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It's been about 5 years since I built my computer for about $600, ran the Total War games of that time (Napolean and Empire) just about on max with no slowdowns with the old duo core Wolfdale (which you can overclock all day without it breaking a sweat) and Radeon HD 4850. It wasn't all top of the line, just carefully chosen components that worked well together to get to that point where the laws of diminishing returns took over and you got less bang for your buck vs. more money you spend. I would say it had specs of a $1,000 or more store bought gaming computer easily.
Now of course it's showing it's age with all the quad core CPUs and I have no idea how much it would cost now to build your own. Remember the rules of diminishing returns however - for example you pay a premium for the latest video card or CPU out there, get the previous release video card and get almost the same quality for much less money.
What I did was buy a computer online and just upgraded it. My next move is going to buy every single part and build an entirely new system. I have a lot in mind so mine is going to be adding up to quite a bit, but it should last for several years.
Anyways, I got lucky on this computer, it had decent specs but the website only wanted $350 for it. All I did was upgrade the graphics card and power supply. That's it. Runs modern games pretty flawlessly still.
What I did was buy a computer online and just upgraded it. My next move is going to buy every single part and build an entirely new system. I have a lot in mind so mine is going to be adding up to quite a bit, but it should last for several years.
Anyways, I got lucky on this computer, it had decent specs but the website only wanted $350 for it. All I did was upgrade the graphics card and power supply. That's it. Runs modern games pretty flawlessly still.
I did the same thing recently, with advice from Quert actually (thanks again!). i5 processor based from Tiger Direct and upgraded power supply and graphics card. It runs Skyrim on Ultra with 50 or so mods active. Initially I did it with an i3 processor based pc which also ran it fine, but a few weeks later had a crash (unrelated) and upgraded to the i5 machine.
If you don't need a monitor, keyboard, mouse and such, I'd say you could build one easily for about $700 and it will be good for about 6-8 years, most likely.
Do a lot of research and check comparisons. A good website for chip/video card output comparisons is passmark.com. To be honest, check a lot of custom PC builders' websites, too. A lot of them will build, test and ship a rig for not much more than if you just bought the parts yourself. When I was building my last gaming rig, I did a lot of research and having cyberpowerpc build, test and ship it cost me an extra $20 over if I were to buy all the parts myself from Microcenter and that way, I didn't have to worry about DOA parts. I am still using that rig and have had no issues with it whatsoever, aside from an SSD dying. That was my fault though, buying brand new tech. They've done a lot for the lifespan of SSDs since then.
I think Microcenter's prices have gotten a lot better since then, but it still doesn't hurt to look around.
My husband has a few parts from Newegg and he likes Razor. Ill have to ask him his thoughts but those popped up because im sitting on the computer and I know those names.
Most hardcore gamers will build their own custom computers, either by custom selecting the parts or ordering the parts and putting them together. I've pretty much outgrown computer gaming but the last gaming computer I had built in 2006 cost me about $700 without monitor and lasted until the end of 2013 due to hardware failure.
I'm no expert on this stuff but i want to do a triple monitor setup, will i need a certain graphics card to do that or can most graphics cards today support a triple monitor setup?
and can you do this with all monitors or do you need a certain monitor?
I'm no expert on this stuff but i want to do a triple monitor setup, will i need a certain graphics card to do that or can most graphics cards today support a triple monitor setup?
and can you do this with all monitors or do you need a certain monitor?
You might need multiple graphics cards or a graphic card that has multiple ports. Unfortunately, most motherboards only have 1 video card port so the latter is probably your best best.. or getting a motherboard with a built-in video card and adding another card with 2+ ports.
You might also be able to find a graphic card that fits into the PCI ports but the quality won't be that great.. video cards have generally used their own dedicated ports since the late 90s.
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