Buying a new PC on the next week. Up to $5k to spend. It’s really hard to get third party reviews these days on the web as everyone is a paid affiliate and so they’re biased.
WOW is about 50% of my gaming and I know it doesn’t require a major build to max perform but the other games I play do and I do want WoW on MAX settings.
4090 still the best of the best?
Intel or AMD?
Best RAM/MB right now?
My gaming PC is 8 years old so I have no idea what’s out there now really. Anything else out there that is an absolutely just have in 2024? Or joins I just buy it direct from someone like Alienware or Starforge?
You can customize every piece and they’ll build it for you.
Anyone can tell you alienware is fancy looking but waaaaaaay overpriced . Also, if you have a problem with your p c and have to do a factory reset, it can be challenging if not impossible without paying. Buy a backup if you do. The custom cases do not like to be reset.
Do what I did. Look up what You WANT out of it. And they’ll give you a range of what’s reasonable
I looked up everything from the graphic card, processor to power supply on google
In the end you come out more educated as well as comfortable in your choices
For instance do you want 4k gaming, multi monitor? Dual vs single graphics card, streaming? Future proofing (Buying more than you need right now), vr gaming? What you do with it matters so you don’t overpay or underbuy
I did
‘Best 4k graphics card’
‘Processor for 4k gaming’ etc
Paying for a pre-built normally cost around 400-500$ more depending of price. So it’s up to you to see if that’s a price you’re willing to pay for a no-hassle service.
I wouldn’t go lower than 4070ti or 4080 if you want your pc to last long, 4090 is not a bad thing if you’re willing to go higher.
I’m still more a fan of intel when it comes to gpu and you should want i5 minimum.
There’s better ram than others but really it rarely will make a huge difference for most people just make sure you get 32gb.
I haven an omen i bought it like 5 years ago, i think i paid about 2.2k and i played the hell out it and it still runs really good at about 100 fps … you can get a new one right now at their site with liquid cooling for about 2.5k last time i looked at it it was on sale
i would suggest deciding on a processor and card first. once you have determined which ones you want, then do a price comparison between finding those in a prebuilt as opposed to a custom built pc. and with any prebuilt, you have to look at the parts theyre using. a lot of times theyre using subpar power supplies, cheap ram, etc. i found an msi prebuild this time around that has been great. the price was basically the same as if i had it custom made, with almost no difference in parts. i also have an msi laptop. they make good stuff. as far as what cards to get, idk, thats up to your wallet. ive had a 2070 for like 4 years now. i run every game basically at max settings at 1440p monitor. a 4090 will last you for like a decade lol. depends on if youre the type of person that is going to want to replace it either way in 5 years. like if i was building a new pc right now, i would look at the price of the 30 series cards first. the thing about these crazy cards right now, they can only do so much because theyre bottleknecked by what monitor you get. your eye isnt going to notice anything more than around 100 and some change fps. are you trying to play in true 4k? a true 4k gaming monitor is expensive. like billions of colors, hdr 10, no input lag, no response time, true 4k is expensive
Watch the Gamers Nexus video on the latest “high end” Alienware PC. The case is completely nonstandard e-waste, doesn’t fit the components used, and is very poor quality. The motherboard is completely nonstandard e-waste. The power supply is completely nonstandard e-waste.
The computer as a whole got around 40% less performance than an equivalent computer Gamers Nexus built with the same parts.
Go to Newegg, Amazon, and Micro Center (between the 3 you can usually get the lowest price on parts) and build your own. You’ll get twice the computer for half the cost.
ACC is bad, their mobo is like 20 years old at best going by the bios (can’t even use your mouse on there, wth), they lock a lot of stuff and options down like not being able to turn off tubro mode on your CPU (which that’s a PROBLEM), it has problems after using them for a few or slows down overtime where it can’t even play the Sims fast enough, (i would know because my mother bought two alienware computers, one desktop and one laptop)… and above all, just no.
Don’t know about Starforge tho.
Bottom Line, i think you should just stick to building your own PC’s. It’s cheaper, and you can pick the parts you want, and no company will put crazy software in there that will perma mess your computer up.
i5-13600K would be more than enough but if you want to spend money you can go with i7 or i9 but gain would be minimal like 5%.
4090 is still the best.
get min 64GB ram, not because you need it but it will give you easy of mind. DDR4/DDR5 won’t make much difference now. DDR5 would be a little bit of future proof but DDR5 still have a long way to be optimal choice.
Samsung pro 990 4TB would be the choice of SSD for me, get 2 and you would be set and probably won’t even need a HDD.
Another issue with Alienware: The motherboard, case, and power supply cannot be re-used. Not only are they exceedingly poor quality, they are nonstandard. The only thing you can do is chuck them in the bin. Some manufacturers are now moving to nonstandard RAM as well, meaning it can’t be re-used either.
Buy your own parts and put it together yourself. Alienware is so bad I’d consider their computers a scam.
4090 is still the best, but it’s overkill for wow even at 4k.
For CPU: get a 7800x3d. Wow benefits from the extra cache on x3d CPUs, and there isn’t really a benefit to the 7900 or 7950 over the 7800 (if anything, the 79 is worse than the 78)
32 GB ram is fine still, you can go to 64 if you want to, but it’s probably not going to be that noticeable (unless your trying for the world record for most chrome tabs open at once) the more important thing for ram is to get 6000 CL30 for current gen ryzen CPUs.
For MB: if you plan to upgrade to a next gen GPU like the rtx 5000 series (not recommended to do that too quickly from a 4090), get x670e for the PCI-e gen 5 GPU support, else regular x670 or b650 is fine.
Asking a PC from Alienware to give you the full performance the components are capable of out of the box is a fool’s errand for high end components, as they are so determined to keep using that same case from 1992 that doesn’t really allow airflow to happen.
Starforge the components will at least perform as they are supposed to, but I’d it has a certain wow hate streamer as an owner, so I wouldn’t buy from them. Building it yourself from components is usually the cheapest option (and most fun IMO)
They’re worse than Apple in terms of proprietary hardware, because at least the proprietary hardware from Apple is going to be setup correctly, and work to spec out of the box.
You need at least 2 tb ssd space if not 4 tb these days. Need at least 32 gb ram, but up to 64 to future proof it a bit. And also the video card needs upwards of 16gb vram to future proof it as well. Oh and well you’re likely getting the best cpu anyway which I believe at the top end is still Intel. With your budget you can get the best intel cpu and nivida card if you want. Also always try to get more power supply then you need so if you need 850 get 1000 or so.
This.
16GB is fine for regular gaming without multitasking, 32GB is more than enough for a game + other software and 64GB is completely overkill, but might be needed in the next 10-15 years.
I’d also get a slightly older AMD GPU (like 6800 XT, for 1440p) or a more recent one (7900 XTX or XT for 4k) for future-proofing just because they are much cheaper (cost-to-benefit ratio is better) and the company is more focused on open source and favoring the user over nvidia, unless you really want to use ray tracing.
I’d also focus on FPS over resolution, so targeting 1440p120 over 4k60, since a stable 4k120 isn’t really a thing atm, but that’s up to your preference.
