Recommendation on what to use to get back into PC gaming!?

I personally bought a PC a few years ago for $500 that still runs most games on medium to high settings with very little frame rate loss. I just update my Graphics card every year or so.

Though next year I'll probably need a new motherboard along with my card.

 

Anywhere from 150 to 500 dollars depending on how high end you want.

They are pretty easy to install.

 

Upgrading every year isn't really a thing that happens unless you really need to have THE MOST CURRENT system, which isn't necessary. Systems can easily be affordable and last a few years while playing PC games at great looking settings.

 

Yea sorry. Updating every year is just what I do.

 

I'd say get yourself the best motherboard you can afford (I like ASUS). Next, as much RAM as you can afford. Hook those up with at least an i5 CPU running at around 3GHz or better.

Hard drives are fairly cheap at the moment, get one with a SATA III interface for the best speeds. If you want to go nuts fast with boot up and general OS performance, get yourself a SATA III SSD with at least 256Gb on it and use this as your OS installation drive only. Put all other software onto a traditional SATA III hard drive. Make sure your swap file is not on the SSD though.

Then get a graphics card which can play the games you want on at least the medium settings.

You should not have to upgrade the graphics card for at least two or three years, unless something really radical happens!

Good luck!

FWIW here are my current PC specs;

• ASUS P9X79 Pro motherboard
• Intel i7-3820 CPU
• 32Gb (4x8GB) RAM with heatsinks
• 1Tb SATA III hard drive
• 256Gb SSD SATA III hard drive
• Corsair Hydro H60 liquid CPU cooler
• AMD HD7970 Sapphire Vapor-X 6Gb graphics card
• Antech case
• Gold certified 850W PSU
• 3 x Packard Bell viseo 230ws on tri-monitor stand

 

I'm about to buy any day now. How much would a setup like yours cost? (minus the monitor) Seems very high end!

 

I built these things up over the course of a couple of years! Will give you an idea of the costs another time. About to go out, and if I don't go now, I'm going to get shouted at!

 

As promised, here are todays prices for the kit I currently have

P9X79 Pro m/b £190.00
Intel i7-3820 £210.00
256Gb SSD SATA III £130.00
1Tb Seagate hard drive £60.00
Corsair Hydro H80 £75.00
AMD HD7970 Sapphire Vapor-X £450.00
Antec 300 midi case £45
Gold certified 850W PSU £120.00
32Gb RAM (8Gb x 4) £120.00
Blu-Ray SATA optical drive £50
DVD SATA Re-writer £12

Grand total of £1462.00

Leaving out the monitors and the tri-stand...
I think I need to go and lay down for a while after seeing all that added up!

I'd be interested in seeing what you go for. Please post it here when you get it all...

 

im enjoying league of legend, ragna, ArcheAge...