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Ask Slashdot: Buy Or Build a High End Gaming PC?
An anonymous reader writes: Looking at some Black Friday ads, I'm seeing some good deals on Alienware and other gaming rigs that would be cheaper than building them from scratch. If you built or were to build a high end gaming rig, what would you suggest? Or would you just get a prebuilt system and customize it to your needs? I'm not looking for cheap, I want best quality and performance, but not overkill that would rival supercomputers and at the same time break my bank account. It would be a Windows system to keep my family happy, but possibly dual boot with Linux to keep me happy. It will be located in the livingroom hooked up to a regular monitor and the big screen TV, replacing a budget PC that's in there now.
The only good way to get what you want is to build one.
It's also a good exercise.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Next question.
I'm not looking for cheap, I want best quality and performance
Unless you're buying a 'package deal' from a retailer and know down to the last fastener exactly what's going into the box you're buying, always build your own box if you can. Even then, if it's me, I'd end up auditing the entire pre-build anyway, to make sure their tech didn't do something stupid that would end up biting me in the ass down the road. But either way, if you have the capability to do so, spec out and build your system yourself, picking the best quality components and case, so you get exactly what you want, instead of what had the best profit margin for someone else.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
I would recommend checking out the reddit forum for building PCs. They often know of deals and resources that can be helpful. People there will also be willing to help you spec out a PC and pick parts / find the cheapest prices.
Also pcpartspicker.com is a great resource.
That said, I've built pretty much all of my PCs for the last 20 years until this week. I found a good deal on an Asus G11 Desktop with an i7-6700 and a GTX 980. I could have saved a little building myself, but I decided to go the pre-built route this time and it's been great so far. Ultimately it comes down to what you prefer. The price is usually upgradability. In my case if I want to add additional components, there's only two PCIe 1x slots on the board that are open, so I'd probably need to get a new motherboard and case if I wanted to do anything other than swap out parts or add hard drives. So consider if you're ok with that before you buy.
That really is the big issue with a self build: If something goes wrong, you have to track it down and handle all the support. If you get a pre-built from a good vendor, they'll handle it all. Say what you want about Dell, but all you have to do is run their diags (baked in to the UEFI) and call them with the code, they'll send a dude with the parts needed.
So that should be the major thing you think about. If you don't want to do support, then buy it from a vendor that will provide you with support to the level you require. I tend to recommend Dell because their hardware is reasonable and they have support available everywhere. They subcontract it, but it all works well. We use it at work all the time.
If you are willing to do support yourself, then building it gets you precisely what you want. I build my system at home because I have very exacting requirements for what I'm after and nobody has that kind of thing for sale. Like I don't want a "good large power supply", I want a Seasonic Platinum 1000, nothing else.
Also you'll find that generally at the higher end of things you save money building a system. For more consumer/office range stuff it usually is a wash: They build the mass market systems around as cheap as you could afford to. However when you start talking higher end gaming stuff, you can pay a large premium for things.
As an example I just built a system for a good friend of mine. He wanted some very, very high end hardware and pretty specific requirements. Origin PC would get him what he wanted... for about $9,000. I put it together for around $6,000. The gamer stuff often commands a hefty premium.
I looked at an alienware once, and the components they were using were about 2 standard deviations away from top of the line, whereas the best price point is about one standard deviation from top of the line. Even at that alienware with lower performance was much more expensive than the build I ended up doing. I built my PC about 4 years ago and it still exceeds my gaming needs. Don't see needing to build a replacement one for at least another 4 or 5 years.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
As other posters have said - Build!
What I haven't seen noted yet - Skip SLI graphics cards. I went SLI on the gaming machine I built in 2005. What I found was that a top end graphics cards can play games at high settings for a while, and that the extra $450 would've been more effective if spent 50% of the way through the life of the PC (i.e. 2 years later) on another high end card of the next generation.
There are no 'good' deals on pre-built systems. The cost on these hosts is anywhere from 50% to 200% markup on the cost of the components. Mind you there is a good deal of investment on the part of the manufacturer to ensure component integration is without defect, but it isn't guaranteed that some bug will crop up.
If you have the excess cash and don't wish to spend the time researching/building/risk taking involved in building a custom rig then purchase one from a common dealer.
If you would like an affordable system and are willing to add time in both researching building and addressing unforeseen issues then build one.
The markup cost is so great and the advantages just don't seem to be there. I usually will opt to build one and invest some time into research. I no longer actually need to do this, but the miser in me just won't let me purchase a pre-built rig.
Here are my cost saving and stability recommendations:
* Don't worry about overclocking... leave that to the kiddies who want to burn up their shit.
* The cheapest defense is in Herd Immunity or Apple Research. You can lean towards a very popular board on newegg or just buy a hackintosh board. I have found these to be extremly stable and they tend to work when dealing with things like sleep/resume on wake.
* Trailing edge of technology is both affordable and less buggy. I typically purchase the high end components that are being phased out. These will often be very comparable with the latest generation, but at a fraction of the cost.
* Avoid Version A... Never alpha test hardware for a manufacturer. I've seen gigabyte release limited updates for version A's and Asus tends to crap on them as much as possible.
* Read the motherboard compatibility guide. The motherboard manfacturer does a limited amount of tested with existing memory. While I have found compatability issues not really a big of deal as they used to be the old timer in me says just read the book and pick something on the list.
* Be Prepared to RMA
- Kingston and Western Digital have been the friendliest when dealing with RMAs in the past. Corsair used too (this may not be true) would only deal with the retailer for an RMA and most retailers won't deal with returns past 30 days. Make sure you know what the replace and repair process is with the manufacturer. In the event you do have an issue you are able to troubleshoot it can save you anywhere from a 100-200 depending on the component failure.
It's also a good exercise.
I do three sets of ten computers three times a week. And I cross train by laying fiber optic cable - it's for cardio. Cat 6 when I'm bored or overtrained.
Gaming in the living room? Dual boot? Tv?
This computer will never be ready to dd what you want. By the time you dual boot into linux someone will want to watch Netflix. Turn down that stupid gam, we are trying to watch TV over here. Dad, I need the computer for homework.
Honey what happened to my recipes and what does Ubuntu mean?
It wont work. Its a fools errand. She who must be obeyed will put her foot down. Buy her some nice-ish computer and sneak the gamer in later.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
If it's for standard office use or similar, just buy a pre-built one. You can get nifty tiny, silent cases that are vastly overpowered for anything you might want to do with it. If you need more power, I would select the components myself, but leave the grunt work of building to a retailer. Where I live that costs about 75 euro and gets you three years of warranty, so it's a great deal.
Pre-built gaming systems tend to be unbalanced, throwing lots of money at high-end components where only very marginal gains can be expected in actual real-life performance. You don't need "black" CPUs or hand-picked memory, and you don't need dual graphics cards either - unless you enjoy paying through the nose for a problematic component that will be outgunned six months down the road anyway.
As for the notion that you need to build one yourself to prove your manhood: look buddy, unless you soldered your own graphics card or whatever, all you are doing is clicking together some premade components. A monkey could do it.
There's nothing like getting exactly the parts you want, though that also comes with the risk of incompatibility. Also, as you upgrade you can potentially save money by reusing parts like the case, PSU, heatsink + fans, drives, cables and possibly even the Windows license.
However, if you're starting fresh and want to make things a little easier, consider that the graphics card is the only major difference between a gaming and non-gaming PC. Buying a decent desktop and adding upgrades (video card, decent PSU, possibly a SSD) will often be cheaper and more reliable than assembling everything from scratch.
If you're not experienced assembling and troubleshooting PCs at all, consider one of the frequent 'HP Envy Phoenix' deals. For the past six months they've been selling very decent gaming rigs for below the cost of components; for instance, a couple weeks ago they were offering a system complete with i7-4790K and GTX 980Ti for ~$970, which is about what you'd pay for those two parts alone. Check Slickdeals or your favorite deal site for more information.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
The only good way to get what you want is to build one.
Absolutely, you get the exact parts that you want. Pre-built always seems to involve some compromise in one part or another.
Careful selection of parts is also very helpful if you want to do something like dual boot Linux.
Building your own is no longer the money saver that it once was though. But quality and compatibility are reason enough.
Overclocking is fine if its only a gaming PC but if it is also used for anything serious, anything where the correct results are important ... do *not* overclock.
... are all variable and will change from one specific CPU to another. Hence the inability to reliably test for overclocking errors. The errors manifest different on every CPU, and the required conditions manifest differently, and these conditions may include being immediately preceded certain instructions or certain data patterns. Instructions and data patterns that also differ CPU to CPU.
... its best to avoid overclocking.
Overclocking errors are not some black and white easy to recognize situation. It is literally a progression through various shades of gray. At the lightest shades of gray, where overclocking errors begin, at perhaps quite modest overclocking settings, the errors are subtle. Literally it may simply give the wrong answer, the wrong numeric value, no crash or anything dramatic. And what instruction yields this simple wrong answer, and beginning at what overclocking setting, and what instructions must precede it if any
So if a PC is just for gaming and other casual use, overclocking does little harm. However if the computer is also used for serious numeric work, software development, etc
For "quiet" video cards you sometimes have to look for a previous generation design that has gone through a new manufacturing process (same circuitry but laid out at a smaller scale, a process with fewer nanometers (nm)). These may get smaller or slower speed fans. Might even go passively cooled if it was a modest GPU to begin with. Of course you won't get the greatest performance but perhaps something good enough for play.
For what its worth I tend to install auxiliary low-RPM fans that blow directly on passively cooled motherboard chipsets (often under a heat sink) and on passively cooled GPUs.
... then you can't afford a "high end" gaming rig.
Dual-boot is NOT where you want to go with a gaming machine, you'll be fighting drivers on the Linux side every time you get a fresh-off-the-shelf expensive hardware component. If you care enough about gaming performance to even consider building a machine from scratch, then commit to that - rather than trying to make it a jack of all trades.
I've been using Linux since 1992, Windows a few years longer. In that time, I've built up dozens of machines. My suggestion: build a Linux box with components that you know will work with Linux - for example, I stay clear of nVidia because many of those cards are a nightmare on Linux. On my gaming machine I run a $300 nVidia card, etc etc.
Hardware is cheap. What's your time worth?
Support microSD: in a post 9/11 world, it is unwise to carry your data on media that you cannot comfortably swallow.
Had a friend who is quite bright, but inexperienced with root cause elimination. 6 months ago, he went down the path of "building" his own home theatre/PC gaming rig. After several rounds of buying what the online rags suggested as the best bang for the buck, he had three collections of incompatible parts and not one working PC.
I'd done him a couple of favors in the past and he was emotionally defeated with the whole project. He ended up giving me the whole lot. The one thing all his platforms had in common was Gigabyte motherboards with a high density buzz words on the spec sheet and rave online reviews. I've not yet diagnosed all the problems, but I now have a heck of a HPC system after swagging the Gigabyte board for a ASRock that actually retails for 40% less. Turns out that dual bios feature of Gigabyte boards, is REALLY flaky.
https://www.google.com/search?...
At the end of the day, unless you are ready to learn troubleshooting skills related to the tasks, you probably ought to buy something you can box up and ship back if it doesn't work.
Nothing evolves faster than the word of god in the minds of men who think themselves divinely inspired.
You've got issues - if somebody buys a card rated for 1.2 GHz and won't run there, they should return it and get a refund.
I agree with this; if the silicon (and the implementation) weren't tested during development at a reasonable margin for temperature and supply rail voltage, then someone did a sloppy job and you shouldn't have to put up with it.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
If you're building a "high-end gaming PC" as the summary asked about, you are never going to save money buying it. Never. Not. Ever.
Here's how I usually budget and build a gaming desktop:
- Motherboard: $250-ish. No more than $300. Always full-ATX unless there's a specific need for a smaller board. Always ASUS, but that's personal preference.
- CPU: $300 because Intel won't let this price point go. This is always where the top-end i7 lands. I never buy AMD anymore. I wish their glory days would return once again, but I don't think it will happen anytime reasonably soon. It's unfortunate, but that's life.
- GPU: $300. Maybe allow up to $350 if there's a really good deal on something that's normally way more than that. Always nVidia. I've had good results with EVGA cards. I've had poor results with ASUS. Don't bother doing an SLI/Crossfire setup. If you had money to spare, you wouldn't be asking if it was cost-effective to buy vs. build.
- RAM: $150. Get whatever spec is cheap and compatible with the motherboard. Get at least 16GB.
- SSD: $150. That's currently about a 512GB drive.
- HDD: $100. That's currently about a 2TB drive. Use this as a slow bulk storage space and a place to put the swap partition so it doesn't wear-level your SSD to its grave.
- PSU: $100. Get the minimum that will power everything. Likely this will be around 650W because video cards and Intel CPU's are power hogs.
- Case: $150. Get a decent brand like Antec, Cooler Master, or Corsair. Your un-cut knuckles will thank you.
- Other hardware: $250. Use this budget for optional stuff like optical drives, flash card readers, hot-swap bays, keyboard, mouse, monitor, and any accessories or bling you want to add right away.
- Windows: $140. Get the Pro version. Always. Just get OEM, as there's nothing special about the retail version anymore. They all activation-lock to the first motherboard you install to.
That comes to about $1900 plus a couple hours of your time to put it together and kick off Windows Setup.
Good list. I would also add 2 things you missed:
COOL: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo
PASTE: Artic Silver 5
I don't know where this myth comes from, but it's bullshit. If you properly test the system, you'll catch any error producing instability before depending on it. A bit flipped is a bit flipped. They happen on stock systems too. This is why any sane system handling critical data has built in sanity checks.
No, the BS myth is that you can test for instability. Every manufactured CPU is unique. Its weaknesses unique. The point and manner that it fails unique. Some failing with a modest amount of overclocking, other not failing until much greater overclocking. And again, the failure is not necessarily something resulting in a crash. The mildest of overclocking errors can simply be an erroneous result of a mathematical operation.
Where a bit flips will vary from one CPU to the next. How can you test for that? And in a specific case when a bit flips in an instruction may depend upon the preceding sequence of instructions and upon a specific data pattern. How can you test for that, the prerequisites are unknown and vary one individual CPU to the next?
Testing by a manufacturer can involve things far more probative than running a software test. So a CPU rated for a certain speed can be confidently run at that speed. However once overclocked the confidence is lost. How much tolerance there is for overclocking can vary from one design to the next, one manufacturing process to the next, and from one individual CPU to the next.
As has been said so much already, build it. What I havn't seen being said is that you should just use the integraded graphics from an Intel CPU for a couple more months (or an old graphics card you already have) and wait for the new cards that are coming out in the next 6-7 months.
The existing cards are all still being built on the 28nm process, which has been in use for over 3 years now. Delays and problems have kept the graphics cards from being built on modern process nodes for the last 1.5 years. The next set of cards due out in the first half of 2016 are going to be using 16nm FinFet. The current high end graphics card from Nvidia, Titan X, has 8 million transistors in it. The next generation cards have been leaked to have 17 million transistors. Transistor count has in the past almost always been associated very closely with performance. We are really looking at the next generation of graphics cards having at least double the performance of the current generation, which is something that hasn't happened in about 7 years.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"