Hey all! ~
Just wondering if you guys knew of any pre-built PCs that can run MEA. I'm kind of scared and unwilling to build my own but I also can't afford to pay 1500 bucks for a PC with spec requirements that high. I've been looking for relatively cheap (600 USD/800 CAD and under) PCs but so far I'm not exactly finding anything. Might be hopeless but I thought I'd just shoot a question here.
Thanks ~
You could always find a place where you pick the parts and pay to have someone assemble a PC for you. Least, you'll be getting good parts, instead of cheap ones that are commonly found in pre-built PCs.
Honestly.....building a desktop is pretty easy. If you have a friend who has done it before, or even just watching a bunch of youtube videos can pretty much teach you what you need. Take your time, read, research parts and then order and build it. Contrary to most people's thoughts, most parts are snap in with a few screws and that only needs a careful hand and instruction books. I built my first with my brother almost 20 years ago, now I will NEVER buy a prebuilt for my personal use, unless I just need a email/surfing web machine for an extra or child.
The first time I built a computer I was amazed at how simple it really was....
600 USD is too cheap for a pre-built. It's enough for a custom build. With slightly over 600 USD (at the time of writing) you can build this PC that absolutely crushes current gen consoles. I personally pick parts in a webstore and have someone build it for me (for warranty reasons and because meesa clumsy).
Pre-builts are a bit tricky because webshops tend to build in a bottleneck and hope people won't notice. That's why they'll sell you a PC with a everything you need, except for the graphics card, which is entry-level. For instance, this PC is slightly above your budget (assuming CAD and CDN are the same thing) and the CPU and RAM are sufficient, but the graphics card is useless.
Do you know of some webstores in your region that allow you to assemble customer PCs that they then build? If so, I'm willing to have a look.
I would pick a slightly more powerful PSU to be prepared for future expansions. It wont cost much more. Go with one that are modular built that way you only have the cords needed installed. Saves clutter in the cabinet.
If the budget is there for it, add an SSD for the speed increase that gives.
As Fred said above you should look for websites/stores that allow you to choose the parts and then they will assembly it for you for free of charge (mostly, some of them tied to spend a certain amount of money, some just to buy the parts from there). Here in Hungary we have tons of them and even in my city i know quite a few stores where you just walk in, point at this and that and bam in a day or two you have your custom built pc with the parts you've chosen.
Just do your research first because not many stores are user friendly and they might try to talk you into some crappy stuff like, "hey, its cheaper its only a year older but it should run fine" - not it wont, not all the time. So know what you looking for and if you are not sure bring a friend who is familiar with these things.
Community Admin@LukkustafirAs others have said making your own can be a good way to go. If you're interested in it, perhaps the /r/buildapc subreddit is a good place to start.
it's easier than you'd think, and if it's a self build it makes maintenance (cleaning out, replacing or adding parts) easier as you're already familiar with the guts of your system.
If you do want to stick to a pre-build it's worth running it by the folks here or other tech communities for feedback before you commit. $800 CAD isn't a trivial investment and it's always worth making sure you get your money's worth.
If there's a Canadian version of tweakers.net , I think it's better to build one yourself. It's a website that finds the cheapest shops for the parts you want to have and it also has an active forum (Dutch though). PCPartpicker is also a good website, they show videos on YT about how to build budget gaming PC's. Pre-built PC's are just too expensive and some of them have inefficient PSU's with crazy high wattage (efficient PSU's with 400W-450W are usually enough if you don't intend to overclock (well, there are overclocked builds that can run with this amount of power), an excellent example is the BitFenix Whisper).
From shopping for a new rig about 6 months ago I gotta say you will not find a pre-built for modern gaming for less than a thousand that is worth its salt. That is only for the rig not peripherals and monitor. For a budget like yours a custom self build is the only way you will get there. I would say that you would at least need an I-5 processor and recommend you invest in a 10 series of if you use NVidia if you want to hit ultra level video. The 1060 is a decent workhorse for around 200 but I would suggest the 1070 if you can't do 1080. You can get good ram cheap. I replaced my Alienware stock with two sticks ballsitix sport for around 100 bucks for 16 gigs and there was some decent stuff for a near half that. A decent hard drive will cost you under 50. If you have a good tower with a fair mother board, decent cooling and power already you could be in very high to ultra graphics for about 500 dollars if you shop around online but figure on 800 if you want something that will last and built from the ground up. Especially if you want really good graphics. You can get a really good SSD for 100 bucks too which makes a huge quality of life improvement in load times. Yeah some people might argue its only seconds or a minute of time you save but think about how often you hit a load screen plus you will be in game running before others load in. Try not to scrimp. It might be painful to let a few more hundred go but a few bucks now will save much more in replacements when you have to update them sooner. Now if you just cannot seem to find anything you could always go console as they are closer to computer than ever before and much cheaper. I didn't build my rig because I was unsure from being only having console experience but now that I have a base and know what does what I will definitely build my next one myself most since most stuff is literally plug and play. Good luck and there are plenty of how to's out there.
Tough nut to crack ...
That is $800.00 altogether for self-assembly, without screen, keyboard, mouse etc. You may need additional parts, tools maybe.
I selected the parts via online pc builder pages that compare prices available, so please understand this just as a guideline.
You can upgrade CPU (Ryzen 1800X), memory (+16Gb), GPU (Vega, 1080ti), storage in the future easily once you are willing to invest extra money.
Theoretical saving up to $200 with a end price of $600 by evaluating the following:
$850 with Ryzen 5 and GTX 1060
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883230212
Or buy a $280 AMD desktop with an 8 core CPU and 8GB of RAM and stick a $200 graphics card in it. It will play everything out right now.
