Buying a new PC

[Mooseman9]

Just remember to do it naked to minimize static electricity, and to scare away any nosy siblings from ever touching it.

Megatokyo?

[funknapkin]

It's not a big deal. I build all my pcs with my bare hands. No rituals before hand

Computer components are fairly resistant to electrostatic discharges (ESD) so using bare hands is fine most of the time, but an easy precaution to take while building a computer is to connect the PSU to the ground (plug it in) then touch it's metal casing every few minutes. That should safely discharge most electric charge you accumulate from your clothes.

Though if you have access to an antistatic wristband, that's preferable. Remember to place the wristband's ground on the same one the computer is using, otherwise it's useless. That means it has to be connect in so way to the case/PSU. A common mistake is to connect the wristband to a random grounded item, while the computer isn't grounded: that won't eliminate ESDs.

/safetytip from a computer engineer. Never hurts to be careful when playing with your new toys

edit: mega ninja'd. I'm so late to the party

[Neowulf]

Megatokyo?

Catching that reference took way too long...

Maybe I need to setup a webcomic reading circle.

[Lethosos]

Well, I do know that was early on in the comic. That being said, I haven't read any of it for the past few years.

Anyways, RAM may be an issue depending on how much you have leftover after the motherboard, CPU, power supply, DVD-R drive, and video card. (Not discounting the case, but bare minimum you can always use a discarded case. Not hard to find if you ask around.) My preference are Corsair brand, DDR3 at the least. You could possibly get by with just one 4GB stick, but the more the better.

[Vivacity]

Well, I do know that was early on in the comic. That being said, I haven't read any of it for the past few years.

Anyways, RAM may be an issue depending on how much you have leftover after the motherboard, CPU, power supply, DVD-R drive, and video card. (Not discounting the case, but bare minimum you can always use a discarded case. Not hard to find if you ask around.) My preference are Corsair brand, DDR3 at the least. You could possibly get by with just one 4GB stick, but the more the better.

Perhaps he'd be better off getting an AMD Cpu. They tend to beat out Intel in the 100-150 price range. I doubt it'll be possible to squeeze in all the other components without cheaping out.

[dwwojcik]

Ehh... that 7770 and i5 sounds pretty nice. Maybe you guys could give me a price point for a decent computer with those? 8 GB ram, hard disk, a decent case, etc. Then I'll have an Idea if how much money I'll need to save.

[tomblue]

Win 8 is way better than the older windows like win 7 , xp or vista etc. It has great resolution and better compatibility with so many of the programs and apps etc.

[Industrial Miner]

Guys, the company which should order the pc to me screwed me over, so I called up the owner of the site that I've bought it from and he gave me a refund. So instead of the two things that I had in the OP, I got a COMPAQ CQ2000 PC and a Samsung S22C300 LED monitor. And ofcourse some Beats so I won't disturb my parents if I want to listen to hard music. And all of this has a 64 bit Win8 on it, which I'm using now to send this message.

[Mooseman9]

Beats

Overpriced headphones?

And all of this has a 64 bit Win8 on it, which I'm using now to send this message.

How are you liking it?

[Vivacity]

Overpriced headphones?

Overpriced by still decent. I would value them at about 50 bucks.

[okamikk]

Overpriced by still decent. I would value them at about 50 bucks.

they have decent sound, but they're fuckin' uncomofortable and made of very cheap plastic.

[Industrial Miner]

Well, I installed minecraft, Steam with TF2, Chrome and stuff. Now I can set up a LAN server for TF2 to play together with my little brother.

It's pretty fast compared to the old home pc that I had to use.

Oh and something about the beats, I saw them on a bazaar where they were getting sold for about 20€. But after opening it up, noticing missing features and such, it seemed fake ones. But since my little brother prefers those more than his philips headphones which don't hurt your ears, I've traded them with my little brother. So yeah, note this: Never buy things at places where they're extremely cheap compared to an official store.

[Industrial Miner]

EDIT: whoops, double post.

[miniboxer]

Well, I installed minecraft, Steam with TF2, Chrome and stuff. Now I can set up a LAN server for TF2 to play together with my little brother.

It's pretty fast compared to the old home pc that I had to use.

Oh and something about the beats, I saw them on a bazaar where they were getting sold for about 20€. But after opening it up, noticing missing features and such, it seemed fake ones. But since my little brother prefers those more than his philips headphones which don't hurt your ears, I've traded them with my little brother. So yeah, note this: Never buy things at places where they're extremely cheap compared to an official store.

Are you kidding? I guess someone who doesn't live near LA and by an annual swap meet could probably not know these things. Anything cheap that is at a weird place is fake. Period. You are never getting a good deal, you are being scammed out of your money.

EDIT: to clarify, I mean REALLY cheap. Not like 20-30 USD less, like 50-200 USD less.

[Industrial Miner]

Luckily it wasn't too much of a waste.

[hoho]

So, how well does that machine of yours run any newer games and at what resolution?

[Industrial Miner]

Just got it like for two days and now I really can't tell yet. But it does run mc and TF2 at med/high settings at 1920x1080.

[hoho]

TF2 is a game from ~6 years ago and wasn't really taxing on systems even back then. MC basically runs only on CPU and doesn't care much about GPU.

I sure hope you don'y plan on playing anything too recent on the machine and I find it really odd that no one told you the machine is using the very lowest end of low-end CPUs made for PCs that one could get. Sorry that I wasn't here earlier but for €500 you could have got a MUCH better gaming PC than that.

[Industrial Miner]

Anyway, I'm not planning on playing anyting new. I'm happy with what I have.

[Vivacity]

I would expect a major jump in system requirements for games that take advantage of the next generation hardware from consoles. If your planning on playing any major releases you'll need to upgrade. I'll definitely be upgrading by 7850 for a GTx 780 for Battlefield 4.

[Industrial Miner]

As I said earlier, I won't be playing anything new like Battlefield, Call of Duty or anything like that.

[TheBytemaster]

Let's, (hypothetically, of course), say that I recently came into a large amount of money that needed to all be spent by the end of the month or I lose it. What would you recommend I get computer-wise as far as graphics cards go? (I don't really care about noise or power consumption.)

[Lethosos]

Two high-end nVidia Titanium based, Sandy Bridge compatable, ZAPTOC brand cards. I can't remember the highest stable GPU right now, but I think they're in the late 700s by now.

[Vivacity]

A power Color 7990, beats a GTx 690 but their hard to come by.

[hoho]

I would expect a major jump in system requirements for games that take advantage of the next generation hardware from consoles.

except that he'd also need to swap out the CPU and most likely motherboard as well. Basically it wouldn't be much more expensive to replace the whole thing (again).