XNALara

So I occasionaly buy this gaming magazine, and in their Tech section they will always put up the PC configurations of the month.

I know that the top configuration uses parts that are really expensive, but also probably have a great preformance.

However, I also saw their optimal configuration, and well, it's quite cheaper than the top configuration (top configuration costs around 4000$, while the optimal one costs around 800$ lol), and I was just wondering if this configuration is good for playing the newest games at the max settings n all that stuff lol

The configuration was written in Croatian, so I had to translate it. Some parts may be wrongly translated lol

Motherboard: Asrock B85 Pro4 (Intel B85)
CPU: Intel i3-4150 3,5 GHz
GPU: Gainward GTX750 Ti 2GB GDDR5
RAM: Kingston 8 GB DDR3
Power supply: Chieftec iArena 500W

$$$?

That "Optimal" = mid-range.

It's basically affordable parts that can still deliver relatively decent performance for the price. Even then it very much depends on the types of games to be played. Sure they could play the newest game at the highest setting, just don't expect fast framerates and all the time.

High spec requirement games like the current Battlefield's or Crysis 3 or whatever, it's playable enough, but for quite a majority of multiplatform games, they should still run decently well, at least far better than the PS3 and 360.

Ooooooh

It really confused me lol, but thanks on clarification

Yeah the mid-range is for the mainstream market, generally for the non-techie people or those that can't afford the high end to see the differences.

Yep, like Hentai said. i3s used to be the top of the heap, not anymore. i5s are now in the mid range and i7s are now at the top. 8 GB of RAM is still plenty to play most games and do some multitasking but if you like running a lot of stuff (as in a lot, LOL) in the background like I do, go for 16 GB. If you want quick load times on everything, getting a SSD will help, but they're still kind of expensive plus you'll have to be wary of 10k writes before your SSD goes kaputt! But if you wanna be able to play the more recent games at decent or great framerates, getting something with a good mobile video chip (if you want a laptop) or a real card, something from either Nvidia and/or AMD should fit the bill. Expect to pay $$$ tho if you want top specs.

i3s were never at the top.

And yeah 8GB is plenty enough for most normal people. Unless you are a constant production worker i.e. lots of photoshop, video etc, bajillions of Internet tabs running, then you could benefit from more. But otherwise a gaming machine is fine with it.

i need help. my PC is down
i think i might have fried something whilst doing my recent render

i turned it on but it appears the monitor is receiving no signal from the PC.
the PC is powered on but the monitor is still on standby.

i wonder whats going on? i switched the PC visual output from GPU to mobo but its still not working...

"Switched video output" ?

As in just changing the cable over?

yeah... i switched it from the graphic card port to motherboard port on the backbut it still doesnt work..

Yeah it won't work like that as you still have to go through the BIOS to switch it since it probably reads your actual graphics card as the primary default.

What you could do is take the actual card out and then hopefully the bootup would be forced to use the onboard one. If that works and you get a signal there, then at least you know something is still working. Check the BIOS, see if you can boot into Safe Mode on Windows etc.

From then on...... we'll just have to see.