My poor old laptop is now screaming violently at me every time I try to load even Football Manager, so I thought I'd treat myself to a new desktop PC, but it's been about 15 years since I had to buy one.
I've been looking at the Dell Alienware things, but I'm pretty sure I'd be paying over the odds for the fancy box all the hardware comes in.

Any advice? I'm not a FPS online gamer, but I like my RPG's and games like Civ and Total War.

I just took the plunge and paid 1k for an MacBook Air pro. Best laptop I’ve ever had

Despite being one of the older games Shogun 2 needs a powerful processor to run it with the graphics.

Although the original Rome, I think, is by far the best of the series.

Budget is a massive factor as well as how long you want to be able to use it for. It is difficult to futureproof with PC parts but looking at the recommended specs for the latest releases will give you an idea.

If I was putting together a gaming pc right now that will be good for a couple of years of new releases then I'd be thinking of what the recommended specs are for Baldurs Gate 3:

16gb RAM
i7 or AMD R5 processor
8gb Graphics card
an SSD hard drive with 250gb+ of memory (newer games are beginning to require these)

Civ6 and the current total war games will run on lower specs than this.

distortiondave wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 23, 2023 1:58 pm

My poor old laptop is now screaming violently at me every time I try to load even Football Manager, so I thought I'd treat myself to a new desktop PC, but it's been about 15 years since I had to buy one.
I've been looking at the Dell Alienware things, but I'm pretty sure I'd be paying over the odds for the fancy box all the hardware comes in.

Any advice? I'm not a FPS online gamer, but I like my RPG's and games like Civ and Total War.

build your own, it's easy and means you wont have a machine full of unnecessary bloatware. Loads of tutorials on youtube so watch a few to see what you think. I'll never buy off the shelf again.

Alienware are good but pricey.

I'd been well out of the PC market for years but I've recently done a few upgrades on my own and completely redone my sons too a few months ago so I did do quite a lot of research quite recently. My knowledge whilst small should be somewhat relevant.

Do you want to build your own?

I'd recommend getting a mid/high end range model/bits. If you're looking to build your own -

GPU - Be looking for a Nvidia 4070 or AMD 7900xt - go a model down on the AMD if you must but don't touch the Nvidia RTX 4060. A lot of prebuilts will still offer the 30 series Nvidia cards and maybe the older AMD ones - don't be fooled by this, they're still charging pretty much what you can get the current gen for. I'd maybe sway on the side of Nvidia for now but they're expensive. Budget at least £500 for one. Spend as much as you can afford on this.

CPU - A decent 6 core or 8 core processor will do. AMD 7600X is decent for the money, Intel equivalent would be the 13600k/13700k for a fair bit more with less performance. - 7600x - £210 - 13600k - £300. *maybe have a look at upgrading if you can stretch the budget, the model numbers increase 600/700/800 etc for both brands. It's easy enough to figure out.

RAM - DDR4 fast or DDR5 - doesn't seem to matter loads at the moment. The faster 32-3600mhz DDR4 stuff is comparable to all but the fastest DDR5 stuff. I'd personally go for DDR5 if I was getting one from scratch though because it'll be more futureproof. That being said, a few quid here and there can soon add up and DDR4 is cheaper on both motherboards and RAM sticks. 32GB DDR 5 - about £100. DDR4 32gb - probably £50.

SSD - you can get a decent 2TB nvme pcie gen 4 for about 80 quid I think.

PSU - As much as you like - i'd recommend getting a 700W gold - probably about £100.

Motherboards - B650 or Z790 - expensive these days - expect around £200

Cases - Whatever you like - probably £100

Cooling - Get a cheaper all-in-one cooler. ID cooling are overlooked and underrated - they do a decent 240 AIO CPU cooler for about £55


Monitor - I highly recommend getting a 144hz 32" ultrawide. There's loads to choose from at the moment but you can get something for £3-400 in that range. If you're into RTS and RPGs, you'll love the width.

--

https://www.awd-it.co.uk/awd-it-x-infin ... aming.html

Something like this might be a good jumping off point. I'd probably upgrade the PSU and the RAM but overall it'll be a decent machine that should be handy for a decent amount of time.

Don't forget as well, buying Dell will mean paying £100 for a Microsoft Windows license you can get for a few quid on key sites.

If I've missed anything ask away.

distortiondave wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 23, 2023 1:58 pm

My poor old laptop is now screaming violently at me every time I try to load even Football Manager, so I thought I'd treat myself to a new desktop PC, but it's been about 15 years since I had to buy one.
I've been looking at the Dell Alienware things, but I'm pretty sure I'd be paying over the odds for the fancy box all the hardware comes in.

Any advice? I'm not a FPS online gamer, but I like my RPG's and games like Civ and Total War.

I have bought gaming PCs from Palicomp.co.uk and scan.co.uk both good and they build them for you, depends on price but scan is in Bolton if you are in Burnley area. Whatever you choose I would definitely not go below nvidia 4070 for graphics as mentioned above.

Cheers to tarkys and claretabroad, I'll have a sken over the next few days.
Some premade set ups are eye wateringly expensive for gear that will be outdated in a few years, but I don't mind overpaying now if it means I can run it for 5 or more years without hassle.

Some good info here particularly thanks to OP, tarks and Claretabroad. I'm.also looking a new gaming PC for the winter months but given my gaming interests are positively ancient (the Command & Conquer series is my favourite) I'm looking at the lower end of the suggested spec ranges.

Billyblah wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 23, 2023 7:44 pm

Some good info here particularly thanks to OP, tarks and Claretabroad. I'm.also looking a new gaming PC for the winter months but given my gaming interests are positively ancient (the Command & Conquer series is my favourite) I'm looking at the lower end of the suggested spec ranges.

You probably won't even need a gaming PC for that, depending on the most recent game you'll be playing.

distortiondave wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 23, 2023 1:58 pm

My poor old laptop is now screaming violently at me every time I try to load even Football Manager, so I thought I'd treat myself to a new desktop PC, but it's been about 15 years since I had to buy one.
I've been looking at the Dell Alienware things, but I'm pretty sure I'd be paying over the odds for the fancy box all the hardware comes in.

Any advice? I'm not a FPS online gamer, but I like my RPG's and games like Civ and Total War.

With FM/Civ the performance differential is not going to be your graphics card, but your CPU. Focus on getting the most CPU power for the money.
Total War however is a real test also for GPU. CPU is important here too, especially with lots of units but GPU is what will make the biggest difference.

A GPU is easily upgradable compared to CPU in the future, so if on a budget, and especially in the current GPU market I'd probably look at something a AMD RX 6750 for now, and upgrade that later.

For a CPU, you may be better waiting a little bit for the new Intel CPUs that are coming out very soon, this will push the price down on the last gen. A 13700k would be really great for FM/Civ and should get discounted as the new 14 series come out. AMD have some good CPUs also, with their 7 series CPUs but they may not see the same discount.

Don't underestimate peripherals either. A good mechanical KB and a nice mouse, but more importantly a great monitor. Monitor prices have tanked so you may even be able to get a 1440p/4k one in budget. The bigger the resolution of monitor, the more you can potentially fit on the screen at one time when playing FM. (More stats, more players etc).