Help With PC Gaming 'Build'

[chance_ler_bing]

Hello Tom's Hardware community!

First off my PC isn't explicitly a 'build' by traditional terms. So I currently have a tower PC that we bought to do basic things on, email, bills, etc. I've recently gotten back into PC gaming. Therefore, I'm looking to upgrade from this PC to something more gamer friendly. I am familiar with building my own, but financial constraints prevent that from being a feasible option that would be done any time soon. I'm wanting to get something going ASAP that can run games smoothly and look pretty for as cheap as I can get it.

Our current PC is a Lenovo IdeaCentre with Windows 8.1 64-Bit, 4GB of RAM, 1TB HDD and a Intel Pentium G630 @ 2.70Ghz, and no graphics card, running integrated graphics here. I don't think I have a lot of room for expansion with this PC. I think it'll be cheaper to ultimately buy an entirely new PC with better base specs and upgrade from there. So I'm looking mainly at this used HP Compaq 6200 I found online. This is a model that has an Intel Core i7-2600 w/ 8GB ram, AMD Radeon HD 5450 graphics card & no hard drive, but I'll just pull the HDD from our Lenovo and put it in the beefier PC. Now, somewhere online I heard people saying this model PC has a 320W PSU, which seems low to me.

Processor inside my current PC: http://

Processor inside HP Compaq that I'm eyeing benchmark score: http://


My end goal here is to have something that I can hook-up via HDMI to my 4K HDR TV to use a screen for playing PC games in 1080p/4K with high res settings. Therefore I want to drop a graphics card in this machine, had my eye on this one:http://


Also wanted to know what is up with the Asus GTX650TIB (I'm assuming this is the GTX 560 TI Boost?): http://



and maybe this PSU:http://

as it seems relatively beefy for a low cost, and price is key to me right now. Problem is, is that idk if I'll need a larger PSU for this or a similar card, and idk if I can put a different PSU in a branded machine and it still work. These articles leave me wondering if it will work: http://

Article 2: http://


So, another thing. Let's say I get the Compaq, upgrade my GPU and possibly PSU, and all is well. Is this setup going to be good enough for general gaming? I mean right now most of what I play is 2D games, but I would like to be able to play more 3D games or intense games. Fighting games look like a big appeal for me, i.e. Street Fighter V Arcade Edition (whenever that comes out), Street Fighter 12 game collection out next year, Injustice, LEGO Series stuff, Rocket League, Portal 2 (in high res), Mirror's Edge Catalyst (gotta play this since I liked the original so much), and maybe even Overwatch. I wanted to play Battlefront 2, but I saw that ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS spec list and I don't think I can (or want to) buy the stuff to run that one game. (Plus the whole BF2 stuff going on makes me think I'll stick to other stuff)

So, in a nutshell, will this work for me? I just want to play some newer games, and have stuff look nice and run nice. My whole setup (TV and such) will accommodate 60HZ refresh rate (which I assume means 60FPS, yes?) and wouldn't mind 4K resolution output with some pretty rendering. I know I can't have it all but I'm shooting for most running nicely. Over time I can do another upgrade later on if stuff becomes sluggish, but I'm wanting to play now. Part of the appeal to me on PC gaming is I can play everything from old 90's games all the way to the current releases of this week. I don't have to buy a whole new console just so I can play a new Sonic game or something, I can just upgrade the PC or something and have access to nearly everything I want to play on one machine.

So, thoughts?

 

[Frag Maniac]

1. You have a misconception that building causes financial problems. If anything you get far more bang for buck building than buying a prebuilt.

2. If you're at all entertaining the idea of 4K gaming, you will not get off cheap. It takes at least a single 1080 Ti to do proper 4K gaming, and they start at $700. Prebuilts with that kind of hardware are even more ridiculously priced than those with mediocre spec.

So see if you can rethink your priorities here, and maybe then you'll get some actual good advice. I mean there's no reason to go prebuilt at all if you need high end hardware and are familiar with building.

I'll also say that after trying 4K gaming, I don't feel it's worth it. 4K TVs in general are far too over-hyped and do not scale or up-convert nearly as well as many claim, and I tried it on a fairly high end Sony, the ones that are supposed to have the best scaling and up-converting.

IMO 4K TVs and 4K gaming won't be practical until there is a decent amount of UHD content available, and that won't likely happen until UHD broadcasts become mainstream. ATSC 3.0 standards are nearly finalized, but it will likely be at least 5 years before it's UHD broadcasts become mainstream in the US.

Fortunately I bought my TV and 1080 Ti at places that have flexible return-for-any-reason policies, and am getting full refunds. Although I had to argue with Crutchfield that I was told there would be no return shipping charge, otherwise I'd be out $125 just for shipping the TV back.

I plan to hang on to my 1080p Panasonic IPS TV until ATSC 3.0 broadcasts are available in my area, and get a 1070 Ti when the prices drop. I'm currently running a 7970, that for the most part is still holding up fine save for titles like Wolfenstein 2.

I will add that I tried running Just Cause 3 at 1440p, which would not run well even with a EVGA 1080 Ti FTW3 at 4K. It looked a bit grainy at 1440p, and 1080p IMO is too ugly to game on with a 4K TV. You really have to research well these days what tech you adopt early, because salesmen will hype up 4K and HDR way beyond their realistic viability.

 

[J_E_D_70]

You need to list a max budget and let someone here show you a build at that price. For 1080p high settings 60fps I’d look to spend $700-$800. No less.

 

[chance_ler_bing]

1. You have a misconception that building causes financial problems. If anything you get far more bang for buck building than buying a prebuilt.

2. If you're at all entertaining the idea of 4K gaming, you will not get off cheap. It takes at least a single 1080 Ti to do proper 4K gaming, and they start at $700. Prebuilts with that kind of hardware are even more ridiculously priced than those with mediocre spec.

So see if you can rethink your priorities here, and maybe then you'll get some actual good advice. I mean there's no reason to go prebuilt at all if you need high end hardware and are familiar with building.

I'll also say that after trying 4K gaming, I don't feel it's worth it. 4K TVs in general are far too over-hyped and do not scale or up-convert nearly as well as many claim, and I tried it on a fairly high end Sony, the ones that are supposed to have the best scaling and up-converting.

IMO 4K TVs and 4K gaming won't be practical until there is a decent amount of UHD content available, and that won't likely happen until UHD broadcasts become mainstream. ATSC 3.0 standards are nearly finalized, but it will likely be at least 5 years before it's UHD broadcasts become mainstream in the US.

Fortunately I bought my TV and 1080 Ti at places that have flexible return-for-any-reason policies, and am getting full refunds. Although I had to argue with Crutchfield that I was told there would be no return shipping charge, otherwise I'd be out $125 just for shipping the TV back.

I plan to hang on to my 1080p Panasonic IPS TV until ATSC 3.0 broadcasts are available in my area, and get a 1070 Ti when the prices drop. I'm currently running a 7970, that for the most part is still holding up fine save for titles like Wolfenstein 2.

I will add that I tried running Just Cause 3 at 1440p, which would not run well even with a EVGA 1080 Ti FTW3 at 4K. It looked a bit grainy at 1440p, and 1080p IMO is too ugly to game on with a 4K TV. You really have to research well these days what tech you adopt early, because salesmen will hype up 4K and HDR way beyond their realistic viability.

Ok, I do have to agree that 4k seems to not really live up to the hype. I guess it's like this, I have about $100 I can spend per month, and I would like to be able to play ASAP, so 700-800+ bucks for a build is gonna mean for me that I can't delve into new games till near the end of 2018.

So I think I can get one of these HP Compaqs from Goodwill Online for about $50ish bucks, and I'm wondering if for someone on a more tight budget if the i7 in that machine + a lower end graphics card could be decent enough to do some stuff like Street Fighter V or Overwatch or something? Like, if, let's just say, I ended up with the HP Compaq with that i7 & GT 710 GPU mentioned above, along with 8GB of RAM, what can I get away with? Are we talking barely running anything remotely modern, or more along the lines of lower graphic settings/resolution output? I can see that 4K 60FPS @ highest render settings for 100 bucks is not happening, but what will I be able to do with that kinda PC power?