Prebuilt Gaming PC that takes advantage of Black Friday/Cyber Monday

[Urzuz108]

Hey all,

I am in the market for a new PC and I would love to hear your guys' thoughts. I am looking to buy a prebuilt PC that will be good enough to play most new games on it, but doesn't have to be totally top of the line. I am looking to spend $1000 (or less obviously!). I also need a monitor as well (can be in addition to the $1000 for the PC)! Given the timing, Black Friday and CyberMonday are right around the corner, so I was hoping to take advantage of some deals that may be floating around that you all know about.

Also, in general, what are certain "must haves" for a new gaming PC. "Must haves" being, good graphics card? Good CPU? More RAM? What are the most important components that I should focus on, and if I do need to cut back on cost, what are areas that are able to be sacrificed without affected performance too much?

I have read enough on this forum to know that you all feel strongly about building your own PCs, but the reality is I don't have the knowledge or time to do so! My job is pretty busy, and I like to relax at the end of busy days with an hour of gaming every couple days. I don't mind paying extra for the "name" either since I have the money to do so.

Thanks everyone in advance, and happy Thanksgiving!

 

[mf2780]

The most important things for gaming is this:

1: Good Power supply (PSU). Bad ones can ruin the computer and cause problems. This is the biggest issue with most prebuilts as they use bad power supplies.

2: Good Graphics Card (GPU): This is what is important for your games. This is more important than your processor (CPU).

3: 8GB of Ram or more.

With a prebuilt I would also suggest going with something that has a good BBB rating and decent reputation if buying online. Another option is buy one in store like best buy and get warranty through them. Only way I would buy a prebuilt is to upgrade the warranty to at least 2 years. Most use cheap components which seem to fail between 12-16 months. So a 24+ month warranty makes them cover it.

Most online sites makes you ship the computer to them to repair. They cover the labor/hardware cost but not the shipping cost. This makes the warranty pretty worthless IMO for all but very major issues. Origin PC covers shipping as part of warranty and Falcon Northwest covers shipping for 1 year. These both use more high end components which also makes them much more costly.

Ibuypower and Cyberpower uses more cheaply made components and require you to ship them in at your cost. These are normally cheaper than Origin PC and Falcon Northwest though. Ibuypower and Cyberpower also can be bought from Best-Buy and if you get the warranty through best buy than can take it there to be fixed.

Other sites are hit and miss IMO. Dell has terrible customer service which for me is important enough to never buy a Dell. Apples are overpriced but reliable. In the end you have to decide which is most important in a company you deal with.

 

[Urzuz108]

Thanks so much for your reply and suggestions!

I will look into buying a prebuilt PC from Costco, as I read they have great customer service, free technical support, and have 2 year warranties on all computers.

Additionally, they have CyberPower PCs.

http://www.costco.com/cpu-only.html?refine=30383%2b13005%2b

Using that link, do you have any suggestions on model and parts? Do these prices seem reasonable to you?

Thanks so much for all your help, I really appreciate it!

The most important things for gaming is this:

1: Good Power supply (PSU). Bad ones can ruin the computer and cause problems. This is the biggest issue with most prebuilts as they use bad power supplies.

2: Good Graphics Card (GPU): This is what is important for your games. This is more important than your processor (CPU).

3: 8GB of Ram or more.

With a prebuilt I would also suggest going with something that has a good BBB rating and decent reputation if buying online. Another option is buy one in store like best buy and get warranty through them. Only way I would buy a prebuilt is to upgrade the warranty to at least 2 years. Most use cheap components which seem to fail between 12-16 months. So a 24+ month warranty makes them cover it.

Most online sites makes you ship the computer to them to repair. They cover the labor/hardware cost but not the shipping cost. This makes the warranty pretty worthless IMO for all but very major issues. Origin PC covers shipping as part of warranty and Falcon Northwest covers shipping for 1 year. These both use more high end components which also makes them much more costly.

Ibuypower and Cyberpower uses more cheaply made components and require you to ship them in at your cost. These are normally cheaper than Origin PC and Falcon Northwest though. Ibuypower and Cyberpower also can be bought from Best-Buy and if you get the warranty through best buy than can take it there to be fixed.

Other sites are hit and miss IMO. Dell has terrible customer service which for me is important enough to never buy a Dell. Apples are overpriced but reliable. In the end you have to decide which is most important in a company you deal with.

 

[mf2780]

I do not know enough about what can be upgraded or not in most of what I saw on Costco to offer a good opinion. Not sure how Costco does their warranties also.

If buying in store and the store handles the repair than I dont see why you should limit it by a certain brand. Looking at that Costco site I saw some big discounts for the holiday shopping weekend.

Hopefully someone who knows more will come and suggest one of those builds.

A few things I would say. An I7 6700 is a top line processor currently. For those prices listed they have cut corners deeply in the rest of the builds to put those in. No more than 16Gb of ram is needed. Those system with 32Gb is putting money in the wrong place. Many of those come with a low end PSU which will greatly limit the possibility of upgrading to a better graphics card.

Just know if you can find a friend to build it for you or even a local computer shop it will be a much better reliable system. For your budget you should be able to get a decent system with a GTX 970 card. This will beat any of those systems listed for gaming by a large margin.