Back to PC Gaming what do I need.

maverick177uk

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So I'll be purchasing my first PC in about 7 years, strictly gaming, I'm going to be playing MMOs but some FPS, so what do I need to download for games, I will be getting Steam straight away but I seem to remember something called Punkbuster? Does this still exist, basically it want to set it up straight away for gaming. Try to stop hackers/cheats on games, how do I find you all on what servers, might get Titanfall to try it out. Cheers in advance lads.
 
Steam now has VAC ( Valve Anti Cheat) its built into steam , there is always gonna be hackers mate and nothing we can do will stop them , Some do get caught and banned , Origin is what you need for Titanfall, to find friends in games all you do is add your friends and when they in game it will pop up in a box on friends list with the game they are playing and you can right click and join game :) Hope this helps :D
 
Cheers pal
 
Are you building your own system or buying a pre build ?
 
Pre build mate
 
you also need to sit down and think about what level of PC gaming you want to play at.

Do you want bare bones entry level (still going to be higher end than last gen consoles)
mid range (which will be on a par with current gen consoles - truth is probably better!)
or a proper gaming rig (which will be superior to any console)

and are you happy with a single screen basic set up or do you want a custom multi screen rig? (in which case, if they are high res you may need to consider a very high end rig with multiple graphics cards in sli/crossfire).

Now I am very intel/nvidia centric so bear in mind there is also AMD but, me personally for anything other than super high end I would be looking at a haswell i5 chip. If you reallly want the best you could go I7, but for me, that money is better saved and put into a better gpu.

You really want a solid state primary drive for your OS. they really do make a big difference (and then a harddisk for installing apps/games too).

RAM wise there is no reason to get less than 8gb, indeed if you are going for even a remotely enthusiast gaming rig I personally would be considering 16gb now, simply because it does not cost that much. 8gb is ok for now tho.

and finally gpu..... Which is essentially the big thing for what will most likely be your bottleneck. Low end, if you just want to be able to play most games, and are not bothered about eye candy, a GTX750ti is not a bad choice... you may even get away with one of the AMD APU solutions which has the gpu and cpu built in to 1 chip which will save you a lot of cash.

for middle of the road a GTX770 is a good choice, A GTX760 is "OK" I am running a card about equivalent to that now, and many games I can close to max out at 1080P, but I cant do that on some games, and things are only going to get worse going forward.

for high end a GTX780 is a hell of a nice card. A pricing error from scan 6 months ago, a mate picked up a zotac GTX 780 overclocked edition for £400 (that was cheap then). It is a monster of a card., and if you are feeling really flush for an extra £100 or so on top of the GTX780, you can go up again to the GTX780ti.

If you are getting a ready made rig, you wont have to worry about the psu etc, but that being said, I personally would make sure it had a 600W + one in there and was of reputable quality. There is nothing like coming to upgrade your machine in the future and having to spend an extra £70 for a new psu.

And that is where I stop as I have never built / used an ultra high end rig. Such a rig would have sli GTX780's in there or perhaps a titan black or 2, an I7 processor, and things such as the onboard sound would be disabled and proper stand alone cards used, but that is way beyond my wallet.

overclockers will build you a machine pretty much to any spec your wallet can take, if you really dont want to build it yourself

PS cheaters are the bain of PC gaming, and the downside of using an open platform to game. It is the 1 area where it is hard to argue that the consoles generally have a massive edge.
 
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I agree with all of what mike says above , I would get an i7 CPU though as watchdogs recommends an i7 and I think now with new games in the pipeline spending that extra money on a CPU will benefit you , it's not hard to build your own system , keep eyes in the classifieds as the avf members on here get the upgrade bug , I had plans to build a mid range pc and ended up getting the bug and ended up building a full water cooled high end pc :)
 
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Can I ask why?
 
K series chips have unlocked multipliers. You could overclock it in future.
 
Ok cheers but I wouldn't be overclocking, do you think the K outweighs the SSD in outlay.
 
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Have a look around mate you could build your own for less ,
 
No ta that's a non starter, I'm crap at that sort of stuff
 
Ok cheers but I wouldn't be overclocking, do you think the K outweighs the SSD in outlay.

I would look into that mate and possibly reconsider. overclocking is safe if you do it sensibly, just make sure your cooling is good and dont go crazy. it should not even void any warranties.

when you can get 20% increases in performance for free, why would you rule it out?
just my 2p.

My 3.3 gz sandy I5 is running happily at 4.2ghz. It goes as high as 4.6gz stably if i want it too but i have never seen a need. it smokes every game i have ever tried, not bad for a chip I purchased in feb 2011!. I am not planning on replacing for another 18 months at least. IF I get cpu locked I will just push it up to the 4.6ghz that it can do, though that does mean slight voltage tweaks and may need a better cooler.

iirc haswell cpus do not overclock quite as well as sandybridges, though I dont have one so others may be able to say more about the matter. Am pretty sure 4ghz would be almost a given however
 
Deffo get a CPU that can be overclocked !! It's so easy to do , if you ever needed any help doing it just give me a shout , I have had my CPU at 5.2ghz , it is a lottery to get a chip like mine but most go to 4.7 with ease , with new games using some CPU now rather than just gpu it's the right choice to get a K version
 
Ok cheers I seem to having the same conversation in the other thread Spec Me a PC, this really was to see once I got the PC what I needed to download lol. But I appreciate the input.
 
Them two prebuild rigs u listed seem to be bit backwards to me, if was me id have the 4670k in the one with the ssd/16gig and 2tb, with the 4440 in the other system.
 
I know what you mean but it's down to cost you can add the SSD but it would cost me too much
 
Ignore all these double-noobs.

The only things you need are pictures of cats and a youtube.
 
I know what you mean but it's down to cost you can add the SSD but it would cost me too much

To be fair they are very good prices, and can always add a ssd for windows at a later date.
 

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