Hi all,
I'm looking to upgrade my current (very old) PC so that I can do some entry level gaming. I haven't done much PC gaming at all to be honest but there are a few games out at the moment that I do fancy playing and I would rather not go down the console route! I don't really want to spend a huge amount of money since I'll only get chance to play for an hour or so on the weekend.
I'll be playing on a 1080p 60Hz monitor and I'll be happy to drop the settings a little if needs be to achieve playable frame rates. I'm looking at playing The Witcher 3, MGSV, hopefully Gears of War 4 when it comes out, so I'm basically looking for a system that will play these games at decent settings but I'd also like to keep my upgrade options open so I can drop in a new CPU/GPU in the future if needs be.
I built my system in 2009 so it's going to need a complete overhaul - new CPU, motherboard, GPU, RAM and a bigger SSD. I can re use my existing case, PSU and cooler so no need for that. I'm also looking to get a new monitor which will take up about £135 of the budget. Ideally I wouldn't want to spend more than about £500-600 which I understand is a tight budget but as I mentioned earlier, I'm not going to have a massive amount of time to play this, it's mainly a bit of fun when I get five minutes.
I've been doing some looking around etc so I'll let you know my thoughts so far and hopefully someone with more experience can advise me further! I was looking at going for an i3 6100, 8GB DDR4 and a Z170 board, mainly because I'm going to need a new motherboard and RAM anyway and this will allow me to drop in an unlocked i5 in the future if I need. I don't see the point in going the AMD route at the moment and then having to buy a new motherboard again in a few years time. I'm not sure on the graphics card. Really, I'm looking for the best 'bang for the buck' and playable performance at decent settings at 1080p. I can pick up a GTX960 for £135, so I'm leaning towards that, but the 970's are coming down in price so I might be tempted to stretch to one of those if there will be a noticeable performance/longevity increase. The latest cards are probably out of my budget. I'd like to stick to nVidia since I'll continue to dual boot with Linux for everything except gaming and nVidia has better driver support for Linux.
Basically, I'm just after some opinions on whether an i3 paired with a GTX960 will offer the sort of performance I'm looking for or whether I should save and wait until I can spend a bit more and go for an i5 and better GPU.
Apologies for the long post, if I've missed anything out for you need any more details let me know!
Cheers for any feedback.
I'm looking to upgrade my current (very old) PC so that I can do some entry level gaming. I haven't done much PC gaming at all to be honest but there are a few games out at the moment that I do fancy playing and I would rather not go down the console route! I don't really want to spend a huge amount of money since I'll only get chance to play for an hour or so on the weekend.
I'll be playing on a 1080p 60Hz monitor and I'll be happy to drop the settings a little if needs be to achieve playable frame rates. I'm looking at playing The Witcher 3, MGSV, hopefully Gears of War 4 when it comes out, so I'm basically looking for a system that will play these games at decent settings but I'd also like to keep my upgrade options open so I can drop in a new CPU/GPU in the future if needs be.
I built my system in 2009 so it's going to need a complete overhaul - new CPU, motherboard, GPU, RAM and a bigger SSD. I can re use my existing case, PSU and cooler so no need for that. I'm also looking to get a new monitor which will take up about £135 of the budget. Ideally I wouldn't want to spend more than about £500-600 which I understand is a tight budget but as I mentioned earlier, I'm not going to have a massive amount of time to play this, it's mainly a bit of fun when I get five minutes.
I've been doing some looking around etc so I'll let you know my thoughts so far and hopefully someone with more experience can advise me further! I was looking at going for an i3 6100, 8GB DDR4 and a Z170 board, mainly because I'm going to need a new motherboard and RAM anyway and this will allow me to drop in an unlocked i5 in the future if I need. I don't see the point in going the AMD route at the moment and then having to buy a new motherboard again in a few years time. I'm not sure on the graphics card. Really, I'm looking for the best 'bang for the buck' and playable performance at decent settings at 1080p. I can pick up a GTX960 for £135, so I'm leaning towards that, but the 970's are coming down in price so I might be tempted to stretch to one of those if there will be a noticeable performance/longevity increase. The latest cards are probably out of my budget. I'd like to stick to nVidia since I'll continue to dual boot with Linux for everything except gaming and nVidia has better driver support for Linux.
Basically, I'm just after some opinions on whether an i3 paired with a GTX960 will offer the sort of performance I'm looking for or whether I should save and wait until I can spend a bit more and go for an i5 and better GPU.
Apologies for the long post, if I've missed anything out for you need any more details let me know!
Cheers for any feedback.
