Question Not sure where to start.

[snaebjorn]

Hello everyone,

I hardly game on PC, I occasionally play Starcraft 2, Warcraft 3 and would like to finish my Skyrim run someday. However I work… a lot. I run a rescue shelter for last chance dogs.

With all of that being said you can see my time is rather stretched. My old pc finally took a dump, it was over 15 years old… probably pushing more.

I am going to head into town with in the next week or so. We normally head into a bigger city to visit costco and such places. What would be a good pc for our needs?

Again we primarily use our pc for emails, record keeping, taxes and extremely light gaming.

Thanks everyone in advance.

Edit: Our budget is roughly 600-800. My wife and I will be the only ones to use this pc. Being able to play those games on max graphics would be awesome but not required.

 

[Lafong]

I assume there is zero chance of you building it yourself.

If that is true, I'd say Costco is a good place to start...I hear their return privileges are quite good. But their available stock may be somewhat limited.

Do you refuse to order a pre-built machine online, such as from Dell, Amazon, or Newegg?

At the 800 and under level on a pre-built, you will likely have to make some compromises you'd rather not make.

For instance: you might be forced into 32 gb of RAM when 16 would be fine for your purposes. Or a 2 TB drive, when 1 TB would be plenty. Or a small form factor case when you'd prefer a larger standard case. Or a video card, when you don't need one at all. Pre-builts have limited configuration choices.

I have NO idea how far you can get on those gaming requirements on integrated graphics alone, without a video card. You need to find out about that and may ultimately have to decide exactly how important gaming is to you relative to other requirements.

Gaming aside, I'd think you could do reasonably well on 800...with no video card at all. But you might find it tough to find a pre-built PC with no video card. I haven't checked lately.

Virtually any "modern" PC will trounce virtually any 15 year old PC.

At a minimum, I'd go to Newegg, Amazon, and the Dell configurator to at least get some familiarity with how far you can get on 800 dollars. Another 200 might make a significant difference.

 

[snaebjorn]

I assume there is zero chance of you building it yourself.

If that is true, I'd say Costco is a good place to start...I hear their return privileges are quite good. But their available stock may be somewhat limited.

Do you refuse to order a pre-built machine online, such as from Dell, Amazon, or Newegg?

At the 800 and under level on a pre-built, you will likely have to make some compromises you'd rather not make.

For instance: you might be forced into 32 gb of RAM when 16 would be fine for your purposes. Or a 2 TB drive, when 1 TB would be plenty. Or a small form factor case when you'd prefer a larger standard case. Or a video card, when you don't need one at all. Pre-builts have limited configuration choices.

I have NO idea how far you can get on those gaming requirements on integrated graphics alone, without a video card. You need to find out about that and may ultimately have to decide exactly how important gaming is to you relative to other requirements.

Gaming aside, I'd think you could do reasonably well on 800...with no video card at all. But you might find it tough to find a pre-built PC with no video card. I haven't checked lately.

Virtually any "modern" PC will trounce virtually any 15 year old PC.

At a minimum, I'd go to Newegg, Amazon, and the Dell configurator to at least get some familiarity with how far you can get on 800 dollars. Another 200 might make a significant difference.

From what I seen via YouTube and reading, building one seems out of my league. I lack the experience and I am hesitant in leu of me messing up and costing myself hundreds of dollars.

For comforts sake I am opting for a prebuilt. As far as ordering one offline I am open to that as well. Once again, I have limited knowledge when it comes to computers.

As far as the games go, I would like to have the ability to play them on higher quality settings. I think with skyrim everything had to be on low or turned off.

 

[dingo07]

I suggest you get a Mac Mini. It's really made for everything you describe you want from a computer, and it'll provide more than a Windows PC will for the same price. You also have a company that will help you with any issue that may come up.

 

[Lafong]

Go to Newegg or Amazon or Dell and find 4 or 5 machines that are within your budget.

Newegg has by far the best "configurator" to let you specify the individual internal components of the PC. I'd start there.

https://www.newegg.com/Desktop-Computer/Category/ID-228

Maybe a couple with Intel processors and a couple with AMD.

Post the links to each of them in this thread and let us evaluate them.

Try to find at least one that has no video card and relies ONLY on the built in capability of the CPU itself. You may have difficulty.

On the Intel side, I'd choose i3 and i5 in the CPU options at Newegg. There is also a configuration choice for maximum budget. Possibly one for omitting a video card also?

You likely do NOT need a CPU from the latest generation and you can save money that way. An Intel CPU beginning with 11 or 12 may well be all you need. (11th or 12th generation)

You need advice from someone here as to what is the minimum video capability you would need for your specific games. I have no idea.

I'd check what you can order from Costco online also.

 

[Lafong]

https://www.costco.com/computer-towers.html

here's what Costco offers online.

This is "desktop towers" category.

11 choices, beginning at 500.

5 at 700 or less......1 AMD and 4 Intel.

3 more if you can spend 1000.

It looks like NONE of these at 1000 or less includes a video card.