Truant19

You just can't put so much pressure on your self to consume everything. Gamers are especially bad at not wanting to miss out on a potentially great experience, so they purchase all these great games, don't play, then feel guilty for it.

If you want to support devs and want to have a large library, go ahead, spend the $40 on 15 new games, but don't put so much pressure on your self to play through them all. Play a few for the first hour, if your not feeling it, just move on.

If you can skip a few major releases of a genre, then hop back in, you get that sense of 'wow' again, since you didn't see the incremental improvements from release to release.

For instance, I am not picking up GTA5 this year. I played 4, and just wasn't feeling it, so I will skip 5, and in a few years when 6 comes out and I'll give it a try. Chances are, skipping 5 will just leave me blown away by 6.

Do you want to develop games? Or record them?

Recording/Streaming games is really CPU/GPU intensive, if you're hoping to play BF4 on high settings while recording, you may need a larger budget than 800 pounds.

Also, if your investing that much money into a custom built PC, I would suggest trying to do some of the research your self. Knowing your gear will help you troubleshoot problems in the future, and problems will happen.

For which platform?

Heroes 6 is a really fun turn based game for PC. It's not the best in the series (most agree Heroes 3 was the best), but unless you like retro gaming, I say stick with heroes 6.

@ghostchant: A processors speed is the clock speed, so yes.

Wow, my old rig was almost those exact same specs. I tried a few times to upgrade it, and never really felt a huge change in preformance. I ended up just buying a new set up. The stuff you have is about 4-5 years old, which is pretty much the life of enthusiast computers, sadly.

Are you 100% you put the extra power cable to the card? I know it seems obvious but I have forgotten a few times.

You could try the card in another computer. That would rule out any possibility that the card is damaged. I know that can be a pain in the ass though. My only other suggestions would be to hit up the manufacturer support.

It frustrates me so bad how terribly handled this game was. The game was so broken at release with bugs and camera glitches and no party system after playing it for a few days I stopped. Now its been a few months and I figure a few patches has come out hopefully they fixed some things and the game is decent. So I jump straight into the new seals game modes they made for MLG, thinking ill get some good competivie classic socom. The game says I don't have access, since the error message explains nothing I google it and figure out its that socom pro thing I never did, no big but kind of annoying. 
 
I finally get into the game and I am immediately voted out. Like I ran 30 feet and got kicked.... Kind of weird but ok. I then enter a second game to which I am team killed and then get to watch the guys plant and diffuse the bomb back and forth, farming points I assume, so I leave. I then try to enter the "pro medley" option. I get the same error message "someone in your party doesn't have access". Not only is the error message confusing since I am not in a party it doesn't explain how I get access. After another google I realize that it is for some unreleased DLC or something. 
 
At this point getting pretty annoyed so I figure ill just do some Classic small maps medley, what I used to play at release. After being in que for 10 minutes I decide to drop out and try Classic medley. Again in que by my self for a good 10 minutes.  I shut my ps3 off. What a waste. 
 
This game is fucked.

@Truant19: Bonus pool gives you bonus points at the end of the match. If your bonus pool is really high, for example, you'll gain 25 points for a win; if it's really low - 18 (random numbers, just to generalize). Its purpose is to give the players who haven't played in a long time an edge and a chance to catch up.
 
You also don't get promoted based on your place in a league; what matters is your MMR indicator which depends on who you win and lose against. 
 
I don't know how the promotion works, but I know this: the only way to get promoted is to win games!  So don't really bother with some special times when to play or something; win a lot, you'll get promoted. That's how easy it is. Also I don't know who told you about the "review" but it sounds like complete and utter bollocks to me.  Win a lot, get better = you'll get promoted. Hope that helps.

I didn't read all the responses but don't learn a build. I think that's the wrong way to learn. If your stressed out about playing humans for the first time think of it like this. If I do poorly, thats a good thing. I will get placed in a league below or at my skill level and will be able to quickly work my way out as I learn the game. Season 3 is coming in a month and my losses will mean nothing. After you get that mid set, just start playing. Try one basing. you will quickly realize that there is a small window when one base works, but without expanding you will quickly fall behind. 
 
Play around with the "economy/tech/army" triangle. Try being hype aggressive, then try to be very passive and practice scouting and defense.  
 
Builds are insanly overrated. I am a mid diamond player, and I never use "builds". They make a player rigid and unlearning. For instance this is my "build" PvZ  that I have been trying today (im P), in xelga caverns. "Get a gateway and a zealot and wall off, build two more gateways and stop probe production. produce a few sentrys and another zealot while waiting for warpgates. hide a proxy pylon. pressure then retreat once he masses zerglings or roaches. Build expo while attacking along with forge and start pumping out probes. Start hollo some time here, and a robo. Get +1 attack and continue warpgate units. Push front to put pressure. Scout for a 3rd and start colli production. push with 2 colli heavy gateway +1/+1 and get a third etc...." 
 
you get the point

Hey guys,  
 
I have done some searching around and all the explanations I find on how the ladder works seems very poor. Its either outdated, or just doesn't explain some of the most basic features. For instance, a bonus pool is a pool of points that accumulate over time and adds a bonus to your points when winning a game. Ok, but what do points do? Do points move you up in your current ladder or do they promote you to the next league? Do you need to be the top of your ladder to get promoted? 
 
I usually don't care about this stuff because I have had a 50/50 win rate in my league basically since the start and its always been fun. But lately I have been doing much better. Just today I went 10/0, and the day before 9/2. I seem to be only moving 1 position in the ladder around 3 or so wins, and currently at 17. I have even been beating players from the league above and the game states "even game".  
 
I read that you can only move up in a league during a "review", but it gives no info on when these reviews happen. Is it once a week or once a season? 
 
This is the same problem I had with WoW arena (wotlk/cata), they make the system so complicated it can take away from the competition because there is so much behind the scenes that is kept hidden.