The PC (Personal Computer) is a highly configurable and upgradable gaming platform that, among home systems, sports the widest variety of control methods, largest library of games, and cutting edge graphics and sound capabilities.
For a display I have a single Sony fw900 which is a big 16:10 CRT that does 2304X1440. Of course I have been able to max out any game I have played on this machine with frames above 50 consistently. I don't build my own PC. I use Bear computer in Bellevue WA, which is the same outfit that builds all of Valves PCs. When Gabe plays a PC game on his rig he uses one built by Bear, he doesn't build his own PC.
Realtek Digital Output (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Speakers/Headphones:
Sony MDR-XD200 headphones
Keyboard:
Das Keyboard Professional S
Mouse:
Gigabyte USB 2.0 (generic mouse, could do with an upgrade)
Operating System:
Windows 7 Home Premium, Service Pack 1
Case:
Generic case
For the £250 I paid for this machine, I think I did pretty well. The Das Keyboard is my own, though. I'm happy with everything as it is, but I'd be interested in changing up a few components here and there, such as the motherboard and graphics card. If I was changing the motherboard I'd be interested in going for the ASUS P67 Sabertooth. The graphics card is the other change I'd like to make since I can't run ArmA II smoothly with my current card, and I'd like to be able to do that. The ASUS P67 might be a massive overkill, but it would be nice to be able to know you're set for the future. I imagine I'd also need to change the PSU and cooling to make that work, though.
Mobo: ASUS P7P55D Pro CPU: Intel i7 860 @ stock (for temp concerns in my furnace of an apt.. at least in the summer) Cooling: Cooler Master V6 GPU: Radeon HD5870 RAM: Corsair DDR3 @ 1600MHz 4gig PSU: Corsair 750w HDD 1: Seagate 1TB Case: HAF922
Upgraded to 8 GB Corsair Vengance @ 1600 Upgraded video card to MSI GTX 680 Working on a mild overclock.
Speakers: Cyber Acoustics Subwoofer Satellite System (CA-3602)
Headset: Creative Fatal1ty Gaming Headset
Game controller: Saitek Rumble Force P2500
Primary hard drive: Kingston HyperX 3K 120GB 2.5" Solid State
Secondary hard drive: Western Digital Caviar Blue 640GB 3.5" 7200RPM
External hard drive: Western Digital Elements 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive WDE1UBK10000N (Black)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 330 ATX Mid Tower Case
Power supply: Corsair 550W ATX12V Power Supply
Optical drive: LG GH24NS70 OEM DVD/CD Writer
Bias lighting: 16.4 Ft RGB Color Changing Kit with LED Flexible Strip, Controller + Remote and 12 Volt 4 Amp Power Supply By Ledwholesalers, 2034rgb Kit
Headset: Creative Labs Sound Blaster Tactic 3D Alpha USB Gaming Headset
Game Controllers: Xbox 360 Wired Controller/ Razer Nostromo Gaming Keypad
HDD: Western Digital Green 1.5TB HDD
External HDD: Western Digital Elements 1.5 TB USB 2.0 External HDD
Case: Something by RAIDMAX I found on Amazon that fit my need
Microphone: Blue Yeti USB Microphone
Oh, and external speakers are some shitty 2.1 setup I bought back in 2005 when I worked at Radioshack :P
As is probably apparent given the items listed above, this PC has seen multiple upgrades over the years, and is set to be replaced come 2013. That 1st gen i7 has served me well, but I think it's getting to be the right time to look at something a bit newer before too much longer.
When I get home I plan to throw a 7970M in there instead of the current GPU. Honestly the 6970M has been great and runs through everything, but the concept of GTX 570 power in laptop form from the 7970M is just too much to resist.
Mobo: ASUS P7P55D Pro CPU: Intel i7 860 @ stock (for temp concerns in my furnace of an apt.. at least in the summer) Cooling: Cooler Master V6 GPU: Radeon HD5870 RAM: Corsair DDR3 @ 1600MHz 4gig PSU: Corsair 750w HDD 1: Seagate 1TB Case: HAF922
Upgraded to 8 GB Corsair Vengance @ 1600 Upgraded video card to MSI GTX 680 Working on a mild overclock.
Update: stable i7 860 at 3.5 GHz HT on. Should last me about 2 more years.
My current gaming rig is my laptop which is an MSI GX660:
Intel core i5 460m
Mobility Radeon 5870
8GB RAM
2X 500GB Momentus XT drives in RAID 0
Just waiting on the 4GB variants of the GTX670 to hit the UK and I shall then upgrade to a full blooded desktop with a surround setup to follow on later.
It's really interesting going through this thread which started almost 4 years ago and seeing people's upgrades. I currently upgraded my system:
Processor: i7 2600 @3.4ghz
GPU: AMD 7970 3 GB of RAM
RAM: 8GB of DDR3 1333Mhz
HDD: 2.5 TB
PSU: Corsair CX600
OS: Windows 7 64bit
Monitor/TV: 24" Samsung 245BW monitor and 40" Samsung TV.
So far running buttery smooth. Battlefield 3, Batman Arkham City, Crysis 2, Bulletstorm, Skyrim and the Witcher 2 all running max settings at 1080p with over 60FPS. The Witcher 2 gets around average 28 frames with Ubersampling on, but with dips of up to 20FPS, and spikes of up to 33FPS. Very playable, but I prefer to have it off and get 60+FPS.
Still running a first gen core i5 750 with 16 gigs of ram and a geforce 570gtx with some stock OC.
Just bought an apartment (today) and an SSD and a 4-bay NAS and four 3tb drives (yesterday), so gotta hold off on getting a new ivy bridge i7, but it won't be long now, can't wait.
This one still plays most of the games I throw at it reasonably well, but the other stuff I do with DCC apps and running a million virtual machines at the same time is starting to feel kinda slow.
New PC finally arrived today, damn it was a bugger getting upstairs, anyway decided against the 4GB GTX 680 in the end since I looked a bit more into it and even heavily modded skyrim (which was the game I was worried about) has a struggle getting to use more than 2GB of VRAM even at 1440p.
Anyway here are the specs:
Case
COOLERMASTER CM STORM TROOPER - GAMING ENTHUSIAST CASE
Overclocked CPU
Intel® Core™i7-3770k Quad Core @4.60GHz
Motherboard
ASUS® SABERTOOTH Z77: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, THERMAL ARMOR
2500k @ 4.4 ghz 1.32v + Corsair H60 (bit loud pump for my taste)
8GB 1333 CAS9 (can go 1600 CAS8 but slightly unstable, doesn't matter anyway)
Seasonic X-560 Gold (silent PSU)
Corsair 650D with 6 Cougar Vortex fans (can go silent, shitty MSI TFII cooling on GPU doesn't allow me)
560 Ti @ stock. Been very displeased with this card's cooling performance and soundlevel. Loud as fuck and never cool enough. MSI TFII. First I got a faulty card and had to return it. Got a new one. Still fucking loud and not cool enough. Upgrading to Gigabyte or ASUS 670 in september-ish (asap basically, fuck MSI)
Asus Xonar DX (excellent quality but shit drivers, as all soundcards) + Sennheiser HD555 (getting PC360 soon)
Samsung 830 128gb SSD (just got this, super stoked to have space for games on my SSD)
Some 1TB drive
Dell u2311 LCD (love it, never TN again)
Zowie Celeritas keyboard
Zowie EC2 mouse
QCK+ mousepad
@Samael2138: Why do you need x79? Lot's of videoediting etc? For gaming a i5 3570 will give you exactly the same performance. Spend the money on the 690 instead, if you indeed play at 2600x1400 or whatever res it is. 680 will take anything else and you can save money for the 780 when it's needed (which will give you more performance for your bucks in the long run).
ASUS GeForce GT 440 (Please, don't cringe like that, I can actually hear you cringe through the internet. My PSU has the worst wattage ever and I needed a quick upgrade for Skyrim. Don't "H8", as they say.)
Monitor:
SyncMaster T200 (I do my gaming at 1680x1050)
Sound Card:
SteelSeries USB Soundcard
Speakers/Headphones:
SteelSeries Siberia V2
Keyboard:
Razer Lycosa
Mouse:
Razer Lachesis
Operating System:
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Motherboard:
Jup, pretty sure I have one of those.
Case
Nohing special, just a cheap basic case.
I'm at a loss as to what to upgrade. It was a while ago when I actually cared enough about stuff like this. The problem I feel the most is just straight up the hard drive.
Some of the core i7's seem doable, price-wise. 100 - upper 200s is okay to spend on a processor upgrade, I think. But is it really going to blow my balls off? I'd be fine using the same motherboard I think, but I haven't checked. Wouldn't I be better of getting a decent PSU and graphics card for the same price? I really don't know how high I can go without the CPU bottle-necking it.
I'm also unhappy with the driver suppot for the 440 which not only lowers the performance with each consecutive release, but also introduces some really odd issues with drivers straight up crashing under load unless I'm using afterburner, which is a really weird bug to have. And this is still a relatively new card, clean driver install, so there's really no excuse for it to behave that way, especially since the stock drivers work so much better. So I'd be looking for an ATI card next time as I never experienced those kind of issues with their cards.
Just ordered a new PC having sold the old one for good bucks:
PC Case: Corsair 500R
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V
CPU: Intel i5 3570k
CPU Cooler: Corsair H60
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600
Power Supply: Corsair HX750
HDD: Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black
SSD: Corsair Force 3 Series 120GB
Graphics Card: EVGA Geforce GTX 680
Big Corsair fan as you can see :P Hoping to have it ready by next month for the start of University and to catch up on Guild Wars 2 people that'll already be knees deep in it.
Intel Core i5-3570K overclocked to 4.2GHz (I'm happiest with the thermals at that clock)
Memory
16GB G.Skill Ripjaws Z series DDR3 2400 (underclocked to 1867MHz until I can find a better cooling solution, not as stable as I would like at 2400)
SSD/HDD
240GB Mushkin Enhanced Chronos Deluxe SSD / 2TB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM (Both are SATA 6)
Graphics Card(s)
2x EVGA Superclocked GeForce GTX 660 2GB GDDR5 (I would've went for a higher end single card solution, but these baby's were on sale($180/piece!) and keep up with the highest end in SLI)
Power Supply
Silverstone ST1200 1200w Modular PSU
Cooling
Corsair H100 for the processor with 2 Nocuta 140mm VI fans in place of the stock corsair 120mm (too tall/loud)
Just got my new PC built a month or so back. This was my final build. I also have a 125 GB SSD that I already owned that I'm using as my main hard drive for OS and recent games.
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