My husband and I know NOTHING about computers, but we’re looking to buy a gaming PC capable of running the sims 4 with lots of cc and mods and Starfield. I currently play on an older MacBook Air that’s constantly glitching and resetting. My husband is mostly a console player, but wanted to make the switch. We’re hoping to spend less than 1000 and live in the US. Is this a reasonable price range?
@Aeriola51 $1,000 U.S. can get you a desktop that comes very close to the recommended specs for Starfield. (Sims 4's requirements, even for ultra settings and a lot of custom content, are significantly lower; everything I'm listing should handle ultra settings without any trouble.) The recommendation for a graphics card is an Nvidia RTX 2080 or AMD RX 6800 XT. The latter is the faster card, but GPUs as fast as either one don't come in sub-$1,000 systems. However, an RTX 4060 is very close to the 2080 in performance, it's much newer, and I found a few systems with a 4060 in your price range.
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16883360409
https://www.newegg.com/skytech-st-chronos2-0803-b-ne/p/3D5-000Z-00164
https://www.newegg.com/abs-sa13400f4060-stratos-aqua/p/N82E16883360406
The graphics card is the same in all three, and that will likely be the limiting factor for Starfield (and definitely for Sims 4, not that you'd actually see any limitations) given that the processors are above the recommended specs, albeit by a small margin. In terms of power, these are listed from weakest to strongest processor, but the difference is a few percentage points from one to the next. The third also has much faster memory, so it's a worthwhile upgrade over the second if your budget isn't extremely tight.
In case you're wondering, ABS is Newegg's in-house brand: the company uses components it has on-hand that aren't selling as quickly to assemble pre-built systems. These components are the same overall quality as you'd buy if you were building your own computer; it's just about what Newegg bought in bulk and wants to move. Skytech is a system integrator that uses this same category of components and generally offers a high build quality.
These are all from Newegg because it currently has the best prices I could find, but that can change quickly. If you'd rather shop at Best Buy, this is the cheapest equivalent option (the next one is $1,100) I'm seeing there:
Its processor is better than the ones above, but I don't like that it has only one 16 GB memory module rather than a 2x8 configuration. Still, you could upgrade that yourself if and when you wanted to do so; RAM is the simplest and cheapest component to upgrade. You'd want to match the speed of the existing module, and preferably the timings as well, so it's not a purchase you'd want to make until you had the computer on site. But as an example, this (30% off with promo code) might match:
https://www.newegg.com/team-16gb/p/N82E16820331873
The Newegg systems all have a 2x8 GB configuration, so this isn't a concern with any of those desktops.
This is the cheapest Amazon equivalent, in fact the only one sold by Amazon itself for under $1,100:
https://www.amazon.com/iBuyPower-SlateMesh-Computer-Desktop-SlateMeshA5N4601/dp/B0CCZYRNHK
It has the same processor as the Best Buy model and only half the storage. I can't tell from the product page whether it has 1x16 GB or 2x8 GB RAM. I'd skip it unless you specifically want to buy from Amazon.
And just to reiterate, all of these computers are massive overkill for Sims 4. The game itself will have slowdowns because of the way it's programmed, but that won't be the computer's fault and its hardware won't be anywhere near maxed out no matter how many mods and custom content items you install.
If you have more questions, please feel free to ask.
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