Generic TRANSITION TO PC GAMING ADVICE

1500 pounds sterling?? That's like 1900 US dollars or 1700 euros..With a gtx 1070?? Come on mate for that money he'll get gtx1080ti equipped i7 kaby lake setup or high end amd equivalent..(when I say high end I mean in home gaming terms)

To the op, I would search eBay or other sites for a prebuilt machine, there's lots of hobby builders out there you should be able pick up a decent machine that's ready to use for 7-800 pounds with no trouble at all, of the 3 choices you listed the last one with 16gb ram is best, but do you really need the i7 7700k? swapping that for an i5 might free up more cash, or even use last gen motherboard and i5 if it's stretching your budget..

 

Indeed I rather save more money if I don't really need it, also do I need a 1060 6gb just for playing assetto corsa in 1080p.. sorry but my knowledge is very limited with GPUs and been relying on benchmarks n reviews, but have found that lower/cheaper end graphic cards can do the job also


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There is a difference between being able to hit 60 fps and being able to keep the frame rate consistently above 60 fps. The 1060 6GB should be able to keep you above 60 fps pretty consistently. I would take Michael's advice: "Done. Buy it."

 

Well quad core with gtx970 and 8gb ram is recommended specs for assetto so no you don't need the 1060 either.
I'm no expert either but I'm guessing for 1080p at 60 fps a last gen i5 gtx970 combo would do just fine with assetto..

 

I don't think the OP is looking at used rigs.

The 1060 6GB is (roughly) equivalent (faster in most cases) to the GTX970. It's just the newer architecture. A "new" (not used, not refurb) 970 will usually cost more then a new 1060, because the 1060 is a xx60 part while the 970 is a xx70 part.

Hope that makes sense. Basically, the 1060 occupies a lower price point in Nvidia's line up, which makes it a better value. It should (in theory) last longer as well, because the chip is understressed compared to xx70 and xx80 parts.

 

Obviously I'm talking used pre built machines with 970 i5.. to buy new 1060 will need new mobo cpu ram psu etc etc not gonna get that for 500 pounds..

 

In this price range & the power you get, it's better to go used.

I5 & 1060 is in not in the PC 2017 gaming spec territory which the (i7, ryzen 7) & 1070 is currently at the entry level.

 

It's more than enough in "gaming spec territory" for his purposes - AC only @ 1080p. A couple of weeks ago I was still running the sim on i5 @ 4.2 GHz and single GTX780, pretty much maxed out with only shadows and reflections cranked one notch down from max, plus mirrors at standard setting (whatever it's called). For a solid 60fps rendering on my 1200p monitor it was enough, even with full grid of cars. PC version of AC is really exceptionally well optimized nowadays. I upgraded to 1070 only for my flight simulators, because for AC at such resolutions it's an overkill.

If he can find a well priced 1060, that card will eat AC for lunch, 970 will perform very well too.

 

Thanks guys, really appreciate the help

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Hi,
Hope you don't mind hijacking your thread .. I made the switch 3 or 4 weeks ago to PC via my bootcamp Macbookpro (2014 MacBookPro, Bootcamp Windows 10, 16Gb , 1Tb SSD , GT750m 2Gb) running mainly medium settings (some low like reflections/smoke) and get a fairly stable 60fps apart from a few slow downs to about 50fps during the start of the race etc.

I was looking for cheap desktop to replace using the macbook. would this cut it .. the graphics look like an improvement but the CPU/Memory is a downgrade. only £380

• NEW* Thermaltake Versa H15 MicroATX case - 448mm x 198mm x 378mm
• *NEW* Coolermaster Hyper 103 CPU Cooler with blue LED silent fan
• *NEW* CoolerMaster SickleFlow 120mm Silent Blue LED PC Case Cooling Fan
• *NEW* CoolerMaster B400 PSU [80Plus]
• EVGA GTX960 SC graphics card with support for 4 monitors [2GB GDDR5]
• 240GB SSD - Crucial M500
• WD BLACK 1TB Hard Drive - 7200 RPM 3.5" 64mb Cache
• Intel® Core™ i5-3450 (6M Cache, up to 3.50 GHz)
• 8GB DDR3 RAM
• ASUS P8H61-M PRO Motherboard
• Windows 10 Home Edition 64bit

Cheers...

 

Just about any nVidia 9xx card is going to out perform the 750m in your laptop, so that system would be an improvement. Personally, I would save up for a little longer and make two changes:

Graphics Card
Don't buy the GTX960. There are better cards available at the $200 price point. I would shoot for a GTX1060 6 GB card. At $250-ish, it's only ~$50 more than the GTX960. This is really the entry point for a gaming GPU.

Hard Drive
You really want an SSD. Magnetic disk drives have more space, but god are they slow by comparison. Honestly, an SSD is the single most significant upgrade to PC performance in the last 10 years. I know that sounds like hyperbole, but it is not. The old magnetic hard drive has been the slowest PC component for a long time, and I'm talking orders of magnitude slower. The move to SSD has brought storage space much, much closer to system memory performance, and that is a great thing. Don't pass on this advancement, even if it means having less space.

 

Cheers for the reply...

Yeah I couldn't go back to non-SSD drives for at least the OS boot , That PC has a 240Gb SSD and 1TB SAS (I've got a 250Gb SSD external that I'm running AC from at the moment so I don't need a large windows partition on the bootcamp partition so could add that into to it aswell)

1060 6GB is about £229 in the UK and this complete machine is only £380 so it jumps up to about £500 for a machine with that card in it.

I was more worried about the CPU as its an older Ivy Bridge model and wasn't sure if it would struggle, My i7 in my macbook is only running at about 30% and wasn't sure if this CPU would be maxing out.

 

Whoops! Saw the WD Black, but completely missed the Crucial SSD

These days, CPU power is probably the least of your worries. All of the Core i5 processors (even old 3rd gen stuff) are pretty powerful. Are you going to max it out? Probably. But you're trying to build a £380 gaming PC, so you should expect that you're going to max things out. I'd be far more concerned about the 960 graphics card. That is absolutely going to be the limiting factor in this rig. In a Tom's Hardware test, the GTX960 wasn't able to achieve 60 fps in BF4 ultra settings (2013 game) at 1080p.

If you're firm at your budget, then buy the machine. You've spec'd a lot of really low-budget parts, so you'll get low-budget performance. That means you'll be maxing the machine out by tweaking settings. But IMO, £500 is a very low point of entry for a gaming PC. Many people consider £1,000 to be the entry point.

 

I just re-read my reply, and it sounds kind of blunt. Sorry about that. I've been in IT a long time, and there's a kind of repetitive refrain: "I put together this budget-based list of PC parts and I really want to make sure I'm maximizing performance."

Unfortunately, PC performance is pay-to-play. There are definitely smart buys and not-so-smart buys, but generally speaking, if you want to achieve a specific goal, you have to put specs first, and budget second. If you need to put budget first, then you can't really dictate performance. You just have to buy what you have budgeted and accept the performance you get.

 

Didn't think it was too blunt ... I know that I'm not going to be running ultra everything At that price range , I was more concerned that I wasn't going backwards in performance from what I am currently using.

 

Oh good

There aren't a lot of sites that compare mobile GPUs. I'm not crazy about GPUBoss, but here's the results:

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-960-vs-GeForce-GT-750M

To give you some idea of what you'd gain by saving up more for a 1060, have a look at some of the frame rate differences between the 960 and the 1060:

http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-960-vs-Nvidia-GTX-1060-6GB/3165vs3639

 

Quick question, I have ran into my friend who is selling his pc for £200 and was wondering if it would be alright to use for AC ...

Specs are:
i7-3770
12gb ram
gtx 770
2tb hdd
750w corsair psu
win 10

Was wondering if I could play AC on the machine at 1080p at around 60fps? or would that be pushing it?

Sorry for the million noob questions haha !!! We all have to start somewhere I guess

 

@ngolokante7 It will struggle, because of the graphic card. Aside from that, it is a good price. Just stick a 1070 & you're done for awhile.

The non K is not overclockable, but who care...

 

Actually good thinking, I could just replace the GPU ... Wouldn't really need a 1070 but a 1070 would work fine with the setup yeah ?

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That's a pretty solid system for £200. You'll pay just under half that for the Windows license alone. The CPU is 3rd gen, but it's got a good clock rate, so you'll be fine. I agree with MrDeap that you'll want to upgrade the graphics card. A 1070 would be great. I'd drop an SSD in there as well. You can put the OS on the SSD, and use the 2TB HDD for storage.