News I want to build a gaming PC but I won't — here's why

vandamage

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Jan 31, 2021
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Even if you want to build a gaming PC, it's an expensive, complicated task with a lot of potential for things to go wrong.

I want to build a gaming PC but I won't — here's why : Read more

Then, one day, Marshall figured it out. The answer is so confusing that I was in awe of Marshall's success — and added another reason to the list of why I'd never try to build my own PC. The test PC suffered from a glitch related to overclocking — the art of pushing a PC harder than it's normally set.

I honestly stopped reading the article right there - the first thing anybody familiar with overclocking would do if a pc wasn't running stable would be to set the PC back to defaults...

I mean c'mon man
 
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Jan 31, 2021
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Also, here's what you said about running 'Persona 4 Golden' on a laptop...

I spent hours this past summer testing Persona 4 Golden on a number of PCs, including a powerful Surface Book 3 with a Core i7-1065G7 CPU and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti GPU. But I still ran into performance issues.


... and here are the honest-to-god requirements for said game, per Steam...

  • MINIMUM:
    • OS: Windows 8.1
    • Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 | AMD Phenom II X2 550
    • Memory: 2 GB RAM
    • Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTS 450 | AMD Radeon HD 5770
    • DirectX: Version 11
    • Storage: 14 GB available space
  • RECOMMENDED:
    • OS: Windows 10
    • Processor: Intel Core i5-650 | AMD Phenom X4 940
    • Memory: 4 GB RAM
    • Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 | AMD Radeon HD 6870
    • DirectX: Version 11
    • Storage: 14 GB available space
Now, those are not beefy requirements. And while publishers might slightly understate what's needed for the sake of sales, they're not going to understate by THAT much, unless they want to face a horde of angry customers.

Given the lack of angry customers in the review section of this game on Steam, I think it's probably safe to say that the stated requirements are fair, and the game is not a poorly optimized translation.

So why couldn't you run this extremely undemanding game on a laptop of more-than-sufficient power? One guess is that you were using the laptop's general-purpose GPU and not its more powerful dedicated gaming GPU.

Whoever gave you the advice that you shouldn't game on a laptop was either an idiot or just sick of being your free tech support.
 
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emilward85

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May 3, 2017
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I hate that you've gotten so much bad advice or have seemed to have just gotten the wrong impression. I've been gaming on laptops for years. There's nothing wrong with it. My current Lenovo Legion runs Cyberpunk without an issue and as far as building a PC goes, it is way easier than it seems. PCPartPicker is a good place to start. I'm not trying to change your mind, but I do think you need to take what you have been told so far with just a grain of salt
 
Feb 1, 2021
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I used to be in this camp, but I slowly learned the only way I would get exactly what I want is to build a PC myself. I took the plunge recently, though I'm waiting to buy a new GPU due to current prices. Luckily for me nothing I ordered was defective and everything went smoothly. Not everyone is so lucky but I'd rather go through a little hassle to get what I want in the end than settle for something pre-built with parts I don't want. Sometimes others will look at the huge mid-tower case and wonder what the heck I was thinking in 2021, but the important thing is I appreciate what I have... and it's great for gaming!

It seems like a lot of people feel as though notebooks should be sufficient for gaming nowadays. Certainly, they are if you're willing to pay more for a gaming notebook and you aren't worried about sacrificing upgradability. Even though nothing lasts forever, you can make a full sized gaming PC last quite a bit longer if you plan carefully.
 
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Feb 1, 2021
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I just payed for 6 months of Geforce now Ran the game with some of the rtx settings and most others nice and maxed and dam for 30 bucks or what not the game ran amazing I really wish Nvidia would just turn Gforce now into a shadow box systems and say to all the publishers and just let us play what everwe want on remote hardware
 
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wookietiddy

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Feb 1, 2021
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I'm sorry, but your estimation of $1600 minimum for a gaming PC is ridiculous. Even if you can't build a higher-spec PC for the same price as a console ($~600), You can get close, and the performance will still be better and give you all the good things that PC gaming brings (e.g. discounted prices EVEN BEFORE RELEASE, controller compatibility, VR support). And if you're willing to go with a Top-Tier last-gen GPU, you'll get AMAZING value for your money.

As far as the test PC having issues, I agree with what others have said. If there was an OC applied and all of a sudden the PC wouldn't boot, the first troubleshooting step is definitely to turn that OC off and make sure it boots with stock settings. That being said, overclocking is NOT necessary for most modern games, so you're just wasting time worrying about that if you aren't a power user.

As for parts availability, yes it's a travesty of supply dearth as far as general availability is concerned. However, there are ways to drastically improve your chances of getting one of these new cards. I got an ASUS Strix 3090 for MSRP from Amazon because I subscribed to an Anti-Scalper discord server that implemented a web-crawler to provide stock notifications. I happened to be on my phone when the notification came through, and hit Buy It Now on Amazon 5 seconds later. It's not impossible, it just takes dedication. If you really have your heart set on it, it's entirely doable.

And finally, Laptops aren't enough. The price/performance for laptops just isn't there. You would really only go for a laptop if you're willing to compromise on performance (assuming Price is an object).

You also never mentioned pre-built systems. Maingear (for example) makes some very affordable pre-built desktop systems that give you some pretty amazing price/performance, not to mention that as a system builder, they get access to the new GPUs when others (read: consumers) can't. Totally viable option.
 
Feb 1, 2021
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0
10
I'm sorry, but your estimation of $1600 minimum for a gaming PC is ridiculous. Even if you can't build a higher-spec PC for the same price as a console ($~600), You can get close, and the performance will still be better and give you all the good things that PC gaming brings (e.g. discounted prices EVEN BEFORE RELEASE, controller compatibility, VR support). And if you're willing to go with a Top-Tier last-gen GPU, you'll get AMAZING value for your money.

As far as the test PC having issues, I agree with what others have said. If there was an OC applied and all of a sudden the PC wouldn't boot, the first troubleshooting step is definitely to turn that OC off and make sure it boots with stock settings. That being said, overclocking is NOT necessary for most modern games, so you're just wasting time worrying about that if you aren't a power user.

As for parts availability, yes it's a travesty of supply dearth as far as general availability is concerned. However, there are ways to drastically improve your chances of getting one of these new cards. I got an ASUS Strix 3090 for MSRP from Amazon because I subscribed to an Anti-Scalper discord server that implemented a web-crawler to provide stock notifications. I happened to be on my phone when the notification came through, and hit Buy It Now on Amazon 5 seconds later. It's not impossible, it just takes dedication. If you really have your heart set on it, it's entirely doable.

And finally, Laptops aren't enough. The price/performance for laptops just isn't there. You would really only go for a laptop if you're willing to compromise on performance (assuming Price is an object).

You also never mentioned pre-built systems. Maingear (for example) makes some very affordable pre-built desktop systems that give you some pretty amazing price/performance, not to mention that as a system builder, they get access to the new GPUs when others (read: consumers) can't. Totally viable option.

All the GPUs are marked up a lot lately so even last-gen cards are at rip off prices right now. Even used GPUs on E-bay are going for a lot. Hopefully by late Spring availability of Big Navi and RTX 30x0 will no longer be limited, though and we'll be able to easily get them at MSRP.