Hello all, I'm considering fully switching from console gaming to PC gaming. I have an outdated PC a friend helped me build from exactly 10 years ago, and it has never been upgraded. I currently have a Nintendo Switch and Xbox (360, One, and most recently Series X). I did this mainly because I liked physical games, such that I have kept boxes, manuals, and discs for my games. However, I have been getting more and more frustrated with console gaming as the years progress and am thinking of switching to fully PC, including emulation up to Switch of older game systems. I know nothing about building a PC, the one I had in college was for games technically but was not top of the line even then, and I mostly used it for torrenting, CAD modeling, and old emulation (up to Nintendo 64 at the time). I'm thinking of transitioning that fully to a NAS if possible as I build out my media library, and build a new one from scratch for gaming. Any advice on what a price range would be and components to look for would be appreciated! I see secondhand builds on Facebook marketplace or similar but don't have a good feel for if they are even good deals or not. For what it's worth, I will probably need new everything (hardware, case, and peripherals like mouse, keyboard, and monitors). So, if anyone could help guide to me what a good price I should be expecting would be and some benchmark specifications that I could keep an eye out, that would be lovely.
Edit: for what it's worth, I generally play games a few years after release when they go on sale, unless they came up on Xbox game pass or I received it as a gift to play. Additionally, I had an Oculus Rift hooked up to my PC but it struggled with many things on it, so I plan to upgrade that at some point with maybe the Valve Index system. That doesn't need to be an immediate buy as I'd rather my money go into the computer hardware itself first.
You can build a fabulous PC for not much, but you can also end up feeling disappointed for a few times more. It's about expectations and targets.
What resolution gaming are you trying to do? Are you wanting insane frame rates or is 60fps enough? There's a huge difference between 60fps 1080p and 120fps 4k. Since you mentioned PC VR, the target is really high as it's usually rendering higher than 4k, and smooth, high FPS is critical. You may still want more than a 4080 can give you in some games.
I just built a PC for my nephew, he got my old 2080 (used cost is $200-$300), and some mid-tier AM5 combo deal from Microcenter. He's super happy with it because it does what he wanted it to do. I helped him keep his expectations within his budget, critically an entry level 1080p gaming monitor as he wanted to get high FPS on Valorant.
I think 60fps would be fine, but like I said I can always upgrade later to include VR as there is no immediacy. When you say huge difference, I assume you mean huge price difference between those correct?
At minimum, I would like it to be at least as good as my current gaming ecosystems on consoles are, which I imagine is fairly cheap. However, I am willing to go higher to future proof myself as I don't want to spend $500+ each year just to keep top of the line parts in the system. Someone mentioned around $1500 which seems reasonable at this time, especially because I plan to sell off my existing consoles and games to help offset the cost.
Right, huge price difference. Performance isn't totally linear like this, but it's still helpful to think of it in terms of pixels and fps. 4k is for times the pixels of 1080p, 120fps is twice the frames. So to go from smooth 1080p 60fps to smooth 4k 120fps you need 16 times more graphics power.
Your screen resolution and fps goals (capped by your screen's refresh rate) are something you want to nail down. I think the jump to OLED 120hz or higher screen is better than 4k partly because getting high fps out of 4k is much harder.
A $1500 budget can go a long way. Don't think about future proof, think about meeting your goals in games today, whatever you build will be fine for 8 years as long as your standards don't change. Outside of pushing 4k and high fps, graphics demands have plateaued compared to 10+ years ago. Ray tracing was the last big wow, and AI processing in the pipeline has done wonders at improving performance. I don't see the value of a motherboard that costs more than $200, and the best value CPU for gaming is the 7800x3d which is $400 when not on sale. You don't need more than 32gb of RAM, decent kit is about $100. Cases are looks subjective, airflow objective, runs $30 to $150, up to crazy high for gamerz styles. Any PSU over $100 is a waste of money, even driving a 4080 super. For storage get a well rated NVME within your capacity goals, $100 gets you a good brand with decent space. That would leave $500 for a graphics card, buying new won't get you top of the line, but you could get last generation's best with that. If you live near a Microcenter and can wait for a good bundle, you can save a few hundred. Sorry for ballparking, writing from my phone. Use pcpartpicker and have fun with it.
No need to apologize, this was very helpful! Someone near me is selling a PC with the following specs.: "NVIDIA GeForce 4060 Ti - 16 Gb ram- 2tb Ssd - AMD Ryzen 7 5700 comes with 2 165 hz monitors , audio technica mic , mouse and key board and headphones ." For $650, it seems like a good deal. Would you agree with that?
That's a great deal with all those accessories. You can price all the other stuff new. None of these things degrade really, so functionality will be identical to new.
Only downside if you're looking for one is the AM4 platform is done. Basically that's a computer anyone would have recommended you buy 3 years ago new for what you're budgeting, minus a few hundred for a mid range GPU. If the keyboard, mouse, and headphones are quality you're getting a steal for someone in your position.
Okay great! That's good to hear. I reached out to them to say I was interested. I can upgrade that platform at a later date if needed, right? But it should last me a while.
Yeah, upgrading the platform means Motherboard, RAM, and CPU. You'd be upgrading your GPU before then though. Don't sweat it.
Turns out that guy was a scammer, but I'll keep my eyes out for more deals similar to what we discussed! Thank you again for all of your help!