New to PC gaming need advice

[Ozbren94]

Hello all Xbox player looking to move to PC and was wonder if something like this would be a good bet I want to play games like 7 days to die COD rust things like that thanks for any help

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[Oussebon]

I had a quick look at Walmart, Bestbuy and Newegg (not from Canada so may have missed some stores with ebtter deals) and couldn't see a better spec for the price that was in stock.

It's a perfectly reasonable spec with a decent GPU and will let you play games well at 1080p.

One thing to be aware of is that Dell, as with some other companies, often use 'proprietary' components or connections on their components (insider the PC I mean, external connectors like USB and HDMI are all standard).

Components you can buy in a store or online, or components used by a lot of custom PC builders, all use connections that are standardised. You buy any standard motherboard, any standard power supply (PSU), any standard case and you know that they will all plug into each other.

Dell often use non-standard connectors on things like the motherboard, case, and PSU, such that you can't replace these with widely available alternatives, at least not easily.

So if something dies outside of warranty, or if you want to upgrade (e.g. the PSU to get a higher end graphics card in the future), you might find your replacement can't be connected to your system without replacing a lot of other things too.

The G5, at least the 9th Gen version, does seem to use proprietary connectors according to Tom's Hardware.

That's not necessarily a deal-breaker (it would be for me, but not for everyone).

One alternative would be to self build, e.g. something like:

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/4CcMBZ

Which is more expensive, although not by a huge amount if you selected the Dell option for a larger PSU.

 

[spvtnik1]

Looking at the imagery on Dell's page, it appears that the power supply and motherboard (and mounts) are of a proprietary form factor. It looks like a fine PC, and I do think Dell makes good PC products. But you are potentially locked in to that motherboard and if the power supply burns out, only Dell can provide a replacement.

One thing I would consider, if I was looking at this purchase, is that the RTX 3070 was revealed today which will retail at or around about 2x the price of a 1660 Super, and so I would expect to see that card in pre-built PCs in that price class within the end of the year. Obviously that's a lot to consider since we don't even have any kind of benchmark information yet.

I'm looking to buy/build soon too and right now my stance is not to rush

 

[Ozbren94]

Hey thanks alot guys jeez this PC stuff is hard ahaha

 

[Oussebon]

These are all good points.

One thing I would consider, if I was looking at this purchase, is that the RTX 3070 was revealed today which will retail at or around about 2x the price of a 1660 Super, and so I would expect to see that card in pre-built PCs in that price class within the end of the year.

One thing I would say on the other hand is that the PC's regular price is ~1500CAD for a GTX 1660 Super spec. But the current price is 1100 CAD. I checked several stores in Canada and couldn't find a 1660 Super build for that price in stock in any of them.

1100 CAD is around 850 USD / GBP (because GBP = roughly 1:1 USD price). I don't think we're going to see much better than GTX 1660 Super in that price class by the end of the year. I'm not expecting systems with the RTX 3070 in the 850 USD price class.

Of course new things come out eventually across the range, and prices can get squished down a little in the meantime, but if shopping in the 850 USD range, I think we'll be hard pressed to see wildly better stuff in the same price class.

@Ozbren94 - what's your budget and what monitor are you using? Are you going to game on a 4k TV for instance?

 

[Biggly]

Looking at the imagery on Dell's page, it appears that the power supply and motherboard (and mounts) are of a proprietary form factor. It looks like a fine PC, and I do think Dell makes good PC products. But you are potentially locked in to that motherboard and if the power supply burns out, only Dell can provide a replacement.

One thing I would consider, if I was looking at this purchase, is that the RTX 3070 was revealed today which will retail at or around about 2x the price of a 1660 Super, and so I would expect to see that card in pre-built PCs in that price class within the end of the year. Obviously that's a lot to consider since we don't even have any kind of benchmark information yet.

I'm looking to buy/build soon too and right now my stance is not to rush

Apparently the 3070 'outpaces the 2080ti' - on paper, at least. Mind-blowing value, if you consider the 2080ti still retails for upwards of £1,000. I'm not big on spending for bragging rights (I have a modest Vega 56/Ryzen 3600 rig) but at that price, I'm tempted.

 

[Brian Boru]

Hey thanks alot guys jeez this PC stuff is hard ahaha

Well you're dealing with seasoned experts above, so yeah the detail can be confusing until you get used to it—there's huge choice and variety.

What you need to watch for is that what you get will indeed meet your needs, so make sure to answer the question below.

@Ozbren94 - what's your budget and what monitor are you using? Are you going to game on a 4k TV for instance?

 

[Ozbren94]

Well you're dealing with seasoned experts above, so yeah the detail can be confusing until you get used to it—there's huge choice and variety.

What you need to watch for is that what you get will indeed meet your needs, so make sure to answer the question below.

I do not have a monitor yet I guess that's another question I should ask 😂 I'm hoping to keep the the PC and monitor around 1600 CAD

Edit: would this be a better bet https://www.newegg.ca/abs-computer-technologies-ala218/p/N82E16883102989

 

[Brian Boru]

I do not have a monitor yet

Make sure to consider TVs as well as monitors—you could find bigger screen size for less cost.

 

[Oussebon]

You want the PC and the monitor to be 'balanced'. Getting a super high end PC with a low end monitor makes little sense (you're buying PC horsepower your monitor doesn't let you appreciate), while getting a high end monitor with a lower end PC means you may not have enough horsepower to run the games at the resolution and higher refresh rates the monitor supports.

Monitor specs (as far as the PC cares about them) are resolution and refresh rate. Higher resolution = more pixels = sharper, more detailed image. Higher refresh rate means the display updates more times per second (hz) and can give a smoother and more responsive gaming experience. Very potted explanation but you get the picture. Gaming monitor tiers at entry to mid level are typically 1080p 60hz, 1080p 144hz, 1440p 144hz. There's also 1080p 240hz but that's relatively niche.

There are of course a lot of other specs like panel type, response time, but that's not important to the PC spec.

According to PC Partpicker, this seems to be the cheapest 1440p 144hz monitor:

AOC CQ27G1 27" Curved Frameless Gaming Monitor QHD/2K, 1ms, 144Hz, FreeSync, DisplayPort/HDMI/VGA, Height Adjustable, 3-Year Zero-Bright Dot, Black/Red, 27" 2K QHD Curved: Amazon.ca: Computers & Tablets

AOC CQ27G1 27" Curved Frameless Gaming Monitor QHD/2K, 1ms, 144Hz, FreeSync, DisplayPort/HDMI/VGA, Height Adjustable, 3-Year Zero-Bright Dot, Black/Red, 27" 2K QHD Curved: Amazon.ca: Computers & Tablets

www.amazon.ca

And it's pretty decent for gaming.

Which would leave around 1300 CAD for the system, which could open up better options than the Dell.

Or a 1080p 144hz monitor would go well with the Dell and is a bit less expensive than the above.

TVs are very popular as monitors but can have significant disadvantages or limitations. Cheaper TVs will often not have adaptive sync. A larger screen of a given resolution means lower pixel density, which if you're not far away will look worse. Lower response times depending on the model.

 

[spvtnik1]

I wouldn't call myself an expert, but I have put my hands on lots and lots of computers. You have to plan ahead and be able to make compromises. Should I be gaming on an FX series AMD processor in 2021? Hell no. But I've been on the socket AM3/AM3+ platform for over a decade, upgrading only a few parts at a time as my budget allowed. I don't know, maybe I enjoyed torturing myself! Now, finally, my budget allows for buying a whole PC. But I probably won't do so until at least after everyone has made their announcements, which looks like it will conveniently be before Black Friday this November. Given the nature of the retail industry this year, I imagine we may see some really compelling deals throughout the entire holiday season.

I've almost pigeon-holed myself in to a situation like Oussebon explains above. I bought an ROG pg248Q last year. It is an EXCELLENT monitor, my first "true" HD monitor. I thought 1080p was going to be a thing for maybe a couple more years, but Nvidia squashed that sentiment... not a bad thing of course! Now, on the other hand, maybe I will stick to 1080p for a while, and use DLSS to make up the difference. I'm doing that in Max Payne 3 right now and it handles 4k at around 60fps with 2x MSAA, and it is beautiful. And getting anything larger would have been doing my current computer a major dis-service.