buying used gaming pc, worth it?

Thought that's what Xeons were for

Same here. I don't mind the drive though.

I wonder how CompUSA sold any CPUs? They were always 5x the price of Newegg or MicroCenter.



My specs:
Intel Core i7-4790k @ 4.8GHz
Asus Sabertooth Z97
Noctua NH-D15 CPU cooler
G.Skill Ripjaw Z series 8GB (x4)
nVidia GTX 550 Ti
Corsair TX750 PSU
Fractal Arc Midi R2 case.
Crucial M4 64GB SSD
WD HDDs in RAID0 = 6TB
LG Blu-ray optical drive.

 

How do you like the Sabertooth? I plan on getting a 4790k, Sabertooth z97, with new ram in the near future. The Corsair Dominator is pricey but . I need a new PC for work so I'll be putting all my old components into an old tower for work and buying new for home.

Currenty:
i5-2500K @ 3.7GHz
Corsair H100i
P8H67-M PRO
G.skill Ripjaw 8GB
Titan Black
2x Crucial 64GB Raid 0
Raidmax 850w
1TB Caviar Black
HAF912 (modded)

 

I like it. Upgraded from a Sabertooth Z77 and 2600k. Some people might not consider it worth the upgrade, but the 4790k does feel snappier, even before the OC. I was lucky to get my RAM before prices tripled.

 

Like others said, http://www.newegg.com is a good source of finding parts & supplies for a home build.

A piece of advice when building your own pc: When choosing a power supply....I would always go with Corsair.

 

I did the same (or used the edges of cereal boxes), but a razor is much more precise and less mess

LOL this was the late 90s and I was still on my parent's AOL dialup at home. Newegg wasn't even in business yet and I was the only kid in class who even knew how to install Windows 98 from scratch.

Picking apart your list as well...

 

I bought my first "built" pc in the aol2.5 days. From comp usa. I got ripped off too I bought it on a compusa credit card. I think it only took me 10 years to pay it off

 

People still use that method? I thought that method became outdated 8 some years ago. I always read to just clean up the old, put a small dab right in the middle and then let the pressure from the heatsink spread it around. To prevent air bubbles getting trapped between the paste and heatsink.

 

Oh great internet, show me the answer!

 

And they are also out of business. LOL

 

Heck I've been using a plastic grocery bag to apply silver thermal paste for years. Never used a razor blade before...

Unless you put way too much on there you're going to be fine. You just don't want it squirting out and dripping down into the CPU socket.

 

Not everyone has tons of cash to build a gaming PC. For a first time gamer I say go cheap and see if you like it. I've seen LOTS of people go nuts then hate it because of driver updates, patches, etc that they are not used to when it comes to console gaming.

 

Newegg is a great place for speccing out parts, but aren't really competitive compared to other vendors. I mostly buy from Amazon and TigerDirect nowadays.

Corsair isn't really a safe bet when it comes to PSUs anymore either. The CX750 (and by extension the CX750M) failed [H]OCP testing. And there are many other PSU options that provide much better bang/buck.

 

You don't have spend a fortune on a gaming computer necessarily. For example, Tomshardware.com every couple months does write ups and tests on gaming PC's they build at certain price points based on the most current hardware available. Many times they get great performance out of $650 systems. And these will typically BLOW AWAY anything that comes out of a box from a retail store.

This is why consoles are best for "most people". You can buy it for let's say $400 and play whatever games that come out without upgrading until the "next gen" console comes out. Oh - by the way - game patches and updates happen on consoles now too.

For me, I'd rather upgrade components in my PC one or two at a time over the years and keep top of the line with higher levels of graphic fidelity. Granted I don't game all that much anymore either.

 

Well I've never bought CPUs or mainboards from them. They've always had a better selection than Best Buy or Circuit City did, and were usually slightly cheaper too.

 

Ultimately the moral to the story in power supplies is: You Get What you Pay For. Period

There are several great brands out there. However, there are only a handful of companies that MAKE power supplies. Many brands are models made by a manufacturer on behalf of the brand based on their requirements/specifications.

Also keep in mind a power supply unit (PSU) will degrade over time. So a used one in a used gaming pc is closer to it's end of service life than a new one. And it likely doesn't supply the same power output it once did either!

 

Yeah, but when the Corsair CX750M costs $90 and the XFX 750 costs $70, you definitely aren't getting what you pay for. Just because something has a high price tag doesn't mean it's better than the competition. In this case, you're paying more for a lower quality part that has the Corsair name.

Yes, degradation happens. In today's quality power supplies, they don't happen for 7+ years.

Point being, Corsair is no longer a brand where you can blindly pick any of their PSUs and expect them to perform well. That was the case in the past, it no longer is now.

 

OP- do yourself a favor: go to the local book/magazine store and pick up a copy of PC Gamer's Builders Bible. It covers all components in a PC and gives you low, mid and high end choices for your potential build.

Stay away from any local stores for purchases and look at Microcenter and Newegg for prices. You can also go to www.pricewatch.com to get the latest (read cheapest) prices on every single part in a PC.

Find a processor or graphics card you like and want to see how it compares to others? Go here and check- www.cpubenchmark.net

For a budget build, go no lower than an i5. Better choice is an i7, but not all i7s are the same. Older i7 generations use different motherboards than current ones. FWIW, I am still using an i7-2600k.

Whoever said not to get a hard drive and just use an SSD must not play many games. An SSD is fine for your OS and a few essential programs (games) but you are going to need hard drive storage. I recently downloaded 2 games from Origin- EA's online store and they were 54GB and 43GB respectively. You need a hard drive.

Graphic cards are....a personal preference I guess. I like Nvidia but have had AMD's in the past. I am currently using a GTX 560Ti, which was a mid-grade card when I bought it 3 years ago. Still works fine for all of the games I play.

Just remember to do your research BEFORE you start spending some money. You can build a killer rig relatively cheap that will last you a lot time and be upgradable as needed.

Finally, Windows 8 blows. You can still buy Windows 7 OS. Win7 professional gives you XP compatibility for those older old PC games and DOSBOX gives you access to the really really old games. It's a win win.

 

If you plan on playing games that use the PhysX engine, an i7 would be the way to go.

 

An SSD is a hard drive
Also, I'm the one who said you only needed an SSD unless you are a hoarder. A 512GB SSD will do a fine job for holding your OS, a few AAA title games, and a healthy music library. How many games do you plan on playing at once? Do you really have that much music, or do you have 20 copies of that same tired Hall & Oates song, along with all the other disorganization? Are you constantly diving through pictures of you and your mom's weekly visits to the world's biggest ball of yarn, all of which are stored at 4k resolutions? Those videos of your baby's first steps can probably be stored somewhere else as well, right?
You can always add a spindle drive later, but most likely the types of files you are going to want on that can be placed on an external drive, which will have added benefit:

• More protection (your files on the external aren't in daily harm from system stability issues or virus)
• Less wear (you only plug it in when needed)
• Less heat (you only plug it in when needed)
• Portability

My uncle hates change, too. He's still on dial-up.

 

SSD is not an HDD. There are no disks inside SSDs.

I have 3TB of media on my HDDs (no, that doesn't include the p0rn). 170GB of that is my CD collection in FLAC. I wouldn't consider myself a hoarder though.