Hi, I’m a console overwatch player but I’m thinking of saving up over the year to invest in a pc.
Since overwatch is the game I like to play the most I’m wondering which kind of pc or specs I should have to play overwatch as best as I can.
It’ll mostly be for overwatch or other blizzard games but also good for document work/ research/ downloads.
Thanks for the help in advance
Edit: also I’d prefer a desktop maybe with 2 monitors over a laptop I think. Unless there’s any pros to having a laptop
Budget?
Monitor Resolution?
RGB EVERYTHING!?
Budget isn’t too much off an issue as I don’t mind how long I save for but preferably something reasonable like upto 2000$
I’m not sure about monitors I have none which would be the best?
Unless you do a lot of travel, or prefer playing in person with friends, I would avoid a gaming laptop despite the fact I am literally typing on one as we speak. They have their place, but a desktop for the money is the way to go, and you will get a much better monitor experience… I highly recommend at least a 120hz Gsync monitor paired with a 1080 or equivalent. There is no need to go much higher unless you are super serious… and believe it or not, TAKE YOUR MOUSE SERIOUSLY… I mean this, of all the equipment you will use, your mouse is probably number one. Go to stores and try the feel, make a decision on palm vs. claw grip, and use the lists of what the pros use and you will find one. I cannot stress the importance of a good mouse. I alternate personally between a Logitech G403 and G Pro… I like the palm grip of the 403, but the more I use the G Pro, I can see why a lot of pros like it… it just feels right in fast motion.
I made the switch back in January and if I have any tips number 1 is make sure you know if everything is compatible before you buy. This happened to a mate of mine and he had to fork out an extra $150 for a motherboard.
You probably won’t need 2 monitors unless you want to stream, edit or have a job that would be easier if you had 2 monitors. Buy 1 really good one 120-144hz with g-sync (if you go for a gtx card) or free-sync otherwise.
When I built my computer I spent about $3000 AUD ($2100 USD) for the sole purpose that I won’t have to upgrade most of my hardware for a decent amount of time. You probably will get better prices tho, Australia has very poor supply in most cases so the prices are pretty inflated.
I went for a i7-8900k for over clocking with a GTX 1070ti with 500gb of SSD and 2tb HD. I went with a water cooler (I recommend using one if you plan on over clocking your CPU however you will need to replace it roughly every 2-3 years)
It runs OW at 150 fps with almost no frame drops at ultra settings.
Don’t buy a gaming laptop unless you literally never stop moving or travel very regularly for a job.
P.S most headsets with a mic won’t pick up on the mic unless you have an adapter to plug into both headset and mic sockets. You might want to invest in a stand alone mic if you regularly talk to friends or talk in vc
I can pretty much back this up - I have an 8700 K and with even a 1070ti you can run 1080p at 150 fps on ultra. Now, the one thing to add here is invest in a monitor capable of such frame rates. I see people run out all the time and get a 60 FPS monitor and pair it with a serious processor and video card but its all wasted with the monitor. Start with the monitor, then work backward towards the CPU/GPU, and for pete’s sake, get an SSD, all you really need is one that is mSATA, don’t buy into the NVMe business, it literally will not make but a second difference at most on most things like boot up, game loading, etc.
I will add to my earlier statement about a gaming laptop - the only time this makes sense is if you pair it when at home with a keyboard/mouse/monitor and have a system like Alienware or Razer that allow for an external GPU hook up, but you are likely going to spend more overall for this flexibility, but it is something of an option if you are torn on your decision between pure desktop and mobility.
Yooo calm down there man. 120hz Gsync is expensive, yo… And a 1080 aint exactly cheap either.
cough cough reasonable?!?
You can build a really good one for about $800 my guy.
Most I’d spend, to be perfectly honest, is about $1200. But even then that’s pushing it. You don’t need the flagship 2080ti, the most expensive Ryzen chip, a multi terabyte SSD, 3 fan radiator, the fastest ram or OC mobo or a beast psu to power it.
I’m rocking a second hand i7-4790, second hand Z97, 3tb combined hdd space, 128gb SSD, second hand gtx 980, 16gb ddr3, and a 650w psu together worth about $400 at the max. And I’m getting 230+ FPS at 1080p without stressing my hardware.
Common misconception about PC gaming is that it has to be expensive to play the newest titles at their best quality, it really doesn’t. Build a PC that’ll last that you can get as much value out of for what you want to do. If you want a PC that can play most titles, look good visually and do some work on the side, a $2000 rig is overkill.
My dude.
OP, listen to this guy ^^^. You don’t need to blow all your money on a rig. Do a little bit of research and you can build an absolute beast for less than 1k-- easily. Including a good monitor.
Check out Linus Tech Tips for some good videos. I think they just did a build recently? Also /r/buildapc is good for this, too. THen go onto PCPartPicker (google it), put something together, and look out for sales on /r/buildapcsales.
EzPZ (lemon-squeezy).
1070ti, and the money on a Gsync in terms of your game is well worth it imnsho. 60 FPS sucks to be frank.
Dell makes a 27" 1080p monitor for 279.99, hardly expensive.
Your main priorities should be
GPU>CPU>SSD>REST>HZ monitor.
Quite a lot of people overestimate the value you get from a hz monitor. But something like a self build
250 GB ssd, gtx 2070-2080 (look at 1070ti and 1080, they might be better and cheaper, than the newer ones), i7 (preferably 6-8 cores and importantly high overclockability). 16 gb of 2k+ speed ddr4 ram. A motherboard that suits your needs.
Then later on i would recommend.
What kind of monitors are you aiming for?
high refresh rate?
high resolution?
This is slightly incorrect. OP is mainly looking to play Overwatch, and it is actually much more reliant on a good CPU with lots of threads than a good GPU.
So for Overwatch specifically, it’s CPU>GPU
Seeing as you lack knowledge about PCs, unless you’re willing to research them and learn what parts are good and go together and all that, I’d just buy a pre-built one which there is no shame in, just try and not get ripped off lol.
Ultimately all you need is a computer than can run the game at 144FPS on the lowest settings, and a 144hz monitor so it actually matters.
No game utilises many threads, none are using more than 4 cores, basically. Priorities are still GPU and then CPU and his CPU should focus on high clock speeds over cores.
Anything better than the recommended specs will do I guess:
Tbh it’s rather useless to think about the PC specs now, if you are going to buy it after a year. The prices and availability of hardware is totally different then.
You can still give him good advice of what things to prioritise, like how i did it, for gaming on PC anything above 4 cores is irrelevant in gaming mostly, so since he doesnt wanna stream and more, he doesn´t need the more expensive CPU´s. Also GPU should always be highest focus for gaming and Ram/HD/SSD and motherboard can often swallow a lot of money for usefull features that have no effect on games, other than wasting your budget cause it says (GAMING etc)
That’s pretty much yesterday’s news. Many games easily utilize 8 threads to max with a good GPU, and anyway, at a $2000 budget anything under a 6 core i5 is just a bottleneck.
Anyway I’d say it’s better to wait for the Ryzen 3000 series as well as the 7 nm midrange NAVI cards to see how well they perform. But right now, for Overwatch only I’d say i5-8600, 2x8GB DDR4, 1070ti, 250GB NVMe SSD + HDD of your choice if you want to store movies or a lot of games and a Freesync monitor (lot of Freesync monitors are supported now by Nvidia as well and they are cheaper than Gsync).
2x Threads = Physical Cores. Anything above 4 cores is minute increases to fps performance, since you are going to go down in the clock speeds.
I agree with your setup except i would go with a i7 for hyperthreading and OC ability.
While yes i would also wait, so can be said at any time, that is why i gave him the focus priorities.
I haven´t done to much with freesync, so i don´t want to speak to much on that subject.
gamingscan (dot) com/how-many-cores-for-gaming