I bought a gaming PC

PC

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It's really nothing super special, I was just in the mood to mess around with something different, and specifically some 4K gaming on the 80" Vizio, so, I have been watching pricing for a while, and wanted to get into something that I could play with over time. I have no fear of doing anything major later, so, even Motherboard swapping as a potential down the road was no problem.

Best Buy sells a few pre-built brands, and iBuyPower averaged high enough reviews to be worth the money.

6th Gen i7-6700 @ 3.4 GHz
1TB 7200 RPM HDD
NVidia GTX 970 4GB
8GB DDR4 RAM

Retails at $1150 (not bad, but the motherboard leaves some to be desired, while the case has space for like 5 more expansion slots, the board does not, and was almost a deal breaker at that price). However, Best Buy's system had the pricing wrong and they sold it to me for $800 (the i5 and GTX 950 price. They confirmed their pricing multiple times to me, and we confirmed the hardware was what I wanted, so, I bought it.

Added a 240GB SSD for $65.
Swapped the 8GB DDR4 RAM to 16GB DDR4 RAM for $75.
Purchased a wireless keyboard and mouse combo, for now, for $70.
Xbox One Controller Adapter for Windows for $25.
Various cables and connections (SATA3 data cable, SATA power, 2.5-3.5 slot adapter) $15.

So, $1050 plus taxes, and I am still $100 under the retail price (oh, and ALL THE POINTS!!!)

According to a few PC ranking sites, the CPU is in the 99th percentile, the GPU/Card is in the 96th percentile, and the RAM is in the 98th percentile. So, I am happy. Nothing through Quantum Break surpassed the specs (I actually didn't find anything that broke the specs). In a couple of years, when that starts to be an issue, I will have swapped the motherboard, and will probably look for something that can do 32GB RAM and at least 2-3 video cards. But, this was a much easier starting off point for me.
I would have been happy to help you get some parts picked out to get your own made, though it sounds like you lucked out on the price.
To be honest, I would have waited for the new gpu's coming out this year. Looks to be the first die shrink in 5 years, and there are some major memory improvements as well. I think they'll be much better suited for both 4k and VR quality.
No need. I honestly could have easily built a machine if I wanted. I did not want, been down that path do many times, it honestly isn't worth the time and effort. Just grab a quick build that fits your needs, and adjust as needed. And why wait? The devices coming out later will be way over priced, without anything truly making use of it, and can be had at a fraction of the cost when this machine is ready to upgrade. Basically, spending the exact same amount of money, but, getting an extra 9 months of gaming or more...
True, it just depends what setup you're coming from. I decided to make a small upgrade to a 380x now since my PSU can still handle it, and I'll be ready to make a full upgrade down the road once all of the significant changes going on now are fully established.
I have not had a gaming PC in 18 years, either. I got very tired of it, the constant work it took to have one back then.

Oh, I want to Shadows of the Empire, OK, that likes the ATI video card and the Corsair RAM.
Now I want to play Quake, but, that actually won't play on the ATI card, so, need to put in the NVidia and might as put in the PNY, too.

Then I got a Nintendo 64, and 4 people could play at once, and I just put the game in and it played, and the graphics were fine enough, and I'm lazy. I never went back to the PC. In fact, this is the first non-laptop or non-tablet purchased in 21 years. Every PC brought into the house since the last gaming PC was purchased was reclaimed in some form.
While getting everything setup, I realized it would basically be as easy to install two SSDs as it would be to do one. So, I grabbed a second 240GB SSD, and put it all together today. Deleted all the partitions and did a clean install on one of the SSDs, and I am using the second SSD for game installations. At least for now. I may end up grabbing a second 1TB HDD, blowing everything out again, and creating to volumes, a 240 GB striped between the 2 SSDs and a 1 TB striped between the 2 HDDs, but, lets see how everything runs this way, for a bit.
That sounds like a beautiful setup. I haven't built a rig in a few years, and I am drooling at your specs here. Nice job, Michael.
18 years ago I had a Pentium 486DX, that was a bad mo-fo!
Downloaded all my Steam games, my EA Origin games, and Elder Scrolls online. There goes 120 of 240 GB on the games SSD...
Looks good. I've been considering buying a new 'gaming' pc to hook up to my TV. I am too old to worry about best graphics and stuff any more, I just need it to run my games.
Looks good. I've been considering buying a new 'gaming' pc to hook up to my TV. I am too old to worry about best graphics and stuff any more, I just need it to run my games.
Originally Posted by Kaens
Well, for me, the root cause was "too good of a TV" for any existing console hardware. So, graphics were important. But, I am also older and slightly more frugal (slightly), so, a $300 graphics card that is fine for now superseded a $600 or more graphics card. The upgrade potential was important, too. Could the case support more? Where was the CPU in the lifecycle? How quickly would it be capped out and NEED upgrades?
Pretty much immediately after getting this rig setup, I had to do some traveling for Extra Life. Now that I am home and settled again, I got it all hooked up to the 80" 4K television. It was very nice to see the television switch over to 2160p resolution, as well as see Fallout 4, Elder Scrolls Online, and Star Wars: The Old Republic offer me 3840x2160 as resolution options.
I have also bought a Dell PC with the configuration that will be supportable for the gaming. But from past few days, the hard drive of the PC has been corrupted due to Dell error code 2000-0142 and can not play the game anymore.

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