Trying to buy a new computer..

[VidulaSaix]

Don't mean to hijack OP's thread, but I recently built one myself with these past Black Friday sales. Anyone know how it might be able to run FF14 FPS wise on High/Maximum settings?

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2bnua

I know the video card isn't the best bit it's the one I'm using now and the game looks fantastic when maxed out. The problem is my FPS in heavily populated areas.

[Tokochan]

Don't mean to hijack OP's thread, but I recently built one myself with these past Black Friday sales. Anyone know how it might be able to run FF14 FPS wise on High/Maximum settings?

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2bnua

I know the video card isn't the best bit it's the one I'm using now and the game looks fantastic when maxed out. The problem is my FPS in heavily populated areas.

I don't mind sharing :P
and that'd be nice for me to know too since thats in my price range lol

[Zheri]

There is microcenter fairly close to me.. I'll have to check that out before I make a decision I suppose :O
I'm not really sure about the watts and such..but I did see in the reviews for that computer that people had problems with it

Edit: Oh that one would probably be nice :O I heard that intel is better but amd is cheaper (something like that) and if thats true I wouldn't mind going over by a little for it

While Microcenter typically has excellent deals on CPU/Motherboard combos, their prices on everything else are the same as competitors or higher and you're going to be paying 6% in sales tax. Since you said you live in the Philly area, I'm assuming the Microcenter you're talking about is the one in St. Davids. That means the Tiger Direct store in Christiana, DE is also within driving distance if you have a free afternoon and there's no tax there. I'd definitely check them out too if you're adamant about going to a brick and mortar store. If you're OK with mail order, look at Newegg. They often have the best deals anywhere and are highly reputable. The downside is waiting for your parts to arrive.

Intel vs. AMD: In an general sense, yes, Intel is better while AMD is cheaper and there are some people who will never buy AMD. However, AMD does have its advantages in your price range. An FX-6300 is 6 cores and easily overclockable while a Core i3 is effectively 4 cores and does not support overclocking. (An Intel chip with a "K" after the number indicates an unlocked multiplier which makes overclocking easy; none of the i3's are "K" models.) That's not really a big deal right now as most games use only 2 cores, but looking to the future there are more and more programs that utilize multiple cores and overclocking can extend the usable life of an obsolete chip.

PSU Wattage: There's some significant disadvantages to skimping on your PSU, and for the little extra money 600W is worth it over 500W. Most of them operate at peak efficiency and idle fan speeds under about 50% load. Anything over that will dump more waste heat into your system and the fan will run faster and noisier. A typical budget gaming computer draws about 300-350W depending on what CPU you go with, so you're looking at a 600-700W PSU for cool and quiet operation. It'll also pay for itself in reduced energy costs, and PECO is expensive

[Zafrei]

Don't know if this'll help but I build one just a couple of months back, never drops below 50-55 fps on high/max settings with PC on stock settings:

• AMD (Piledriver) FX-6300 3.50GHz (4.10GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 6-Core Processor - Retail £ 69.99
• ARIAnet StealthX Type-R Black Midi Tower Gaming Case £ 25.83
• 1TB Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 3.5" SATA III Hard Drive - HDD £ 37.39
• Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P AMD 970 ATX Motherboard £ 43.95
• PowerColor Radeon HD 7950 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £ 141.66
• Corsair Vengeance Pro Blue 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C9 1866MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (CMY8GX3M2A1866C9B) £ 69.99
• Arianet X-Viper 750W 80+ Bronze Active PFC 14CM FDB Fan Single Rail £ 45.50

Already had a screen and optical drive of course, also reused my old HDD in addition to the one above as a slave drive. All in all it does me very nicely!

(edit) and of course the benefit of building your own is you'll know where it all goes/how it all works - when it comes to upgrading you upgrade parts rather than the whole thing. Much more bang for your buck!

[Tokochan]

...

Oh I didn't even think about driving to DE! I've been looking at all the sites (newegg, amazon, etc.) trying to see which has the cheapest parts >_o but... not sure if some sites are more reliable or anything

[Tokochan]

...

I was thinking about taking parts from my computer to reuse... but my oldest brother wanted my current one when I get a new one :/
And I think everyone convinced me I need to build my own now XD Hopefully I wont break anything

[VidulaSaix]

I was thinking about taking parts from my computer to reuse... but my oldest brother wanted my current one when I get a new one :/
And I think everyone convinced me I need to build my own now XD Hopefully I wont break anything

It's really not an overly difficult thing to do. The only part you can really mess up with is CPU installation. Just don't try to force it in and you should be good.

[Lupus_Lux]

If you're going to build yourself check youtube for how to vids. I didn't really know anything about bnuilding PC's but after a week of planning, watching videos and browsing forums I bought the parts and put it together no problem. Newegg has a good series on how to build a pc on you tube and Tom's Hardware forums are pretty good for info as well. I wanted to correct an earlier post I had saying that cyberpower had crappy PSU's, I was wrong, it was IBuyPower PC's that had the bad PSU's.

[Zafrei]

I was thinking about taking parts from my computer to reuse... but my oldest brother wanted my current one when I get a new one :/
And I think everyone convinced me I need to build my own now XD Hopefully I wont break anything

If you can keep your bro away from the old one, it'll save you a ton of money in parts (screen, optical drive, old HDD for extra storage).

It's not difficult to build one, read and watch a lot of guides, YouTube and a website called Tom's hardware are really good for teaching you, that's all I did. And remember Google is your friend! Any questions put them in there and you'll find answers.

Also dunno if this helps - almost every guide I read advises you to think of PC building as 'adult lego' - it's not a bad analogy when all is said and done!

[Tokochan]

If you can keep your bro away from the old one, it'll save you a ton of money in parts (screen, optical drive, old HDD for extra storage).

It's not difficult to build one, read and watch a lot of guides, YouTube and a website called Tom's hardware are really good for teaching you, that's all I did. And remember Google is your friend! Any questions put them in there and you'll find answers.

Also dunno if this helps - almost every guide I read advises you to think of PC building as 'adult lego' - it's not a bad analogy when all is said and done!

yeah i was always awful with legos XD
but thanks ^_^ i gotta learn up more before I buy then >_< haha