Building a gaming pc for 2014 should i get windows 7 or 8.1 OS?

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bradsctt
Its a matter of personal preference, however Windows 8.1 improves performance in some games, eg: Battlefield 4, due to support for DirectX 11.2 and better multi-core utilisation.
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Nice PC you came up with. I strongly suggest that you get Windows 7 because most games are released with Windows 7. But if you want a faster OS and a new interface, get Windows 8.

P.S. I suggest you get a MSI or ASUS board, opposed to that ASrock, because at this price range you should really get a more stable board, nice PC though.

Hope this helped :)
 
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Yeah i might get the asus maximus IV
 
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What do you mean patched, and windows 8.1 has a windows 7 compatibility setting? what OS do you have?
 
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The games have been updated to work better with the OS (Windows 8.1).
If you find the exe of the game/program, right click, and select properties, there will be a tab option for compatibility, and this will allow you to run the exe in compatibility mode if you need to. I had to do that for Battlefield 3 (it kept crashing) when Windows 8 first came out, until Battlefield was updated. I am currently dual booting Windows 8 Pro and Arch Linux on my desktop, with my laptop running Windows 8.1.
 
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Definitely go for it, that's a nice board, My cuz has one.

 
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I am having the same delima and a similar build. I want it mainly for video production and rendering and going with the 2011 MOBO so i can upgrade to 6 core when i need to. I using nvideo cards for the cuda cores. i have a $2300 budget but only $1500 avail for cyber power and $2000 for new egg. so im looking into a base system w a the board ready to go for uner 1500 and then just buy the parts form new egg and upgrade myself. my issue now is do i get win 8 or 7? i DO NOT WANT IISSUES witth games like bf4 on 3 1080p monitors in nvidia surround or any crashes while i am the middle of eiditng a vid and it gets overworked... can you help?


 
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I would save your money and just get the Alienware X51 R2 for $1099 same specs except get the gtx 760 ti 2gb for a little bit more and save a lot plus comes with 8.1 and then choose the dual hdd ssd config and switch out the hdd/ssd if you want. You would also get a wireless N/AC card with Bluetooth. The case also looks cooler and the power supply is only 330 watts.
 
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You sir, are an idiot, alienware is dell, most parts in alienware are up to 3 years old, and you pay top dollar for old parts, you can build a much better pc yourself that is going to outperform alienware, as well as be cheaper than alienware. long story short, get the best of the best and build it yourself for 1/2 the cost of a prebuilt system.

 
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Question - if you want a Win 7 laptop for media and a bit of gaming, what do you get these days? We're talking 17 inch with blu ray.

Thanks!




 
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Windows 7. I am a former IT tech and I absolutely abhor Windows 8/8.1 All the PC's we ordered for customers were Windows 7 (we bought Dell because they were one of the only manufacturers who were making Windows 7 optional), not by request but because they were easier to use. I've worked with both, Windows 8 and 8.1. The update to 8.1 didn't do much. If you're coming from Windows Vista or XP, then you'll want 7. If you don't want 7, then be prepared to learn to use Windows all over again (mostly).

There's no difference (in my experience) in how apps perform on Windows 7 to 8. The only difference is going to be in the addition of Microsoft's cloud-based applications, email, etc, which are all integrated into the OS, and the integration of the touchscreen optimized app and widget layout, not practical for system builders IMHO.
 
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Save some money and get a refurbished HP Workstation on e-bay.




 
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I agree 100% with the Motherboard part. I have the 4770k since launch day as well as an Asus Z87 Pro but to stay in the price range of the selected mother board I would go with the ASUS Z87-A. I would assume with the Corsair H100 series you pan to clock it up some...

Now this is strictly preference but I would cut back on the Power Supply to 750 Watts and the case to something like a Corsair Carbide R200 and invest in 16 Gigs of DDR3 2133 over the more expensive case and PSU. This is just preference to me because I like the 200r and that Rig doesnt need 850 watts.

AS well, the Samsung 120 gig 840 is also very over rated. Its only fast if you get the 256Gig+ versions (which is what I went with for my system drive). For the price, believe it or not, I would go with Kingston HyperX 3K. Those drives are about the same as the Sammy 120 Gig but 1/3 cheaper....


Now back to the original questions... Go with Windows 8.1 and use a program by Stardock called Start8. Other than the transparencies in Windows 7 you wont be missing much at all. 8.1 is fast and stable however there are some UI graphic issues. Google Windows 8.1 icon distortion and you should be able to find what I am talking about. Because of that my main rig runs 8.0 and all my other rigs run 8.1 or Linux Mint 16 (petra).


Check out the config I would go with: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2ObNx

 
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True, but take into account that some drivers for Ai suite, or for certain video cards installing Windows 8.1 totally erased the drivers off my system, had to do a total system restore to resolve the problem and uninstalled 8.1 completely at least until Microsoft resolves this. This has been a very disappointing year for me with this new software. These greedy <Mod Edit> instead of making things right the first time around rush things to get them out to the public to make a profit and then try and make things right with flim flam updates to patch things up. If moving up the technological tree when it comes to software is going to be a pain then it certainly is not worth it.
 
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Windows 8.1, I will say, does have some merit for the enthusiast, namely I have heard reports that sometimes running a quad SLI setup will work better, especially when you have high-performance GPU's. It also does make "better" use of multi-core CPU's in applications designed to make the most of them (games, video/audio, modeling software).

Something to think about...but think about the large numbers of high-end systems with quad-SLI configurations that run great on 7. I think that Microsoft has a lot of improvements to do with 8 (maybe they will bring it back to 7 with some upgrades?). I will say that Windows 7 was a huge upgrade to Vista, which to me was one of Microsoft's biggest blunders, but you'd think they learned their lesson with that...
 
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I just built a pc nearly identical to yours, i7-4770, same exact ram, gtx 760 sc acx, etc.

I am using Windows 8.1. Though Win 8.1 is stupid on many points, e.g. the pointless departure from UI standards that required no revision, it seems to be working very well for gaming. I have been playing BF4 at 60 fps on all max settings...and it stays at 60 no matter how busy the action is.

It is hard for me to say, since I do not perform any serious benchmarking experiments, but I see a difference with the Directx change in Win 8.

Also, there is a comment above about the motherboard...I went with the Asus Hero 6 and it is completely awesome and very easy to manage. The software and features are on par with boards another tier or two above the Hero's price range.

Here is my build:

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/aogiss/saved/3qh2

I only have on GPU, despite what the list states. Since I had one already, I added another to the list to ensure I bought a big enough PSU, in case I went SLI, which I probably will not.

Also, the cooler in my build is great. I cranked the CPU up to 4.4 and I have never seen a temp higher than 37C. It is huge, but fit with no problems that case.
 
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first go for windows 7, windows 8 are tablet like which i personally hate. For power supply dont go with corsair. Get xfx at 750 watt. They are better for high end. Another thing to consider is abour ram. You dont need 16 gb , 8 gb are more than enough. Go for corsair vengeance. They are really cool and they have life team warranity. If you want to invest more money on the rig dont get more ram or anything else. Go str8 for gtx 780 which is... sick...!
 
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I woukd say to go with windows 8 as it is newer, more stable and if you do not like the metro look or UI, you can just leave it at desktop mode which is basicly a redesigned windows 7


P.S: for an SSD, the samsung 840 evo 120gb is at 80$ on new egg
 
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