Hey guys, first time posting here but I’ve been “out of the game” in regards to keeping up with tech for a long time now.
I’m looking to purchase a pre built gaming pc and finally stop using laptops. I come here knowing this is subjective but I’d like to know or hear opinions—
What is the best pre built gaming pc company? Or individual pc if you so choose. Now what I mean is overall quality and performance. I don’t want a 3090 and the latest i9 if the cooling is terrible for example. Are there companies or pcs out there that don’t skimp on cooling, CPU, GPU, PS, MB, storage, etc?
I’m not too concerned with price. If I have to spend 3-4k so be it, but if I don’t have to obviously I won’t.
I also really don’t care about rbg or things like that which don’t “matter.” I mean clean cable management would be ideal of course and for that price point I assume it would be done well but if there’s a less flashy but better performing pc, I’d take it.
Lastly I also don’t need the latest gpu. I mean if there was a 3090 beast pc that kind of skimped on other things to keep the price down, I’d much rather accept a 3080 that had everything really nice. Definitely want the whole package.
Sorry this is long. I just get so many conflicting sources. It’s a lot to research with how many components I’d have to look up haha. Just asking for help is all. Thank you very much to those that reply.
There is no singular best company. Some are global while some are local and you can find them in your city and then look for reviews of their service. LTT and Gamers Nexus went through some NA-global prebuild companies from iBuyPower to HP/Dell and alike and it looks like it’s not that easy to find a reasonable prebuild. Those less known brand like iBuyPower tend to do better as they use standard parts and do a quite good build while corpo-prebuilds tend to use custom parts which tend to be questionable…
If you like a good value but not “bad” PC look for things like:
CPU: i5-12400F or alike/better
GPU: RTX 3060 Ti / 3070, RX 6600 XT or up
RAM: 16GB min, 32GB to max out
Storage: NVMe SSDs: 1TB average SSD will do, extra one if you need extra storage, SATA SSD if you want to like store/archive some older stuff but still access it.
Cooling: Good big air coolers
From “better” things at extra price:
CPU: Ryzen 5800 X3D (anihilates most CPUs for gaming specifically)
GPU: right now there are discounts after discounts, RX 6800 XT or less likely RTX 3080 could be in good prices sooner than later.
Right now Intel is releasing 13-th gen CPUs, AMD is releasing 7000 Ryzen and soon RDNA 3 GPUs, Nvidia is releasing new Ada GPUs so there are sales on current gen. Local/standard parts pre-builders likely can pass those lower prices on the customer. If you want the PC now then it’s not much of a facter but if you want to wait a bit there can be i5-13400F in the golden price/good value. Early next year we should get 7000 X3D Ryzen CPUs, but that’s some waiting…
Thanks, I’m starting to see what things to look for sure. I guess it’s easy to find a good cpu/GPU, maybe from DDR5 ram and such but I need to learn what good coolers are and sufficient PS’s and such.
I’ve also heard even the actual build itself (from gaming nexus actually) can make or break a pc so I wanted to know if certain companies physically put things together better than others because I likely wouldn’t know just by looking at it haha.
Ah, yeah asmongold’s. I looked at those too but for the 3,300$ one, the points that got me were that it only offered ddr4 RAM and the PS was only 850 which I think might be a little inadequate. I also have no idea how efficiently it cools. I was curious about them though.
You don’t need DDR5 right now unless you want a bleeding edge i7/i9 Intel or 7000 Ryzen PC. DDR5 is still overly expensive vs DDR4 and there are still top-tier options using DDR4.
Ah is that so? That’s fair. To be honest RAM is easy to change anyway. The PS and cooling I was/am more concerned with. I suppose it’s all changeable but those two I’d like to be fairly future proof.
for future proofing, i would go with DDR5 motherboards, since they are PCIE 5. There is no PCIE 5 gpu or SSD… yet, but it’s good to know your system is ready for it when it comes.
Prices will suck for a while tho, so if you can’t wait, PCIE 4/DDR4 will run wow great for probably the next 5-6 years.
At best only AM5 motherboards could support multiple generations. Intel is like 2 gen max per motherbord chipset. Right now DDR5 is going down but is still way up there so most good DDR5 kits make it hard to justify from “best value” standpoint.
Hi I’m just here to say right now is a terrible time to buy a Prebuilt as am5 hasn’t released nor has intels newest gen. Prices will crumble by Nov-December. Please hold off!
I wish I wasn’t so eager but I kind of wanted one by November-ish.
I think I succeeded!
So here’s what I ended up getting fellas. Thoughts? (Again I don’t need the absolute best at every given moment. I’m coming from a 15” Alienware laptop with a 1070 in it from like 2016. I just want a fairly good rig I can upgrade little by little reasonably that will handle stuff like wow and Diablo 4 and perhaps some upcoming things yet to be released).
CPU - Intel Core i9-12900K
CPU Cooler - Lian Li Galahad AIO 360 RGB UniFan SL Edition
Motherboard - ASUS ROG Strix Z690-E Gaming WiFi
GPU - Asus GeForce RTX 3080Ti ROG Strix
RAM - 32GB Performance RGB DDR5-6000
SSD - 1TB Western Digital Black SN850 M.2-2280 NVMe SSD
Operating System - Windows 11 Professional
Power Supply Unit - 1000 watt 80+ gold rated, full modular
If you mean prebuilt like a Best Buy or Dell then you will still have to upgrade sooner than later…
But if you truly want to make sure to get the best bang for the buck then do not skimp out getting a micro case style pc. Micro and mid case pc’s hold in the most heat thus having the shortest life span.
If you can get a prebuilt maybe from a mom and pop style pc store then you can get a very decent pc thus future proofing so you save more money so you can just swap out parts.
Best advice? Prebuilt with a very tall and long case. This way there is lots of air space
to move about and room for a future video card of ANY size.
A just in case scenario I would try to find a case with a bunch of 3.1 USB ports in the front.
Reason being if you ever want to buy VR goggles then you can also play WOW in VR.
Normally I don’t mention prices but prices swing so fast today But a decent pc should cost at minimum 1,200 -1,400
The case is super-small so you might have issues with your video card fitting with the side panel on. I love the O11 Dynamic but it gave me a headache.
For me it had to do with my power cables. The one pictured has that Nvidia proprietary cable that goes in at an angle. My 3080 FTW card has them plug in on the side and I had to push to close the case. ASUS may have them placed further in to avoid this issue though. This was more of a heads up, I hope you’re fine.
Ah okay. Well it’s being professionally built by the people that picture came from so I hope it all works out
Also plan to pair it with a couple of AW2721D monitors and the keyboard I’m undecided on but thinking of G915 TKL, a ducky tkl variety, or K70 or something. Going to be a white set up.
Actually having the hardest time ever picking a keyboard >.>…
I have a PC of theirs still running 7700k and a 1070ti (I only do 1080p gaming with high frames) and it still pumps. I’ve added a better fan cooler and removed the water just because I’m skeptical of them (personally) and put in more RAM
Their website is really good. You can customize it down to a T. Check them out.
Could you save more building it yourself? Sure. But if you got the $, who cares…
If you’re going to go with purchasing a pre-built instead of building and 3-4k is your budget, I’d go with Corsair. Their prebuilts are honestly amazing.
haha.
