Gaming Rigs: Recommendations?

[Amaxter]

I've been using my aging iMac for some time and it's beginning to only be able to run games at medium in some cases, and the graphics card is pretty shitty (An AMD 6970m), so I'm thinking it's time for a native Windows gaming PC. I'm looking for a beast at a budget around $2,500 and no i'm not building it myself. So a pre-built PC around $2500, preferably one with a GTX Titan or 780 Ti. Also a Mini ITX case as I want to be able to carry it around sometimes. Any suggestions?

[disconsented]

http://www.falcon-nw.com/desktops/fragbox

[miniboxer]

http://www.falcon-nw.com/desktops/fragbox

Holy fuck those are overpiced.

OP: Why don't you want to build it yourself? Takes about an hour and is much much cheaper than any prebuilt you could get with similar specs.

EDIT: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2HuR4

2500$ build. i7 4770 with 2x 780 Ti. 8 GB of RAM, 1 TB harddrive, huge, roomy case, great motherboard.

This will crush anything you throw at it. This will crush anything you throw at it for years to come.

[Amaxter]

Holy fuck those are overpiced.

OP: Why don't you want to build it yourself? Takes about an hour and is much much cheaper than any prebuilt you could get with similar specs.

EDIT: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2HuR4

2500$ build. i7 4770 with 2x 780 Ti. 8 GB of RAM, 1 TB harddrive, huge, roomy case, great motherboard.

This will crush anything you throw at it. This will crush anything you throw at it for years to come.

Ew, conventional hard drive. I don't need much storage, so I think just 2 256 GB Samsung Evo 840 SSD's, and also I want 16 GB of RAM, and mini ITX, I don't need SLI. And I'm not a good builder, never built a PC and don't want to risk $2500 on something I might break trying to build.

[disconsented]

It is really easy to build, the only pre requisite is knowing how to use a screwdriver. It is literally plug cord a into slot b these day's.

Don't know why you want 16Gb of ram, the only applications you need it for are things like CAD and Ram disk which require much higher amounts anyways.

[Munaus]

i7 processor, 500 or 1tera of harddrive with 8gig of RAM coupled with the best graphics card money can buy is all you need for a good gaming tower.

RAM is overpriced nowadays and 16gig is a bit overkill even with the highest-demand graphical games out there.

And personal opinion: SSD is useless. 1 harddrive is enough

I ordered a custom pre-built tower which only cost me 1800+$.

[Amaxter]

Reason I want 16 GB is because I would like to run servers from time to time for my friends and i to play on. Also I want an SSD as I don't need too much storage and want faster boot times. This isn't purely a gaming PC, but once that i want to be able to use for a while as my main computer.

[miniboxer]

Ew, conventional hard drive. I don't need much storage, so I think just 2 256 GB Samsung Evo 840 SSD's, and also I want 16 GB of RAM, and mini ITX, I don't need SLI. And I'm not a good builder, never built a PC and don't want to risk $2500 on something I might break trying to build.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2HId0

There.

Cheaper than before too, without the bigger case and second 780 Ti.

Building is extremely easy. You would have to be trying to break things as long as you are careful.

[disconsented]

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2HERQ

There.

Cheaper than before too, without the bigger case and second 780 Ti.

Building is extremely easy. You would have to be trying to break things as long as you are careful.

1) Why no K?

2) Why such a large SSD?

3) Why W7?

4) Why such an overkill PSU? (you have around double the recommended wattage for that setup)

[miniboxer]

1) Why no K?

Because it isn't an overclock ready motherboard.

2) Why such a large SSD?

SSD is taking the place of a 1TB 7200 RPM hard drive.

3) Why W7?

Because I don't like windows 8. It was more just included to show the difference in price.

4) Why such an overkill PSU? (you have around double the recommended wattage for that setup)

That's an artifact of the previous 780 ti build. Link now updated: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2HId0

also fixed in previous post.

[Amaxter]

Hmm,, I think that's good. I'd use windows 8, and an over clock ready motherboard and 4770k as well as a bitfenix prodigy for the case

[Amaxter]

Ok, so I did some work on PC Part Picker and this is the result: http://pcpartpicker.com/b/LzH

Think a beginner like me could build that?

[Lethosos]

I have good news about Win 8, at the least. Apparently MS actually listened to the consumers, and is working on "Threshold", an update that could very well be Win 9 in essence. The primary change is reintroducing the Aero theme from Win 7 as a choice over the Tablet theme.

[Amaxter]

I don't mind the tablet theme too much, but maybe that's I've been conditioned for it growing up using Mac and iOS. As for peformance, I know Windows 8 loads up faster but I heard it's harder to overclock components with. Is this true?

[Kocken926]

1 TotalBiscuit worth of SSD? Why not do 1 TB HDD and a smaller SSD for games?

[Amaxter]

1 TotalBiscuit worth of SSD? Why not do 1 TB HDD and a smaller SSD for games?

Because why do I need to waste money on a conventional HDD when I can have a SSD for a zippy OS and fast booting games?

[Kocken926]

Because why do I need to waste money on a conventional HDD when I can have a SSD for a zippy OS and fast booting games?

OS and good games goes on the SSD, other stuff goes on the HDD. You'll save money that way, and HDDs have lower failure rates than SSDs, so less chance of you losing your data (Movies documents, save file backups etc.). Mostly it's about the money, though.

[Amaxter]

OS and good games goes on the SSD, other stuff goes on the HDD. You'll save money that way, and HDDs have lower failure rates than SSDs, so less chance of you losing your data (Movies documents, save file backups etc.). Mostly it's about the money, though.

Yeah but I can add an HDD later if I need it, I don't need much a storage so an SSD isn't much more expensive. Same thing with an optical drive, don't need one so not getting it.

[disconsented]

OS and good games goes on the SSD, other stuff goes on the HDD. You'll save money that way, and HDDs have lower failure rates than SSDs, so less chance of you losing your data (Movies documents, save file backups etc.). Mostly it's about the money, though.

Actually that has changed, SSD at the moment last for roughly 25% longer.

[Amaxter]

I've heard building in Mini ITX cases, particularly the bitfenix prodigy can be tricky for a beginner? Is this true? http://pcpartpicker.com/b/LzH

[miniboxer]

I've heard building in Mini ITX cases, particularly the bitfenix prodigy can be tricky for a beginner? Is this true? http://pcpartpicker.com/b/LzH

Not necessarily harder, just a bit more irritating. In a cramped space it can be a bit difficult to work with cable management and other things like that. I would reccomend going for a fully modular power supply, as shown here: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2Ibbi

RAM was also tweaked, as corsair vengeance stuff is a little bit overpriced.

[Amaxter]

Not necessarily harder, just a bit more irritating. In a cramped space it can be a bit difficult to work with cable management and other things like that. I would reccomend going for a fully modular power supply, as shown here: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2Ibbi

RAM was also tweaked, as corsair vengeance stuff is a little bit overpriced.

Awesome, also I've heard that RAID 0 is faster than one SSD if you have two identical ones, how do I set that up? Also do i need an optical drive to install Windows 8?

[Neowulf]

Awesome, also I've heard that RAID 0 is faster than one SSD if you have two identical ones, how do I set that up? Also do i need an optical drive to install Windows 8?

Bulk transfer yes, read/write oh hell no.

RAID 0 is striping, which means you send half the data to one drive and half to the other, writing to the same spot on the disk at the same time with even bits going to one drive and odd to the other. It doubles the transfer speed you can get out of a logical drive.

Unfortunately you still have seek time, which on a SSD is 0ms vs whatever your drives are rated at. If you have a lot of smaller files to transfer, an SSD will fly circles around the best HDD.

I have an SSD in my work laptop, 5 year old dell running win7. It boots in less than 30 seconds.

[Torezu]

I can think of several reasons to get an optical drive.

1) Incredibly cheap (think $25 or less) DVD viewing/burning.

2) Many games/programs are still not conveniently available online (or enormous to download), or sometimes you just want hard copy backups of software. The online unavailability thing is getting much less common, though.

3) Backup/system restore discs. Again, getting less critical, but still nice to have in case something goes terribly wrong and you can't get internet access. This isn't as important if you have another computer/device to pull driver files and other stuff with.

[Neowulf]

Optical drives don't have to be internal.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135256

I've got a similar one that has proven a godsend for those stupid netbooks that are too small for a drive and need the OS wiped.