"Decent Gaming Computer"

[LibraryOgre]

So, my old desktop is, more than likely, dead. After a few weeks of needing to reseat the RAM before I could play, that no longer works. It's had a great run... 8 or 9 years... but I need to replace it once I have some money not being devoured by children, bills, or other such things. I am considering selling an organ.

However, what would you say are the necessary stats for a decent, not necessarily top of the line, gaming computer?

My old one has about 8 gigs of RAM, half a terabyte in hard drive, and a 2.xx processor. It's also running Windows Vista.

Looking at refurbished models, I can get a bit better than that (~8gig, 1TB, 3.0 processor w/ Windows 10 or maybe 8 or 7) for around $150.

If you were looking for a decent gaming computer, though, what kind of stats would you want?

[Anymage]

You're missing the biggest component of a strong gaming computer. Unfortunately, graphics cards are generally the single most expensive component in any build. Gaming on integrated graphics is generally possible, if you're willing to crank the eye candy way down, but a dedicated GPU makes your games really pop.

8g of ram is usually sufficient for anything you'll want a computer to do nowadays, and a 1tb HD will usually serve to hold a solid library of stuff. As far as CPU goes, you'll want to know how many threads it can handle as well as how fast it goes. Someone more familiar with AMD chips can tell you the sweet spot to look for there. For Intel, the rule of thumb is i3 for basic home or office applications, i5 for gaming, and i7 for content creation like video editing or object rendering. i3 can suffice for games that care more about single core performance than number of threads. But budget chips below that can be hard to game on no matter what the clock speed.

[halfeye]

For a desktop, i5s usually have most of the speed of an i7, and don't try to spread that over two threads per core, so the best ones are as good as a middling i7 for a lot less. I don't know much about CPUs with more than four cores, except that they are expensive.

OTOH, graphics cards are expensive, but really really useful. Any money you can shave off a processor and put on a graphics card will serve you better on the graphics card now (when you upgrade the graphics card, you may find that no longer applies, so that's worth thinking about). Single graphics cards are usually better than pairs of cheaper ones, there was a bad stutter problem with dual cards, it got better but AIUI it's still not perfect.

If you can scrape together the money for an SSD they are much better than HDDs, except that small ones slow down as they fill up, so you want a big SSD and they are still expensive.

[factotum]

I agree with Anymage, you need to figure out what graphics card you want in your machine, and how many threads the CPU can run. It would be entirely possible for a "3.0GHz gaming PC" to be a single-core Pentium 4 (yes, they did go that fast) and a GeForce 5900 graphics card, which would have been an absolutely awesome high-end gaming rig...fourteen years ago. Nowadays, you'd probably want at least a quad-core CPU (or dual-core with hyper-threading) since some games (looking at you, Far Cry 4!) won't even start on a machine which doesn't appear to have at least four cores.

I'll bring my own gaming rig in here: it's an Athlon II 860K 3.7GHz quad-core CPU with 8Gb of RAM and a GeForce 750Ti graphics card. This will run most stuff I've tried on it at 1080p and at decent frame rates if I'm prepared to drop the detail down, but I'm not going to pretend it's anywhere beyond an entry-level machine that will probably have to be upgraded in the next year or two, so you'd want something better than that.

[wumpus]

Do you know what parts can be salvaged? I'm guessing monitor, RAM (i.e. DDR3?), hard drive, possibly video card?

As already mentioned, the GPU pretty much determines the "gaming power" of a desktop. Unfortunately, the GPU business has been hijacked by etherium[sp?] miners and I only found one GPU on local craigslist (and was selling a 1080 and 480 bundled together: who wants both?). Not sure of any clear strategy right now.

As far as "3.0 processor": something [Intel] since 2011 should be better than one before that. After that each "3.0" core seems pretty much the same (especially the cheap models). It sounds like a good start.

Does it have DDR3? 8-9 year old machines might not. I don't think it makes sense to buy a computer that can use DDR2. If it is DDR3, hopefully you can drop the RAM into a craigslist special.

One great thing about desktops is that you should be able to include as many hard drives as needed (warning: Dells don't always work this way). You will probably want to include the old hard drive, and ideally you should look for something with a small SSD (a "128G hard drive" should scare away other buyers, but if is really SSD (not always) it should work fine with your old drive.

It sounds like your $150 machine is a good plan (especially if your RAM fits, although I expect 16G is overkill for such a machine). One thing I would be careful of is how many Watts the power supply can supply (for the GPU). If they can supply the memory/speed of the processor, they might even tell you what's written on the power supply (of course, with a lot of power supply companies that isn't all that reassuring) I'd use whatever GPU I had (probably built-in in the new one, if your old one works try that) until the lastest crypto-coin craze crashes, then buy a used GPU cheap. You might still be looking for an SSD, but they don't seem to be coming down in price, just getting wonderfully bigger.

To recap:
3.0GHz (if Intel since 2011): at least as fast as an expensive "gaming laptop". If AMD you might have to check reviews, they were all over the place. I don't think AMD sold enough to really worry about it.
8GB DDR3: good 16 (8 + your old 8)DDR3 GB: better. Trying to add to old DDR2, probably not worth it (I'd expect your "new" machine to have one foot in the grave).
Hard drive: did you have free space in the old one? That's the obvious way to tell how much room you need. You will want an SSD, but that's likely after the "computer" and the GPU.
GPU: Good luck, and don't buy until you hear "etherium crash" and can get a good deal (ideally you will get some sort of GPU in the box).

[Anymage]

I'm more used to building new boxes and running into problems when they age out than having the ram start to fall apart. So if I'm wrong, someone more clued in than me can tell me to shut up.

But sometimes when an old computer starts to get finicky, installing ubuntu and wine can get it back into shape for at least a little while longer. If you have a spare hard drive to test, ubuntu is pay-what-you-want and wine is free. That should buy you a little more time before you have to lay out the cash for something new.

[Silfir]

From your existing parts, I think the only ones I'd consider re-using are the hard drive and potentially the case.

If you're feeling super-cheap, you can re-use the PSU. If it is a quality PSU, it should die of old age without causing too much damage... But the key word is "too much". A PSU that dies on its own likely went through quite a long period of "illness", so to speak - which the other electronics won't appreciate.

This is what a "decent" gaming computer might look like:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor ($78.77 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock - B250M-HDV Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($62.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Patriot - Viper 4 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($58.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: SanDisk - Ultra II 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($84.95 @ Adorama)
Video Card: MSI - GeForce GTX 1050 2GB Video Card ($109.35 @ Amazon)
Case: Silverstone - PS08B (Black) MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($34.90 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Corsair - CXM 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $464.84
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-07-19 15:52 EDT-0400


(The case is just a stand-in, really. Aesthetics matter the most there.)

(250 GB drive space on the SSD doesn't sound like much and it isn't; the assumption is that you'll use your old hard drive as well. If you don't, buy a 1 TB hard drive; SSD space is still quite expensive.)

If you don't mind spending a bit more, the GTX 1050 Ti is a decent upgrade. If you don't mind spending significantly more, you can get a very good gaming computer, but it didn't sound like that's what you were looking for.

The cards affected by the Ethereum mining craze reside in the RX 470-GTX 1070 range; the GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti get in under that and allow for perfectly decent game performance.

If you refuse to sully your own hands with a Phillips screwdriver assembling the thing on your own, try to aim for a machine with an either an i5 or an AMD Ryzen quad core that has at least a GTX 1050 or equivalent or an RX 460/560, around that $500 price point.

I'd avoid old, refurbished tech. You'll just be replacing it all the sooner.

[Hunter Noventa]

(The case is just a stand-in, really. Aesthetics matter the most there.)

Some cases are a lot easier to work with than others, and have better layouts, hardware, or accessibility for putting together the PC yourself, so that's also a thing to consider if you aren't going to have someone else assemble the PC.