Tapology Talks: Videogames

For gaming I don't like AMD. My experience is that you run into weird problems with them. The new Ryzen 7's are also hotplates and do NOT run well unless they water cooled. They do pack a lot of cores and are a good choice for people who do work that demands high memory ( graphic designers, animators etc who run memory sucking processes) but there is simply no advantage to building an AMD system over intel for gaming.

Also, AMD based chipsets are absolutely notorious for running into problems with GTX series cards and certain motherboards.Bottlenecking, all kinds of ****. You do not want to mix and match. You go either all AMD, or all Intel.

Can you tell me what hardware is in your rig right now? Go to windows search, type in system info and it should tell you. Based on that I can recommend a card.

Speccy would be better, it's free.

https://www.ccleaner.com/speccy

* Edited at 07.10.2018, 10:32 PM ET *

Yeah windows 8 was terrible, not surprised you want to go to 10. Power supply should be more than ample. But the processor is good, we can work with that for sure. 8gig of ram is OK for gaming.

So what do you want it to be able to do, and how much do you want to spend total? If you want to spend as little as possible, the last gen series of cards are an option. What do you play mainly or want to play?

* Edited at 07.10.2018, 11:16 PM ET *

Under 500 is definitely doable.Here's what I would get if I were trying to spend as little possible to get the best performance to play most games at max, or close with demanding modifiers ( like detailed texturing and shadowing) reduced. This would allow you play games like Skyrim, Ark surivival evolved, Fallout ( including the new one coming out) at 1080p without much frame drop:

Asus GTX 1060 6G: Because this will handle just about anything you throw at it. Try and get a good used one, which you should be able to get for around 250 bucks. This is half your budget, but it  is also is singularly the most important bit of kit for gaming.Your CPU contributes extremely little to gaming performance. It's all your GPU. This card will give you 6gb of DDR5, graphics dedicated. And it will be fine to be cooled with your existing CPU cooler.

Having looked at the prices of the 980 ( last series) these are still going for about the same used as a used 1060, which doesn't make sense at all until you factor in that people are stupid, because the 1060 is considerably more powerful and efficient.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/ASUS-NVIDIA-Dual-Fan-GeForce-GTX-1060-OC-6GB-GDDR5/232840555306?epid=1882273537&hash=item363660eb2a:g:9U8AAOSw2yNbQktC

A key for windows 10 64 bit: Less than 10 bucks. 'Nuff said.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Microsoft-Windows-10-Pro-Professional-32-64bit-Genuine-License-Key-Product-Code/192513082859?epid=589593132&hash=item2cd2ac85eb:g:t0kAAOSw1u5bIvJd

An SSD: Install windows and steam on this.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Kingston-A400-120GB-SSD-SATA-3-2-5-Solid-State-Drive-SA400S37-Tracking-include/152683482273?epid=18019367153&hash=item238ca50ca1:g:NyQAAOSwWsxbESSO

2 Terrabyte hard drive: That is if you need one for more space, maybe you don't.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Western-Digital-GreenPower-WD20EURS-2TB-3-5-Desktop-Hard-Drive/202365794293?hash=item2f1df0f7f5:g:LuYAAOSwweRbRLCL

Optional: 8G of DDR4 RAM.


This should run you about 80-85$.

You don't need more than 8 gigabytes, but 16 is the sweet spot in my experience.

With me rounding up, that brings you to 412$. That's with the ram included, subtract about 80$ or whatnot from that price if you want to leave off buying more ram.Again, you don't need it. Which would bring you around 330$.

On that rig, you'd be able to play just about anything you want at max settings.

Congrats Green. That should get you gaming at 1080p @50-60fps on basically everything you will want to play.

Fried yout GPU.... How did that happen? Did you spill something in there or did it happen naturally? That CPU cooler is an absolute bucket of **** green, if the latter happened I guarantee that had something to do with it. Don't let anyone tell you that your CPU cooler doesn't affect your GPU's ability to cool. It does. If  you're running your processor hard, it creates more ambient heat for your card to deal with. The more cooling you have, the better. It does look pretty clean though.

* Edited at 03.10.2019, 6:19 PM ET *

I was going off the discolouration on the PCB. Glad to hear it still works. If you do go the new rig option I would encourage you to to stick with 10 series cards, the new RTX things are way, way overpriced and not value at all. You can get an ASUS 1070 for around 250 USD$ now that will handle basically anything you throw at it with ease. We're still in the age of 1080p gaming really.

I'd also look in to an AOI liquid cooler. They have gotten pretty good and you can get good reliability for not much outlay, just don't go anything less than a 240mm radiator because if you do you'll do nothing other than heat up the coolant....the small ones are useless. For around 800 bucks you can get a kickass machine.

Corsair and thermaltake are good. Make sure you get a compatible board, the ASUS prime series are great value for money and are mid/ATX sized, so you can get a smaller case and it will fit. The INWIN cases are good, I'm using a 303. Also not expensive now.

Are you sure? That yellowing on the circuitry looks like heat damage to me. 

https://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

Thinking of changing my rig too this year. Too many LEDS. I thought it was a good idea at the time, but they just **** me now.

* Edited at 03.10.2019, 8:29 PM ET *

Green have you played this?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/501300/What_Remains_of_Edith_Finch/

Man, what a great game. Not usually the sort of thing I'd get in to, but I was kind of blown away by how good it was.

Kingdom come is a good game. Man, that will be testing that card hard lol.