfortunately way above my budget.
@Dom At this point I am even thinking about just custom building again and using NVIDIA this time. I had an NVIDIA one in my old laptop and it ran fine until the whole thing died.

I'll see what amazon has that I can afford... maybe...

Buy a 200 dollar piece of shit and save up for 6 months and you can afford the most expensive gaming machine available (or close enough you'd be top tier), and you'd be better off for it because you are in fact a hard core gamer. You should start treating yourself better.

[Chas]

Run games from a large SSD; much faster than HDD.

The prices for solid-state drives has dropped significantly.

Windows 10 is superior to 8.  (N.B.  I run Win 7 and Win 10; 8's a dog.)

[Aliza]

Whatever you do, don't take any advice on gaming PC's from @Tartarus Sauce.

[Paleophyte]

Current System information:
OS: Win 8.1

My suspicion is that Windoze Hate is a large part of your problem. All of the Windows patches are bloaty and tend to choke computers to death given enough time. Also check your vents and heat sinks for dust.

If you get a new machine get a solid state drive. This will make your machine much zippier than a conventional HD. You can save some cost by having a smaller SSD (I use 500 Mbytes) for the OS and critical files and a second conventional HD for bulk storage. SSDs have no moving parts, so boot and load times are dramatically reduced.

Also consider losing Windoze. You may not be able to depending on your needs and the games that you like, but if you can migrate to Linux then your machine will likely run significantly cooler and faster. Most variants have a windowing environment, so there's not a great adjustment. I'm running an ancient laptop with Lubuntu running off an SSD. A full shut down and reboot takes under ten seconds. Never again will I wander off to get snacks while waiting for my OS to load.

[Joods]

My only suggestion is that if you are building your own, use liquid to cool what you can and get a fan for the other parts. The guy that built my computer uses liquid to cool the main components instead of a fan because it just runs better all around.

I don't go to places like Best Buy or any chain place to get my computers anymore. I deal with a local computer repair man who does a phenomenal job at building some awesome computers.

Here's some of his work. The first picture is a water cooled RGB 4k gaming build. 









You need to find a guy who does this sort of stuff, local to you.

[EvieTheAvocado]

@EvieTheAvocado Thanks. Can you please tell me what model you have so I can google it (and probably the newer versions of it)

Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (10.0, Build 17134) (17134.rs4_release.180410-1804)
     System Manufacturer: FUJITSU
            System Model: CELSIUS H730
                    BIOS: Phoenix BIOS SC-T v2.1 (type: BIOS)
               Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-4810MQ CPU @ 2.80GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
                  Memory: 32768MB RAM
     Available OS Memory: 32650MB RAM
               Page File: 5827MB used, 31686MB available
         DirectX Version: DirectX 12

This one's mine.

Review of its processor from notebookcheck.net:

Our review configuration uses the "bread and butter CPU" Intel Core i7-4710MQ. It offers a very good compromise between the price, multi-core and single-core performance. The technical specifications are a clock of up to 3.5 GHz (Turbo Boost), four cores (up to eight threads) and a 6 MB L3 cache with a TDP of 47 Watts.

As well as the very good practical impressions during the tests, the benchmark results also allow us to compare the processor with many other models in our comprehensive CPU benchmark list. Cinebench R15, for example, determines 134 points (Single-Thread) and 600 points (Multi-Thread) for the quad-core chip. Our device finished the SuperPi calculation 32M (Single-Thread) in 567 seconds and the wPrime1024 calculation (Multi-Thread) in 259 seconds. The results are on the expected level for the Intel Core i7-4710MQ, and therefore roughly on par with the direct successor Intel Core i7-4700MQ.

Continuous load for more than two hours results in a processor clock of 2.6 to 2.7 GHz. However, compromises have to be made in terms of power consumption on battery power. Fujitsu is quite aggressive and throttles the processor to 800 MHz. For example, Cinebench R15 (Multi) only determines 162 instead of 600 points in this scenario, which is around a quarter of the actual performance.

I dunno if mine was upgraded or not (this quote is about the original model ... but the specs I gave you are from my exact PC). Mine is second hand. It's been able to run any game I want to actually play without any lag at all, though.

Because of the built-in turbo boost ... before it is actually overclocked any further it runs more like a 3.5 ghz processor rather than a 2.7 ghz processor ... but it also has 4 processors and 8 threads so in practice it feels a hell of a lot faster than 2.7 ghz. I've never had any lag with it.

[EvieTheAvocado]

Run games from a large SSD; much faster than HDD.

My PC also game with an SSD rather than HDD ... and there's a HUGE difference there. Windows loads everything instantly instead of a few seconds of delay. The computer shuts down and restarts almost instantly. And it is probably one of the factors that speeds things up when it comes to loading games as well. It's ace. This is the first PC I've had with an SSD.

Windows 10 is superior to 8.  (N.B.  I run Win 7 and Win 10; 8's a dog.)

I agree ... Windows 8 is a pile of crap. I tried Windows 8 once and it was horrible. 7 was fine but 10 is better. I also think that XP was better than Vista.

My PC came with Windows 10.

[leerob]

Thanks everybody for the advice! It did help me a lot to choose something that can handle my gaming and video editing and multitasking needs lol
Especially the comments about SSD
And I remember a while back where Jesse was explaining about i5 and i7 etc
I don't like it but I did go over budget after all. Then again, I think this will save me some upgrading as the people I order from custom build towards the specs needed.

Now one thing I wonder about, is it a bad idea to clean out my current HDD and then add that to the new computer?