figmentPez
Staff member
And now I can't even talk to Woot customer service. I get put on hold and then the call hangs up on me.
[Rant] Tech Minor Rant Thread
- Thread starter DarkAudit
- Start date
It's really hard to say "Here's what you should buy regardless of budget" because the top end of budget is limitless, you can always spend more, but the amount you spend for the performance increased is going to have diminishing returns. Some people need those higher marks, some people don't, I'm going to guess you don't.
So instead, what's your budget you're looking to spend, and what are you looking to do. Mostly playing games? Are you keeping your monitor? What's the resolution and refresh rate of your monitor. Is it 4k? 2K? 1080p? What are some of your favorite games, or what are some games you'd really like to be able to play?
Gimme a short list of those answers and I'll see if I can come up with something. I really enjoy building and shopping for computers. Though do note that my opinions and Pats differ on what one should focus on, because I know he'll have some slightly different answers to what I'll give (hint, if your budget is really constrained I'm going to skimp a lot more on the cpu, he doesn't like to do that)
figmentPez
Staff member
That's why I said "bang for the buck". I'm trying to figure out what the god damn fucking price break is. Where does price to get more start to skyrocket? Where is the floor where saving a buck means loosing a lot of utility? Anything to help me narrow down the choices. FFS.
I'm too upset right now to answer more. God dammit. I'm not completely unaware of the concept that computers have a nearly unlimited price ceiling. I'm just trying to figure out what the current pricing curve is.
I'm trying to not take my frustration out on others, but I want to scream right now.
Well, for about $600 I can give you a parts list that will play just about any modern game at 1080p max settings no problem, and higher resolution at around medium settings with also no problem, though 4k is going to be limited if you care about that (I think 2k is the sweet spot).
For a thousand dollars, probably closer to around 1200 or 1300 dollars, I can get you a computer that does all that at 2K with max settings and full raytracing on (I can speak from experience that finding games that utilize ray tracing well can be hard but some, like cyberpunk, look damn cool) but also maybe you don't care about ray tracing or running at full resolution and would rather have that extra money in your pocket.
Lemme shop around a little, I'll put together some options.
GasBandit
Staff member
A Mid-tier LCD steam deck ($450) and dock ($40). Using your existing 1080p display, mouse, and keyboard.
A 1TB SD card in the above steam deck.
That should be sufficient for gaming, if you need media storage, I suggest a NAS or USB external drive
That depends entirely on what you're going to do with it. Latest, greatest, biggest, nastiest games on a windows system? Yes.
On a steam deck? No.
I haven't tried the cloud storage on it, but I have DEFINITELY done real monitor (1080p) gaming on my steam deck. The exact steam deck and dock I recommended above.
This is me, playing Doom (2016) and using halforums on my steam deck.
figmentPez
Staff member
NAS are expensive. Can you leave a USB HDD plugged in 24/7 and not have it die?
That's a make or break issue for me.
I agree with you, gas, that this is probably the best 'bang for buck' you can get with a prebuilt, but I also think Pez would hate it. No offense at all meant to Pez, I'm not saying he isn't technically handy, but I get the very, very strong feeling that he doesn't want to have to futz around with settings and tinker with things to get them to work. And while I love the steam deck, it is for tinkerers, not for people who just want something that will work.A Mid-tier LCD steam deck ($450) and dock ($40). Using your existing 1080p display, mouse, and keyboard.
View attachment 50013
View attachment 50014
A 1TB SD card in the above steam deck.
View attachment 50015
That should be sufficient for gaming, if you need media storage, I suggest a NAS or USB external drive
That depends entirely on what you're going to do with it. Latest, greatest, biggest, nastiest games on a windows system? Yes.
On a steam deck? No.
I haven't tried the cloud storage on it, but I have DEFINITELY done real monitor (1080p) gaming on my steam deck. The exact steam deck and dock I recommended above.
This is me, playing Doom (2016) and using halforums on my steam deck.
@figmentPez I'm going to make this easy for you. Buy this:
Is this the perfect gaming pc? Of course not, some compromises were made. Will you notice them playing at 1080p? (since that seems to be your monitor) I doubt it. You might want to upgrade the RAM at some point but that can always come later.
If you want a slightly higher spec machine to go above 1080p performance, try this:
Again, you'll want to upgrade the ram at some point, and the downside to this one is it's fuck ugly, but we don't care about looks, we care about performance. But if you're happy with 1080p I think the first one is a pretty darn good value.
GasBandit
Staff member
Yes, On my previous server, I left 4 USB HDs plugged in for about 4 years straight before they started to die (in the same order I got them). They're really, usually, just regular SATA hard drives with a squished-on USB adapter built in to the "case."
That Wal-Mart computer Poe linked might be the way to go if you absolutely have to do windows, which will make things like onedrive much easier to accomplish.
While I know you're not especially interested in building your own PC, I'd still suggest having a look at https://www.logicalincrements.com/ to see what kind of power you can expect for what kind of budget, and what trade-offs may or may not be worth it. Obviously when going with a pre-built PC you'll always be subject to some whims of whoever made it, and it'll be slightly more expensive bang-for-buck-wise, but it's still a good comparison point. Also because they do a fairly good job of rating their price builds for several types of use, e.g.:
Is that $80 more worth it? Not if you're only using it for web surfing, but for gaming, probably, yeah.
$120 more, but...no really big improvement. Worth it? Eh, maybe a bit more future-proof.
Are you going to be doing any 4K gaming, VR, rendering? No? Then everything above this is pretty much overkill at the moment.
Is that $80 more worth it? Not if you're only using it for web surfing, but for gaming, probably, yeah.
$120 more, but...no really big improvement. Worth it? Eh, maybe a bit more future-proof.
Are you going to be doing any 4K gaming, VR, rendering? No? Then everything above this is pretty much overkill at the moment.