I don't know anything about gaming. The last time I regularly played video games was on my Atari. Yes, a million years ago.
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Basic question: I'd like to get into gaming. What's better a console or a gaming PC? My PC is super old so I have to buy a new PC anyway.
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I'm considering buying a renewed PC from Amazon. From what little I know - it seems like a good deal. If I buy something like a renewed Dell XPS 8940 for - I dunno up to $1,500 is that good enough for gaming? I'd prefer a boring PC case.
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What's the minimum I'd need to spend to get a gaming PC that plays most games?
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What are common mistakes people make when buying a gaming PC?
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Can most games be torrented?
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What's easier to torrent? Games for consoles or PC games? Ideally torrents will be my gaming store.
I'm giving myself until the end of the month to buy a new PC. So it's time for me to decide.
Amazon example...
Dell XPS 8940 Tower Desktop PC)
There are two PC setups on the page. Both are $1,000. Here are the specs for one of them.
[Edit: It's missing a useful graphics cad. I know I'll need the best graphics card possible because without that I'm buying a brand new car with a puny, nearly useless engine.]
10th Gen Octa-core Intel i7-10700 2.9GHz Processor
32GB DDR4 Memory
512GB PCIe M.2 SSD +1TB SATA 7200 RPM HDD
DVD-RW Drive
Windows 10 w/ Accessories (Renewed)
Edit
I'm not interested in building one. I'd screw something up. It's just the way I am.
The PC that you linked is very expensive and also bad for gaming.
Are you looking for a prebuilt or do you want to build your own? Also, the monitor choice matters quite a lot.
I'm only interested in prebuilt.
I can't believe I didn't even consider I'd need a new monitor. About how much would it cost? And what "kind/style" of monitor do I need for gaming? I don't know what to ask. I'll also google this of course so just terms are fine.
Minimum: 24" IPS with Freesync, refresh rate at least 75Hz and 1920x1080 resolution. So around ~$150.
The freesync/gsync thing on my monitor sucks. A higher refresh rate seems to really mitigate the need for special "syncs" anyways.
Freesync is more about removing screen tearing and making the game appear more smooth than it would at identical FPS - 75FPS with Freesync will appear smoother than 75FPS without. It is really nice to have on lower refresh-rate monitors and OP probably isn't getting a high-FPS machine for $1k.
There's also the option of having a computer preassembled from off the shelf parts as opposed to a package deal by a big name like Dell. Many computer retailers offer different tiers of builds that they will send you already assembled. You'd get something better suited for gaming that way, though that space also has some less than honest players in it.
That might be best for me.
What would be some good sites or good info? I didn't look into that because I'm ignorant of everything and I didn't want to get scammed.
I would just begin by looking for an established PC parts retailer with a good reputation. Also, as for your question about monitors, that comes down to what resolution you're targeting which is also tied to what kind of graphics card you'll want. 4k 60+ FPS is very demanding, but if you're happy with a lower resolution, you can get by with a much cheaper card and monitor
If you have a Best Buy or Microcenter store near you, those are some good options.
You can get the parts that you want from PC Parts Picker and the guys at Microcenter will build it for you for like ~$50. A very good solution, you can get what you want and you don't have to build it yourself if you don't want to.
The cost of the monitor will just depend on how much you want to spend overall. If you don't care about high resolution stuff but might want to play competitive FPS games (i.e. counter strike or valorant) i think what most people go for is a 1080p monitor with as high a refresh rate as possible.
Basically refresh rate is how often the image on the screen is refreshed, and faster = a more fluid image, making it easier to aim quickly and accurately
The higher the resolution of your monitor (plus other features like refresh rate, HDR, etc) the more powerful your GPU will need to be. If you want to go for a higher resolution monitor like 4k you'll probably need like the newest graphics cards to generally have over 60fps. But if you're not playing competitive FPS type stuff that might not matter since you won't need the high refresh rate anyway if you're just playing something like the Sims
A good compromise for higher resolution monitors with extra features (refresh rate and HDR and stuff) that don't need the LATEST graphics cards would be monitors with a 1440p resolution. I have a RTX 2070 Super, which is a really good graphics card but like 2 generations behind, and it can handle literally anything at 1440p even with HDR and a higher refresh rate. If I upgraded to a 4k monitor though it would probably struggle (at least based on my partner's setup).
P.s. HDR is High Dynamic Range. Basically when HDR is on it'll have a wider range of color and brighter whites and stuff, BUT a lot of HDR is really cheap bullshit "HDR." It really depends on the monitor and how its HDR works. Iirc the best of the best will be OLED screens, because each individual pixel acts as its own backlighting, versus the cheap HDR where it might just be like 8 different lighting panels giving a bad effect.
But OLED is 1) very expensive and 2) at least as of 2 years ago the smallest they had was something like a 43 inch OLED TV. There might be monitors now, or soon though.
OH that reminds me, if you're getting a PC definitely don't plan on just using a TV as a monitor. There's this thing called input lag, like delay between your input on controls vs the display on the screen, and its much higher for TVs than monitors. Consoles are made somehow to offset that but it's really noticeable whenever I hook my PC up to a TV
If i got anything wrong sorry y'all im not a big monitor nerd, I just spent a lot of time shopping for one
I'll ask you questions later. I have a lot of stuff to learn.
Yea feel free, I might not know the answer though, I just know what little bit I learned trying to compare stuff. But i'll try to help
You might also want to consider waiting for sales, like the 4k monitor I picked out for my gf is like 580 r/n, but for black Friday or whatever (i think it was some random sale actually, it was weird) it was like 100 dollars cheaper. Idk, something to consider when looking at pricing
Oh, random thing before I forget, if you decide to go higher end 4k monitors iirc they need like HDMI 2.1 to actually do 4k + a high refresh rate + HDR at the same time, something about the bandwidth needed. Idk, I remember it being a pain in the ass because a lot of 4k monitors would advertise like 144hz refresh rates and HDR but then they wouldn't have an HDMI 2.1 port, lol.
Sorry for the adhd
Someone buying a $1k PC probably won't be looking at OLED and HDR. It doesn't really make sense. I bought a good monitor (Asus 34" ultrawide) and it technically has HDR, but I knew that it sucks for HDR before buying. A monitor below $1k just won't have good HDR, you either need at least ~24 local dimming zones or OLED.
Yea I was just kinda info dumping, some of it might be useful to know depending on their ultimate budget
I hated monitor shopping because it feels like you need a fucking college degree just to know if it's worth the money or not. What the fuck even is chroma sub sampling for example
Something that you usually don't need to know about. Unless you are buying a monitor that doesn't support the proper connection standard for its own resolution/bit depth/refresh etc. New monitors usually support DSC, so chroma subsampling shouldn't be a problem.
Yeah that was what I was reading about these 4k monitors with 144hz refresh rates + hdr, without hdmi 2.1 they can't do it all without doing the chroma subsampling thing which is somehow inferior idk
Yes, you usually have to drop something, like drop refresh to 120hz. I don't know the exact math on it. If you are looking at an OLED, 120Hz is still awesome. If you drop color depth to 8bit you might get screwy HDR and so on. You don't really want to use chroma subsampling because it can sometimes make the image fuzzy. Just make sure to buy a monitor that either isn't so loaded with resolution/refresh and can do DisplayPort 1.4a and DSC. Or that it has HDMI 2.1.
yea my understanding is that OLED is like sex on your eyeballs compared to all the other monitor panel types, but it's super expensive. Except for all the phone screens, for reasons I do not understand. And yeah any refresh rate increase is still nice. TBH though I feel like unless you're playing stuff like valorant or CS you can live without it.
Yeah, that's why shopping for a 4k monitor was such a pain in the fucking ass! I found like, ONE that had HDMI 2.1 and wasn't like one of those $1k+ Pro Gamer monitors. But unfortunately it has the cheap HDR i think, lol
They don't advertise that shit about chroma subsampling either so I wouldn't have known about it without reading nerds talk about it on Reddit. All these monitors with HDMI 2.0 are like "165hz refresh rate, 4k, HDR!!" 🙄
Thanks a lot.