Why I Should PC

You remember I've brang up PC master race Ben from work, who goes on about how much PC gaming is blah blah

A few things' have always put me off PC gaming but there is a few games that I would like to play but was going to wait for a STEAM box but they keep getting delayed etc. So as Ben brought up you can get a fairly decent PC for about £500 but I don't want to spend that much but I was looking on eBay and I came across this what do you guy's think, could you do better and if I was to get a PC that can actually run a game what would recommend.

I'm not looking to buy this second or anything maybe after xmas or bday when I've got a bit more money and being PC stuff come down in price.

Do you think you'd be able to build a PC? If so, you're probably better off doing that. If not, then I'm not really sure what to recommend considering I went with a local company. I'd advise steering clear of Alienware - I hear their kit is pretty overpriced. Bear and mind that the more money you're willing to drop on a PC, the longer it'll last without needing an upgrade. Also bear in mind that you'll get your games for half the price if not much much less, so it's worth making the jump.

I reckon I could but not 100% sure on all the parts needed. Did you look at the one in the link from a company. It's a weird one like you say more spend more future proof your going to be like Ben just spent £260 on a graphics card and has 16gb of ram etc all to play Star Citizen at ultra which will becoming out proper in 2016 by then if I wanted to play it, couldn't I just get what now is a £250 graphics card cheap.

On the game's that's what ben says as well but I will still play most multi format game's on PS4 due to being able to sell on, borrow game's and community of friends I've got on it also not much difference day one shadow of mordor is £30 on steam I payed £39 on ps4. It's likes of seeing skyrim in steam sales for about a fiver that appeals to me also some of the mods and of course indies such as gone home.

That linked PC is actually pretty decent - should do the job pretty well if you're not planning to buy many current releases if you're still getting them on PS4.

I might buy a odd one or two on PC as they seem drop quickly on PC, so likes of Evil Within which I'm not sure about but would pick up on PC when cheap as more likely to be then PS4.

So would something like in the link be able to run Evil Within.

Also is there some big PC games worth playing as everyone seems to bang on about LoL.

I'm seriously considering playing my first PC game since Spore. That game being Freedom Planet...

The one thing putting me off really is having no controller. Keyboard controls are rubbish.

If you can get a hold of a USB 360 pad, most games on PC have full controller support and even change the UI to reflect the 360 pad.

I was going to play Her Story as I got a review code but before I used I went on the site called Can You RUN it. And guess what I can't due to my video card and something else, which is rather annoying as I was looking forward to it.

And my Laptop is getting slower and slower by the day that I might just go PC World as it's quick and easy and buy a laptop, what's
the best they've got below £400

Any help would be good and I would like to plug into the TV via HDMI if I am going play stuff on it.

Pretty much all modern laptops and PC's have HDMI support, and for those that do not many TV's support PC's.

As for those laptops, if you want to run games only consider those with either AMD or Nvidia graphics cards. Those without will have an in-built graphics cards that won't handle games.

For less then £400 you will probably struggle to find one with a good CPU and Graphics Card, but for a little more this and this would probably work alright for you. The latter more expensive one would be noticeably quicker when booting and running windows due to having an SSD/HDD Hybrid storage drive.

You will get much more power for your buck if you go for a desktop - and for that price range that's where I'd go - but if you need portability then solely based off of PC world have at your price, I'd recommend the one at £449. Regardless, neither of them are particularly powerful - I'm not sure how well they'd run, say, Skyrim (I think they'd both handle it, just not at pretty settings - don't hold me to that though). Neither could handle new games like The Evil Within though. For most Indy stuff you should be ok. Still, shop around. There are better deals out there somewhere.

Word of Advice: NEVER BUY A REFURBISHED COMPUTER - I had a bad experience with a website I bought one from, which ended with my bank refunding me and them taking legal action against the site.

I don't really need portability but going to EGX for instance, which I will take the laptop with me for instance.

Yeah I've seen in CEX a few times what look decent spec but like you said not buying used or refurbished.

See Evil Within I would play on PS4 or ONE, I'm not buying a PC for the whole master race deal but I would like to play Her Story, Darkest Dungeon for instance with maybe the odd game in STEAM or GOG sale.

Yeah if its just small indy games then either of those I linked should do the trick I'd have thought - easily for oldies from GOG.

Incidently, Desura is another pc gaming client that's basically full of Indy stuff oftentimes cheaper than Steam.

Thanks Muss, there might be a odd bigger game but it be more like a Skyrim a older title then a new title.

Found some techno jargon on graphics cards in those two laptops for skyrim - It's not very clear which AMD R5 card the cheaper one uses, but if its a weaker one it runs skyrim quite badly on low settings. That said, its *probably* not the weakest one, and if that's the case it'll run well on low I just can't be sure as PC world's website only says R5.

If you went with the Nvidia one, it'll happily run skyrim really well on low settings, and should run decently on normal.

I'd rock with an NVIDIA card over an AMD card, to be honest. Better hardware in my opinion, and a lot of games are optimised for NVIDIA as opposed to AMD.

Thanks guys, I don't when ill get a actual chance to go look though as I've got a very long week in work.

I've changed my mind again - I hate PC gaming! My computer has restarted upon playing things that are overly-3D (although I have played Minecraft for hours straight while chatting to buddies, nearly once a week for 2 years, and this has never failed). It is probably either the graphics card overheating or my power unit failing. I went for a Dell machine because... I'm a doofus it seems. It turns out my graphics card, although a separate beast from the mother board, is gestalt-ly linked to my motherboard in ways I can't possibly imagine, and therefore can't just buy a replacement card because they don't sell them; nor can I just fit a better graphics card because my power unit is just about powerful enough to run what's in the computer, and a new graphics card would be too much. And it's really difficult to replace a power unit in a Dell PC because they deliberately make theirs a smaller size than is normal. So now I'm afraid to play half the games in my Steam library.

Have you tried buying a chill/fan pad? I had an issue with overheating when playing GTA V, but I picked up a fan pad from Amazon for about £20 and it's done the job nicely.

Hi guys, Jay & Muss will know what I'm about but please chime in if you know anything.

Anyway I went PC World after world to maybe buy this laptop which Muss said about but after talking to the "PC Gaming expert" this one was shown to me which I gather would of been the best or there this one.

I think it was all of those, so what do you guys think gives the best value for money, considering gaming isn't my main purpose as my PC Master Race friend at work who I was talking to said all laptops are shit and I should get a desktop for gaming which I tired to explain I can't really lump a desktop to Birmingham & that I'm not suddenly going to be buying the likes of Witcher III for PC which he replied pointless getting anything then.

As I understand things.

Mas wants: Portability, To play Skyrim with mods, To play Indie games.

All of these laptops will be able to do that, but the more expensive it gets the better performance you'll get - the basic model is pretty much low settings only for a solid frame rate though.

I'm not so good with laptop prices as I use desktops, so I don't know how good they are in terms of value. It is worth noting though that some indie PC games - This War of Mine for example - actually need more grunt than Skyrim (at least it didn't run on my old laptop, but skyrim did). So you might consider a more expensive one.

But as you've said, you want to use consoles mostly for games and just have the option of some PC titles, so the basic model would suffice for your needs. It really depends on how much cash you are willing to pay, and how you want the games to run.

As for your friend, he sounds like a tit with his master race nonsense, he could do with adjusting his FOV slider to be honest. Laptops are a perfectly viable way to PC game provided you understand their limitations. For what you're looking for they're perfect, you just need to find the right one tailored to your needs.

If I was choosing for you, the one PC World recommended, of those three, might be the best one. Guaranteed good performance on pretty much all the games you'd be looking at. The most expensive one is only going to be marginally better, but they'd both be significant upgrades on the basic one I linked before. But you know, money is a thing and your initial budget was £400 so choose accordingly.

I'm not sure if I would play Skyrim, I just used that as a example of the sort of more high end games I would play on PC over a Her Story in comparison.

I actually really want to play This War of Mine, why is the more expensive one marginally better as the guy in the store was going on how the one he recommended has 12gbs of ram whilst the other 2 I linked only have 8gbs. I know the most expensive one has a better graphics card though.

PC Master Race Ben has actually just bought a PS4 of all things.

Marginal because the graphics card is only a slight upgrade, you won't see many fps more out of it.

As for ram, 8 is both the min and max you should go for regarding gaming, the PC world man was chatting shit and trying to up-sell you. More than 8 only makes a notable difference for video editing. Head over to youtube, there are numerous videos on why upgrading beyond 8 is pretty much a waste of money for gaming, especially for a laptop - its your graphics card and CPU and temperatures that will throttle performance.

Re skyrim that's fair, I don't really like the game but it is a good baseline to aim for.

Edit: Also, if you get a valid copy of windows before the 29th of July you can upgrade to windows 10 for free. Most shops sell products with Win 8 built in, which is crappy and I'm not sure when they'll jump to Win 10. You may wish to make your purchase soon if at all possible.

That's what I thought but wouldn't he want one me to buy the most expensive one.

Thanks again Muss.

JayMoyles wrote:

Have you tried buying a chill/fan pad? I had an issue with overheating when playing GTA V, but I picked up a fan pad from Amazon for about £20  and it's done the job nicely.

Innnnnnnnteresting... that's one of those things that scares me into thinking that I'm just going to break things more. But I'll certainly consider it - cheers Moyles.

I hate the idea of computer gaming because you got to worry about how much room you got left in your memory, you got to wait ages until the download is finished, you got to pay for the extra bits like the handheld stick for your computer, if something happens to your computer you loss the game save or what not on your computer. You have to pay a lot more than a normal console, it just seems like a big fuss to me to deal with. I don't know how people do it or even got the patience to even set it up well there a Playstation 4 in the GAME or Argos store

You have all those issues with the PS4 or Xbox ONE as well.