PC Pc Gaming/building thread

[juss]

For someone who's not confident building one, is scorptec the best option to get one made? What sort of price difference could you expect on a $1000-1500 build when making your own or going through scorptec?

 

[dwwaino]

For someone who's not confident building one, is scorptec the best option to get one made? What sort of price difference could you expect on a $1000-1500 build when making your own or going through scorptec?

Scorptec don't mark up their parts for a custom build. You buy the parts at retail value (usually same price as PC Case Gear) either using their online system builder or go into one of their stores, then they only charge $99 from memory for a build. Using the online builder they also review the system to make sure it's compatible before invoicing you. With that build price you also get a 12 month build warranty so if anything goes wrong (provided you don't open the case and break the sticker, but you shouldn't be doing that in the first 12 months anyway) you can just take it back to their service department and they'll deal with it. My HDD died within the first 12 months so had to do this myself. I just left it with them and had it back a couple days later.

 

[Gold Member]

I was meant to upgrade my RAM this weekend as PUBG is absolutely hogging my poor 8gb but didn't get around to it, so instead I'm going to go next week and grab an SSD while I'm at it. So two things:

1. I don't keep many games on my computer at any one time, Diablo 3 and now PUBG are staples, WoW comes and goes and there is generally one or two other things. I plan on keeping my 1TB HDD for storage so would I be better off just getting a 250gb for the OS, these few games and then putting everything else on the HDD, or would that be pushing it and I should just cough up the extra $100 for the 500gb? I've currently got a 64gb SSD in here too that I use to accelerate the HDD that I might just keep for My Documents or something lol.

2. I only did a clean Windows 10 install about 3 weeks ago and even though I chucked all my required drivers on a USB for ease I really would prefer not to have to do it all again. So how reliable would just cloning the HDD to the SSD be? Current used space is only 68gb so that's not an issue, probably a nub question but I have no idea if any problems could arise from this.

I recently migrated my 250gb ssd onto a 480gb one maybe 6 months ago.

Sorry I can't remember which program I used (maybe EaseUS).
It was such a painful experience that I immediately deleted all software that had anything to do with the process.
I just googled how to do it & ended up wasting between 4-6 hours from memory. It sucked watching a tutorial then downloading the software only to find out the feature I needed was not free anymore but behind a $40US payment.
Eventually I nailed it and everything just worked and hasn't missed a beat once.

Maybe dav3 can help you...?

Get the bigger SSD. Nothing worse than having to agonise over which game to delete just to make room for some major patch or DLC to download!

 

[dwwaino]

I recently migrated my 250gb ssd onto a 480gb one maybe 6 months ago.

Sorry I can't remember which program I used (maybe EaseUS).
It was such a painful experience that I immediately deleted all software that had anything to do with the process.
I just googled how to do it & ended up wasting between 4-6 hours from memory. It sucked watching a tutorial then downloading the software only to find out the feature I needed was not free anymore but behind a $40US payment.
Eventually I nailed it and everything just worked and hasn't missed a beat once.

Maybe dav3 can help you...?

Get the bigger SSD. Nothing worse than having to agonise over which game to delete just to make room for some major patch to DLC to download!

Cheers. Regarding the drive clone, EaseUS is what I was looking at but if it's going to give me that sort of hassle then I won't bother and will just start from scratch. Again.

 

[Gold Member]

Cheers. Regarding the drive clone, EaseUS is what I was looking at but if it's going to give me that sort of hassle then I won't bother. I saw it's possible to download windows 10 iso from Microsoft so I guess I'll just do that and chuck it on USB. Hopefully that doesn't cause me any grief either otherwise I'll have to dig out my 8.1 oem CD where ever the hell that is and do the upgrade all over again.

Most of the hassle was finding a free version of a program to do what I wanted. Once that bit was checked off it was maybe 60mins to migrate around 210GB of data and then set up the new drive as the boot drive.

If the question was "would you do it again?" I'd have to say yes, as 2nd time around I'd do it in a fraction of the time.

On the other hand I recently bought a $10 Win10 64 pro license off ebay....

 

[dav3]

I was meant to upgrade my RAM this weekend as PUBG is absolutely hogging my poor 8gb but didn't get around to it, so instead I'm going to go next week and grab an SSD while I'm at it. So two things:

1. I don't keep many games on my computer at any one time, Diablo 3 and now PUBG are staples, WoW comes and goes and there is generally one or two other things. I plan on keeping my 1TB HDD for storage so would I be better off just getting a 250gb for the OS, these few games and then putting everything else on the HDD, or would that be pushing it and I should just cough up the extra $100 for the 500gb? I've currently got a 64gb SSD in here too that I use to accelerate the HDD that I might just keep for My Documents or something lol.

2. I only did a clean Windows 10 install about 3 weeks ago and even though I chucked all my required drivers on a USB for ease I really would prefer not to have to do it all again. So how reliable would just cloning the HDD to the SSD be? Current used space is only 68gb so that's not an issue, probably a nub question but I have no idea if any problems could arise from this.

Get the biggest you can afford, 250gb will probably be fine but the extra storage will future-proof it a little.

As for cloning, the licenced version of EaseUS works well, alternatively something like Clonezilla Live (open source) might do the trick. You can also buy USB docks with a clone function but the last time I tried that it didn't go too smoothly (although it WAS at work so it could have been related to domain/security stuff). You may also find that the manufacturer of the new SSD you buy may have a free migration tool available.

 

[dwwaino]

Thanks for that guys. Considering there is stuff all on the system at the moment anyway since I recently formatted I won't worry about the clone and will just start scratch. Knowing my luck something will go wrong and cloning will take four hours when I could have just reinstalled windows and everything else in two.

Just going to grab a sata Samsung 500gb I think. Seems like pretty decent bang for buck and I'm not sure I would see any real world benefit going M.2 or PCIe when I only use it for a bit of gaming and the wife occasionally uses it for Word.

 

[dav3]

Thanks for that guys. Considering there is stuff all on the system at the moment anyway since I recently formatted I won't worry about the clone and will just start scratch. Knowing my luck something will go wrong and cloning will take four hours when I could have just reinstalled windows and everything else in two.

Just going to grab a sata Samsung 500gb I think. Seems like pretty decent bang for buck and I'm not sure I would see any real world benefit going M.2 or PCIe when I only use it for a bit of gaming and the wife occasionally uses it for Word.

Here's the Samsung tool either way.....
http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools.html

 

[Richo is God]

Thinking about a GTX1060 but if I need to upgrade the whole pc too I probably won't bother, hoping to run DayZ and Battlegrounds on decent enough settings

CPU - phenom II x695 black
Motherboard -Gigabyte GA-880GA-UD3H
8gb ram

 

[dwwaino]

Thinking about a GTX1060 but if I need to upgrade the whole pc too I probably won't bother, hoping to run DayZ and Battlegrounds on decent enough settings

CPU - phenom II x695 black
Motherboard -Gigabyte GA-880GA-UD3H
8gb ram

The gurus in here would be able to tell you but at 1080 that CPU shouldn't bottle neck a 1060 at 1080p too much.

 

[dwwaino]

Finally got my butt up to Scorptec to get my RAM and SSD. Ended up buying an Asus rog swift monitor while I'm at it. 1440 come at me.

 

[Gold Member]

Finally got my butt up to Scorptec to get my RAM and SSD. Ended up buying an Asus rog swift monitor while I'm at it. 1440 come at me.

LoL nice one, just the lazy $1000 impulse buy!

 

[Gold Member]

Thinking about a GTX1060 but if I need to upgrade the whole pc too I probably won't bother, hoping to run DayZ and Battlegrounds on decent enough settings

CPU - phenom II x695 black
Motherboard -Gigabyte GA-880GA-UD3H
8gb ram

Dunno, I'd ask this bloke... http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2661227

Should be fine, my family machine is a 2 core pentium and PUBG is playable on an R9 270 at 1080p...

 

[E92_]

Bought a Samsung 850 EVO 250gb SSD from PLE for $129, $20 off at the moment (I think today only?)

 

[dwwaino]

LoL nice one, just the lazy $1000 impulse buy!

Yeah! Sorta. Had one in mind for ages but wasn't sure if it were worth while. I love Scorptec, never upsell. I asked the guy today if my 980 would be ok with 1440 and he said no dramas even though I was fully prepared to shell out on a 1080ti lol. At least that can wait until I do a full rebuild down the track. I already have a 27" LG IPS monitor but always felt like my graphics card was under utilised with it.

Now stuffing around with Windows. Had the image on a USB drive, wouldn't install to new SSD due to needing to convey it to GPT... and accidentally cleaned the USB stick while I was at it. So had to go dig out my 8.1 CD, install that now stuffing around upgrading to 10 again.

Then I'm going to have to work out how to save my USB stick lol. Forked $30 for a 32gb 3.0 stick and windows won't open it, let me format it and drive management won't even let me format/delete the partition.

 

[dumb]

can put a pc together myself, but got scorptec to do my last build. their custom system creation is great, can set up an account and can make and play around with your builds.
take some time to research and think about what you really need... as mentioned the 120g ssd isn't going to go very far. you could forego the cd/dvd drive for now if you're interested primarily in steam games, and install one later or go with an external (currently running an external, which was necessary through my choice of case).

 

[dwwaino]

Being able to sort stuff on their site by 'most popular' is handy. I'm going to pull the trigger on some more upgrades this year or early next and I was mucking around looking at motherboards and CPUs. Even if you select 1151 socket mobos and narrow the results down to Z270 chipset you still get over 50 results. Sorting by 'most popular' puts the best bang for buck ones at the top and then it's just a case of matching budget, desired slots and any aesthetics.

I'm still blown away with the performance of my 980 on my new gsync monitor at 1440p. BF1 is gorgeous and a delight to play on ultra. Going to be pretty hard to adjust back to the PS4 again.

 

[Shaxx Attaxx]

Hi guys, I couldn't find a thread dedicated to monitors but I suppose this one is close enough.

I'm looking to upgrade my monitor and I'm so overwhelmed with all the choices.
It would be used for an Xbox One X and my work computer, 27inch and I could maybe go close to a grand.

any advice on what to look for? Like I said with all the 4k, free sync etc theres a lot to look at

 

[Gold Member]

Hi guys, I couldn't find a thread dedicated to monitors but I suppose this one is close enough.

I'm looking to upgrade my monitor and I'm so overwhelmed with all the choices.
It would be used for an Xbox One X and my work computer, 27inch and I could maybe go close to a grand.

any advice on what to look for? Like I said with all the 4k, free sync etc theres a lot to look at

If you're not going to do any PC gaming then don't bother with any of the following:
G Sync
Freesync
High refreshrates: 120, 144, 165, 240hz

The cheaper end of 4K (UHD) 60hz will be fine for any general computing, 4k streaming and any 4k X Box One X gaming...

https://www.pccasegear.com/products/34522/aoc-u2879vf-28in-4k-freesync-monitor
https://www.pccasegear.com/products/27799/asus-pb287q-28in-4k-uhd-monitor
https://www.pccasegear.com/products/39964/asus-vp28uqg-28in-4k-uhd-freesync-gaming-monitor
https://www.pccasegear.com/products/35013/lg-27ud68-w-27in-4k-uhd-ips-freesync-gaming-monitor


If 4k XBox gaming at 27inches is your primary concern, then I would seriously question whether you get any real tangible benefits in terms of cost v results. It would be marginal at best...

 

[Shaxx Attaxx]

If you're not going to do any PC gaming then don't bother with any of the following:
G Sync
Freesync
High refreshrates: 120, 144, 165, 240hz

The cheaper end of 4K (UHD) 60hz will be fine for any general computing, 4k streaming and any 4k X Box One X gaming...

https://www.pccasegear.com/products/34522/aoc-u2879vf-28in-4k-freesync-monitor
https://www.pccasegear.com/products/27799/asus-pb287q-28in-4k-uhd-monitor
https://www.pccasegear.com/products/39964/asus-vp28uqg-28in-4k-uhd-freesync-gaming-monitor
https://www.pccasegear.com/products/35013/lg-27ud68-w-27in-4k-uhd-ips-freesync-gaming-monitor


If 4k XBox gaming at 27inches is your primary concern, then I would seriously question whether you get any real tangible benefits in terms of cost v results. It would be marginal at best...

would going a bit bigger than 27 be a bit more ideal?

Thanks for the reply btw. Cleared up a fair bit!

 

[dwwaino]

would going a bit bigger than 27 be a bit more ideal?

Thanks for the reply btw. Cleared up a fair bit!

You won't get any benefit from freesync/gsync or refresh rates over 60 if the only gaming is going to be on the Xbox is what he means I think. So you could save a buck and grab a 4K monitor that doesn't have all these features. I've been thinking of getting a monitor for my PS4 Pro myself actually and was in fact looking at the pb287q he linked but I saw next year 4K monitors with HDR will start to come out. Could always wait until then if you're not desperate.

 

[Gold Member]

would going a bit bigger than 27 be a bit more ideal?

Thanks for the reply btw. Cleared up a fair bit!

Yes and no.

I think the manufacturers are catering to the larger TV screen sizes the majority console players are using.
A 55" screen going from 1080HD to 4K is going to be a much more noticeable enhancement than it would be at 27".

4K at 27" would still be sweet though...

 

[Shaxx Attaxx]

Thanks guys. As much as I'd love to build a gaming pc I probably won't have the time to play that. So I'd say the only gaming I see myself doing would be on the Xbox.

Also I'd be looking at 4K just in case I cave and buy the X. Which is likely

 

[Shaxx Attaxx]

Silly question but should I get something with HDMI 2.0
Since the One X has it?

 

[Sterge]

Thanks guys. As much as I'd love to build a gaming pc I probably won't have the time to play that. So I'd say the only gaming I see myself doing would be on the Xbox.

Also I'd be looking at 4K just in case I cave and buy the X. Which is likely

Can't you play pretty much all the xbox games on a PC now anyway?