Just Bought a PC - What Next?

I finally bit the bullet and ordered a PC capable of playing current AAA games. I grew up a PC gamer, but I've been avoiding the cost of a new one because something just always came up that I needed to spend the money on. Honestly, if not for my sweet, gift-giving wife I probably wouldn't have had consoles for the last couple generations either. Other things were just more important.

So what do you suggest for someone who's just getting back into PC gaming? I don't really need game recommendations, though if you have a real banger that's PC-only, that's ok. I'm more looking for configuration tips, must-have game-related apps, accessories, etc. For reference, I bought an Alienware Ryzen pre-built machine with a 3060. It's not tippy-top-of-the-line, but it's really nice for me. As far as technical skill, I feel pretty comfortable. I've built many PCs before and I have a semi-tech job. Jeff G. talked recently about immediately re-installing Windows on his pre-built machine. I know there's always bloatware to get rid of, but is there any legitimacy to thinking Alienware/Dell might have configured something better than I could and I should just uninstall the bloatware instead? Thanks in advance for your recommendations.

If your PC didn't come pre-installed with some sort of outside software that isn't just basic drivers for your video card then I don't really see a reason to do a fresh install, although if you have a nice SSD in there then a clean Win10 install takes literally like 15 minutes these days. So if you have some weird control panels or Turbo-Power-Center type stuff in there then I would just uninstall it and call it a day.

With PCs the question is how far you want to jump down that rabbit hole. What you bought is probably perfectly fine to run out of the gate and you need not tinker with anything. BUT, if you are the type that likes to tinker, then there are plenty of things you can probably do.

Smash it pretend you're banksy

@brendan: I think I have to sell it first, then have a safe fall on it or something. I think that's how they do it.

The first thing I would double-check is the power supply in your new computer. What is the brand? Any good? Does it actually have enough wattage? Power supplies seem to be the first thing that pre-builts cheap out on. Everything else I mention is "YMMV", do what you find best, but finding out exactly what hardware is in your pre-built is, I think, the most important thing you can do.

Other than that... if you're just gaming and you have a bunch of PC gaming friends, then Discord is kind of a must these days. Everything else that you'll need is the launcher for whatever game you want to play, primarily Steam. I'd also say that you should look into GOG Galaxy. GOG has a better track record with making sure that old games work on newer systems (though it's not perfect), plus their games don't have any DRM so you don't have to worry about losing access to them because of business reasons far outside your control

For Windows settings, I strongly recommend turning off mouse acceleration. If you get a mouse good enough for PC gaming, then mouse acceleration is just going to feel awful. For any and every game you play with a mouse, make sure mouse smoothing and mouse acceleration are off. These settings will throw off your mouse accuracy. EDIT: If you go into Mouse Properties -> Pointer Options tab -> and uncheck "enhance pointer precision", you will have turned off mouse acceleration in Windows.

Accessory-wise, I think a good mouse should take top priority, followed by whatever controller you prefer (Xbox controllers are easiest to work with but you can get PS4/5/Switch controllers to work on PC as well). How much you need a controller is entirely down to personal preference, but there are some genres that I personally don't see myself playing without a controller (primarily, the majority of 2D games and racing games). As an aside, multiplayer games on PC frequently do support controllers but if you try to use one you'll probably get crushed all the time simply because a decent mouse user is so much more accurate than even a great controller player.

As far as keyboards go, double check something called "n key rollover" if you can. Basically it refers to how many keys you can push at once on the keyboard. If you're playing a shooter and you need to walk diagonally and crouch at the same time, you want your keyboard to be able to register all of those keys at once. The vast majority of modern keyboards can handle this but if you're somebody who will use just any old keyboard, you might come across this if you pick up the cheapest thing you can. Mechanical keyboards are something that will be recommended to you often, frequently cited as a necessity. I do strongly recommend them, they are so much nicer to use and type on, especially when you find your favorite kind of switch - but I don't really think they're necessary for gaming. If you're also using your computer to type a lot - writing articles or programming or something - then I'd say a mechanical keyboard would be far more necessary.

@justin258: Thanks for all the recommendations! Most of those were things I wouldn't have thought about myself.

I've got more Xbox controllers than a person really should have, so I think I'm good there. That said, I am really looking forward to being able to play FPS with a mouse and keyboard for the first time since UT and Quake III.

For better or worse, I also have the launcher thing covered, too. I always thought I'd end up back on PC someday so for quite some time I've been claiming free games and buying cheap bundles that I sometimes didn't have a great way to play. So I'm starting with a Steam/Epic/GOG/Twitch Prime/Game Pass Ultimate backlog. Yay?

Whatever you do, don't end up like me.

I bought a pre-built HP 30L because it had a 3070 in it and the 30L touts itself as being enthusiast friendly. Everything is off the shelf sizing. No weird proprietary motherboard mounting here.

Took it home, set it up, fresh OS install and threw MSI Afterburner to take a look at temps. Everything was thermally throttling unless I set the fans to high. Which was audible from another story of my house.

Replaced all the fans. No longer throttling, but still sounded like a banshee, just a less ear piercing tone.

Replaced the AIO watercooler with a 92mm Noctua heatsink. Helped a ton, but still noisy as I came from a totally silent PC I had built.

Want your ram to run faster than 2400mhz? Gotta be purchased from HP. So, replaced the motherboard.

Better, but the front IO doesn't have USB-C and rendering in Premiere still had those CPU temps in the high 80's.

New case and while we're at it, a bigger Noctua heatsink.

Temps were -much- improved. GPU/CPU temps while gaming were now much cooler than the stock config at idle while being -much- quieter.

At this point, the only items in my computer that were from the 30L are the 10700K and the 3070.

So I bought a 10600 to put in the 30L...

I'd for sure look up a video of your specific prebuilt on Youtube to see what others have done to theirs. Replacing those stock fans might just knock those temps down and/or reduce noise levels considerably. If your Alienware is anything like these R10's, there's not a lot of space to tinker. It does look like the PSU they use on the R10's are standard sized so a swap shouldn't be a big deal.

I'd throw a SATA SSD in there if possible. Downloads, Adobe files, camera RAW, older games. I love you Fallout New Vegas but you and the 100GB of mods don't see any benefit from being on my 980 Pros.

While it's open, check to see if you have another M.2 slot. Maybe populate it if it looks like it'll be a pain to get to in the future.

Use MSI Afterburner and adjust the power curve and perhaps underclock your 3060. I did this on my 3070 and not only are my temperatures significantly lower, my 3070 runs at a lower wattage than my wife's 3060 running stock as we play the same coop game together (so we're in the same area), both locked at 60fps, but I'm at 1440p vs her 1080p.

Was casually listening to some Youtube videos on the Alienware RXX series machines, some models don't have heatsinks on the VRMs. Which. Huh. Apparently they aren't difficult to obtain from Dell or Amazon.

Time to get into Dota 2.

Keep a regular eye on places like reddit.com/r/gamedeals , humble bundle and fanatical. There are deals on interesting games pretty much all year long. Especially for someone that has been out of the game for a while, there are plenty of highly praised games to find for a few bucks or less.

Other thing that people really like to discover are the various windows key shortcuts. give windowskey + shift + S a try. Or windowskey + V. A lot of useful functionality that people don't always know about.

If you need Word-like software and don't necessarily need the very particular formatting of Office, OpenOffice is a great bit of software and it's free (or used to be, I haven't used it in a while).

How that you have a perfectly fine, functional computer, it's time to start lusting over upgrades you don't even need and replacing the CPU and GPU twice each in the same year just chasing minimal FPS boosts.

Oh god, this hobby. I love the pain so.

Have you been looking up RGB lighting options for the case? It’s proven to give 2-3 FPS boost.

@tartyron: Until you reach the point where you would need to basically replace the whole thing, then get a new console since graphics cards are absurdly expensive, put the whole thing off for a few years, and become and off-and-on PC gamer (like me!)

Thanks for all the advice everyone, I'm making a checklist!

@zelyre: That sounds like a nightmare, but now I have some things to check to make sure I'm not running too hot. I hope my prebuilt isn't that bad. At this point it was the easiest way to reliably get a graphics card.

@imhungry: Just rewatched the afterschool special that was Kessler's return to UPF and hat-stravaganza. I'm probably safe from that habit... for now.

@onemanarmyy: Those deal sites are how I already have a backlog without a decent machine! I'll definitely add looking up hotkeys to my list.

@sparky_buzzsaw: Yep, OpenOffice definitely on the list. I also use GoogleApps a lot, but their privacy issues have really gotten out of hand. May need an alternative.

@tartyron: It's sad but true. I've been wanting a machine for a long time so it's great to take this step, but as soon as I clicked submit, I was thinking about when I could afford more RAM.

@humanity: Not going on the list. Although, if I could find an old "Turbo" button/light to put on the case, like my good old Gateway 2000 circa 1992-3, I might be into that. Just the right kind of dumb.

There is good advice from some well know online YouTubers for setting up or fixing a pre-built. The people below are well know and reputable. I woudl watch the first four videos complete through first. See what they all say and they choose the thing you think you want to do first. You want to watch them all so you start to understand the advice they are giving. Repetition will start to make any advice start to make sense.

JayzTwoCents

Guide: What to do AFTER building your computer...

FREE programs that EVERY PC should have...

Paul's Hardware

How To Set Up a New PC! (older video, but still valid for all information)

Dawid Does Tech Stuff

4 Simple Steps To Set Up Your NEW Pre-Built Gaming PC

Maybe , look at these

How to Download and Install Windows 10 from USB Flash Drive Step-By-Step

How to Install Windows 10

Congrats on the rig! PC gaming is incredible when everything is working 😅 As a piece of general advice, YouTube is your best friend when learning about this stuff. If you have a question about PC gaming, have a quick search over there and something will pop up.

For more specific advice, I recommend familiarizing yourself with three things: your GPU settings, RivaTuner and DDU.

- RivaTuner is a program which allows you to cap your frame rates. Generally speaking, you don't want frame rates higher than your screen refresh rate (e.g. 60hz, 144hz), as this can cause stuttering, screen tearing and reduce overall smoothness. RivaTuner allows you to set caps on a per-application basis. This is sometimes better than using in-game V-sync options, as RivaTuner doesn't have the same penalty to input lag. Battle Nonsense is a great channel for more info on this: https://www.youtube.com/c/BattleNonSense/videos

-Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) is a driver utility which completely removes graphics card drivers from your PC. This is useful when installing a new graphics card, or when trying to fix severe graphics driver issues (e.g. crashes and bugs after a driver update). DDU is more thorough than just uninstalling AMD or Nvidia drivers directly, where you'll often find bits of old drivers still lying around and causing problems. An absolutely essential piece of software IMO.

-GPU Settings/Control Panel: Get to know your Nvidia/AMD settings. These will help you tweak performance, manage overclocking, and turn on/off graphical settings. Example: I sometimes like to turn on Radeon Image Sharpening to add a bit of 'pop' to games. Again YT is your best buddy here.

@constantk said:

@hakunin: Pretty close... I just got a notification saying it was delivered. I'm not somewhere I can watch the video. Debating about looking into return policies or trying to salvage the machine. I looked into building my own machine but video cards are impossible to come by.

Universal pause button might be useful for various games and software:

https://github.com/ryanries/UniversalPauseButton

CPUID HWMonitor is good for monitoring your PC's different components without going into UEFI/BIOS

joytokey is good for controller support whenever it's lacking

OBS studio is pretty good for recording gameplay or whatever else you're doing

scptoolkit is used for getting a PS3 controller to work on windows (I've had some issues with the sticks when emulating using a PS4 one)

Might wanna get winamp with some plugins if you like to listen to retro game music, or Foobar

@constantk: If it's an Aurora R10...That case alone is atrocious. It's seems almost custom built to run as hot as possible.

And if the basic components like Motherboard and PSU are the same across the different models (which I suspect)... Then you have an Intel cooler crudely modified to fit an AMD CPU... No heatsinks on the VRM's.

It's really bad.

Okay. I’m going to say something that’s going to be really unpopular in some circles. This is coming from somebody who has been a PC first gamer since the 1980s, and has built his own desktop rigs since the 1990s. (Last desktop I got prebuilt was a Vtech Laser 286/3X - so yeah, I’ve been doing this awhile.)

Try the PC first for several months. If you haven’t been in the PC space for a while, and assuming reviews from multiple sites aren’t freaking out about your purchase, go and install your game of choice and start playing and enjoy your purchase for a few months. Don’t worry about optimization. Hell, if it’s not in your face stupid (Lenovo, I’m looking at you), I wouldn‘t even worry too much about optimizing the Windows install. (Like remove the obvious bloatware, but beyond that…?)

There’s a lot of good advice here, but you might not need any of it. You could be completely fine with what you have and not need to touch a thing. Once you’ve gotten your feet wet and decided where you want upgrades or fine tuning, then go ahead. Otherwise, you can spend so much tuning your PC that you never spend any time using your PC, since everything can be improved. (And the cost, oh the money you can spend…)

As long as you’re not trying to squeeze the last few percent out of your rig, you can get great gaming performance with stock settings and hardware with modern PCs. (With the caveat that the manufacturer has at least made some effort. That Alienware machine in the YouTube video looks terrible, even though I personally pigeonhole Gamers Nexus into the clickbaity side of YouTube and thus take everything on that channel with a big grain of salt.)

In any event, given the shenanigans that some part suppliers have been up to (e.g. SSD memory swaps) I wouldn’t even look at upgrade parts for a year or so in any event. So you‘ve got some time.

@turtlefish: I'm not as worried about settings and performance at this point. The heat seems like the major issue with the R10. I'm worried the components that I would likely want to keep longer (CPU and GPU) might be damaged enough by heart to make later upgrades a secondary concern. Seems like minimum a Mobo, case and cooler might be necessary to resolve the heat issues.

Pray to whichever god you believe in so that your computer doesn't realize that it's an Alienware and suddenly anhero.

Though at this point, other people gave good advice on what to do, so, good luck.

I prefer openness and freedom so I will recommend to also install Linux. For example some OSTree based distro with containerized applications. Many prefers LibreOffice over OpenOffice but I have not used them enough to do comparison.

Yeah - though, in my experience, case heat does tend to be situational. Like, I currently have a i9-10900K with RTX 3080 setup (i9 is on an AIO cooling setup, GPU is on stock air), which can really put out the thermal watts at full bore -- but right now, since I'm mostly playing indie titles at the moment, I very rarely see anything above 60C. OTH, my machine is also located in the basement of my house, underneath the air register vent (open in the summer for air con, closed in the winter to avoid sucking in heat) and my PC is setup at desk level in an old wire rack I grabbed from a machine room when the company got sold and we were told we could take anything we wanted. In other words, my PC is pretty much in the optimal airflow environment, which means it's going to run cooler than an equivalent sitting on a rug on the floor in a living room with a dog sleeping beside it.

The point I was trying to make was to make sure you need stuff before you buy it. It sounds like budget is an issue, and God, the number of times I did something like "Hmmm, my case could use some extra cooling, maybe I'll try these highly reviewed fans", paid $20 CDN a fan for a set of five fans (gotta love exchange rates), spent an afternoon remounting fans (with a side of "well, I'm in here, let me redo the wiring and see if I can get better airflow that way") and discovered that my temps had changed by like 3C at peak when running endurance stress tests. Not a good use of money. :)

Admittedly, my personal bias is that I have a lot less time in my late 40s to tinker with crap then I did in my late 20s when I didn't have a wife, a child, or a mortgage. So, like what most everybody else has said, you do you. Just wanted to inject a note of caution into all the enthusiasm -- I'm that somebody who has sunk tens of thousands of dollars into making the "best damn gaming PC possible" -- and all of those fancy builds were still obsolete within 5 years. :) In the end, if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for you.

Given the premiums you pay for prebuilt machines (especially if you're buying Alienware or other 'brand' names), if you're looking at swapping mobo, case and cooler, you're pretty much gutting the damn thing anyway and killing your warranty -- you might want to take that budget, look at returns and getting your money back, and see what you can get if you buy the parts separately and do the assembly yourself. Admittedly, part availability (especially for GPUs) is a major issue right now (and my warning about upgrade parts is also out there) -- but you probably could get equivalent performance for half the price and the same amount of labour.

Anyway, whatever you decide to do, good luck.

@turtlefish: I really appreciate the perspective and your experience. And the measured tone. I appreciate honesty in reviews but I was definitely thinking worst case scenario (pun somewhat intended) after that video review. You're right, often the PC won't be under that kind of load.

I'm still on the fence about which direction to go. And feeling quite a bit like a sucker if I'm being honest.

Then my advice would be gather up the advice that seems good, and does not have you trying to make major hardware changes to your pc. Then you should get the hell away from this thread, and take some breaths. And then, sit down with your pc and play some games!

After a while, you might rationalize this into a strategy of having a machine to use while waiting GPU's to loosen from the Bit Miner market(may their machines crash and burn!) and the chip shortage ends/production catches up. May be a few years, I'm starting to think.

Make what you got serve it's purpose, especially economically. I don't think it is worth putting much into that machine that would not be better spent on your next build.

Get into Dwarf Fortress.

Since this became a bit of a roller coaster toward the end of the discussion, I thought I'd provide a short update to this thread. I was able to return the Alienware PC without much trouble and ended up buying a PC from MainGear. Their service has been great, they use off the shelf parts and I've been regularly checking my temps and things are staying cool!

I've been trying to catch up on some of my PC backlog and played some Back 4 Blood via Game Pass on it last night. I don't know if that game is a huge test, but I was really happy with how easily my PC handled it. In fact there was some screen tearing at first that made me a little concerned, but a quick visit to the options menu to turn on vsync took care of that.

Anyway, thanks again to everyone for your advice. In the end, I'm very happy I started this thread.

I broadly agree with this, though there's a difference between "eh I'm fine" and "wow I bought a piece of crap." The Alienware PC's look like the latter, honestly.

I mean, everything is overpriced in the market right now, but that doesn't mean people should just go and buy some PC for way too much money and smile and nod and go "well it can play games!" Having standards is ok; good even. Learning more and more as you go, and doing proper product research, even better!

Gamers Nexus is not clickbaity in the slightest, they back their shit up and they're one of the few channels actually doing proper product analysis.

Glad the PC turned out alright though.

Look forward to paying games you could run on your toaster and browing youtube/reddit and not ACTUALLY playing any games

Pain. Pain is next.

Wow dude, why did you have to get personal? I didn't do anything to you. /jk

My steam library's taken a big bump since acquiring a PC that doesn't baulk at the idea of 2013's hottest games.