I don't know anything about gaming. The last time I regularly played video games was on my Atari. Yes, a million years ago.

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. What's the minimum I'd need to spend to get a gaming PC that plays most games?

  4. What are common mistakes people make when buying a gaming PC?

  5. Can most games be torrented?

  6. 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.

  • GorbinOutOverHere [comrade/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    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

    • Lovely_sombrero [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      chroma sub sampling

      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.

      • GorbinOutOverHere [comrade/them]
        ·
        1 year ago

        Unless you are buying a monitor that doesn’t support the proper connection standard for its own resolution/bit depth/refresh etc.

        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

        • Lovely_sombrero [he/him]
          ·
          1 year ago

          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.

          • GorbinOutOverHere [comrade/them]
            ·
            1 year ago

            If you are looking at an OLED, 120Hz is still awesome.

            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.

            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.

            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!!" 🙄