Mac gaming is dead to me. Help

Aug 12, 2018
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I’m a lifetime Mac user looking for help buying a pc for gaming (mainly Warcraft). The money they’re asking for shit specs is unacceptable.

I’m interested purely in the best specs I can get in a desktop tower for the least amount. Aesthetics mean nothing to me, I want bare bones performance for cheap, even refurbished or used if it’s advisable.

Display cost doesn’t enter into this since I have a monitor already.

My target is less than $500.

Emphasis on discrete GPU, SSD, and min 8GB ram (ideally 16)

I know very little about PC so any input is much appreciated.

Nick
 
Solution


It's not a bad system, but if you want to get better bang for the dollar you'll need to buy at least a used GPU. I find Maxwell GPU's (Nvidia 9 series cards) to be a few hundred dollars cheaper than current gen cards and aren't that much slower. A GTX 980 ti is about 10-15% slower than a GTX 1080 for a few hundred less


If you want the best deal possible, you'll want to look into a used (and fairly new) GPU, something Maxwell or Pascal based. That means 9 and 10 series Nvidia GTX GPU's. or a decent RX 480 or RX 580.

For the best deal you'll want to build it all yourself, so start watching some Youtube videos on P building, I recommend Linus Tech Tips and Jayztwocents as people to watch.

Ram is still fairly expensive so it looks like you'll be looking for about 8gb's, but get a single stick if possible to lower cost and have ugradability to 16 in the future.

Used parts to avoid are FX Series CPU's, Power Supplies, and Storage devices. As these all can be fairly sketchy to buy used, and FX though seemingly fast looking is terrible slow even when an 8 core 16 thread FX CPU at 5 ghz is compared to a much slower quad core i5 or i7
 


Are you only doing gaming? Or do you want to consider streaming or editing photo/video? This will help me narrow down your CPU choices. For JUST gaming a Core I5 8400 or 8600 and a cheap B360 motherboard (B350 and B360 are different) would do just find with a high end used GPU. However if streaming or video/photo editing with gaming on the side is more your things a B350 motherboard and a Ryzen 5 1600 will do that faster than Intel's offerings can.
 


Ok, your going to want to go Intel for the best experience since Intel CPU's have better single threaded performance which benefits gaming more than Multi-threaded muscle. I would look around on eBay for a deal on a 6th or 7th gen I5 or I7 and a motherboard + cooler, and maybe memory. But don't go too much older than 6th gen, the prices usually go up with less performance.
 
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/dbwkWD
Just a quick one I made. But it actually came out pretty good for under 500$. PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/dbwkWD
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/dbwkWD/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel - Core i3-8100 3.6GHz Quad-Core Processor ($115.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI - B360M GAMING PLUS Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($59.99 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2800 Memory ($80.98 @ Newegg Business)
Storage: SanDisk - SSD PLUS 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI - GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB Video Card ($144.99 @ B&H)
Case: Rosewill - FBM-X1 MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($21.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Corsair - VS 550W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply ($24.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $498.81
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-08-13 00:22 EDT-0400
 


It's not a bad system, but if you want to get better bang for the dollar you'll need to buy at least a used GPU. I find Maxwell GPU's (Nvidia 9 series cards) to be a few hundred dollars cheaper than current gen cards and aren't that much slower. A GTX 980 ti is about 10-15% slower than a GTX 1080 for a few hundred less
 
Solution