JCC Gaming Förceboat Parté - JC G4m3z thr34d (Gaming General Discussion)

a console can never be obsolete, it can only become "retro".

 

You don't need to go all-in at the start on a gaming PC. Build for what your needs are and upgrade when you feel it's necessary to. It's not all that different than when you buy the next generation console. I've been using the same graphics card for five years now. Also the cost of PC games, thanks to Steam sales/Humble bundles/giveaways etc, offset those initial costs.

 

Speaking of which, did you see they’re remastering Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties of all ****ing things? I can’t decide if exactly one Hidden Histories fan was secretly a game developer or if it’s simply that irony was a mistake.

 

The only way you'd consider the PS4 as "obsolete" is knowing the PS5 can play all of the games from the previous console; but in the same light, if you're still actively playing the games on the older console, what's the point in buying the new one right away (especially if when you practically have to pull your hair out to buy one these days)?

 

@tom Also when are you gonna stream again??

 

That hasn't been true for a while now, at least a decade. I was able to play modern titles with good settings for 6 years on the same setup: an i5 and a GTX 970, which weren't dirt cheap by any means but were more mid-tier than high-end. During that time all I needed to upgrade was the RAM from 8 gigs to 16. I probably could've still gotten away with the setup for a couple more years.

 

what?! i had no idea.

soon i will return with a vengeance! i've been swamped trying to buy my house (and also watching just about every nba playoff game). also for a year i had two "work from home" days every week, and now i'm back to not having any. i've discovered there's a sort of streamer inertia, where if you're streaming a lot it's easy to do it all the time but if you take a break it gets really hard to get back into it. but i definitely want to get back to it soon (probably after the conference finals).

 

If I had the option to upgrade I would. The older desktop I mentioned earlier has been upgraded quite a handful of times over the years. But I know money isn't the obstacle with these older PCs; it's the motherboard itself. I can't just buy a fancy new video card, 32gb RAM, much less a processor and assume everything will work perfectly on my "obsolete" machine.

 

Yes, a new processor, GPU and RAM would not work well, if at all, on a 10+-year-old motherboard. You would also likely need to upgrade the power supply.

What I'm saying is that a decent PC isn't obsolete with regards to gaming after only 3 years.

 

I wonder if there are any places where if you bought a decent desktop PC they'd throw in a modest laptop for free.

 

...I wouldn't get your hopes up. Also be very careful about which manufacturers you're buying a prebuilt from. Definitely avoid the big guys like Dell/Alienware and HP, and almost all of them are prone to cheaping out on parts.

 

But at least when you order from the "big guys" you know they've installed parts that are guaranteed to be compatible with their PCs. Would you instead recommend browsing what's available at a Best Buy or maybe Micro Center, which isn't far from me?

 

I've got an i7 9700 and a GTX 1070TI from 2015 which still runs everything well (even Cyberpunk 2077). The only card that's in what I'd consider a marginally acceptable price bracket for me right now (In that I'd the 400% markup is stupid) is the 3060, which is about AU$1100. Given the performance boost from a 1070TI is marginal at best, I'm going to wait until either more cards hit the market or they find a way to block crypto idiots from being crypto idiots.

My point is, I'm stuck with a 1070TI for a while.

 

TBH, since I first started buying PCs (about when PCs first existed), I've always preferred to just buy a middle-of-the-road model and then upgrade it from there. Nowadays, the only pain is upgrading the circuit board itself - everything else is easy, I've found, to swap out and replace. My current desktop barely resembles the original model. I still have my previous computer, in fact, which still runs just fine. (Just to do a rare shoutout to consoles, my SO's old PS2, which I got for her ages ago, still works as well)

 

I don't know of any PC company that doesn't build with parts that are compatible with each other. It would be weird if they didn't. Dell and HP use a lot of their own proprietary components-- from the motherboards to the power supplies-- that can't always be swapped out and have awful resale value.

I've heard decent things about Micro Center's PC building service, but good luck finding a GPU. The best reason to buy a prebuilt right now is at least they actually have the damn cards.

 

My problem with buying a prebuilt PC from some offshoot person off of eBay of Facebook Marketplace is that I can't just always bring it back to them if I have a problem. It's basically buy it at your own risk.

 

Oh. Definitely don't go that route.

 

Are "refurbished" PCs worthwhile to put on the radar? Both Micro Center and Best Buy sell them of course.

 

Depends on what the specs and warranties are. I don't have any experience buying a "refurbished" PC.

 

Yeah I'd talk to the people at the store about it.

 

People are buying fairly ordinary spec prebuilts and taking 3000 series TI cards out because the only way to get a 3060/3070/3080TI is through a prebuild.

 

As some who worked computer retail years ago, "Refurbished" often just means that someone bought the computer and then returned it. They can't sell it as new, but often as not it was never really used.

 

Well that's essentially what I assumed it was (I have had some far-off notion that these are like dumpster-dives that they just put together with some working components). I assume like a used car these refurbished models would normally have pretty decent warranty to cover them for awhile.

 

Yep. (Also, full disclosure, my computer retail days were 25 years ago), but you can get a pretty good deal sometimes. Like Darth Guy said, though, check out their warranty and return policy.

 

How much for a Compaq Presario?