[MEGATHREAD] Personal Computer - Updated builds thanks to Logical Increments

[naturemon]

Anyone have a $300 gaming setup? If needed I can go $30 over. It's for a friend at school who is on a pretty tight budget.

My brother's computer is around that much (OS not included) and can run most games fine (med/high but with meh res). APUs would be best for this as it's what he has and was also his budget.

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[Cut Glass]

I'm upgrading to Windows 8.1, will I be able to install my Windows 7 onto his computer after I switch to 8.1?

[naturemon]

This should work fine, assuming you have an OS and a mouse/monitor/keyboard/etc.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2hBzY

It's not great but it'll still run some games.

[Cut Glass]

I came up with this, would this be decent for low/medium settings on games like ArmA II and BF2? And it should definably be fine for Minecraft/Blockland.

Also 250GB is enough, he doesn't need any more than that, so unless you find a HDD bigger for around the same price, don't say how I should get more GB.

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Moby1997/saved/363t

[|Shadow]

Should I move the top screen to the middle and put the bottom two portrait either side?

Top one's a TV and its Max resolution is 1920x1080, side ones are 1440x900. I could put the side ones to 1080x900 if I do decide to put them portrait.

Or should I leave as is and just use the bottom one/maybe two for games? (Top ones just for speaker/movies/xbox atm)

[Blockzillahead]

Do people even use more than 2 monitors, hell even 1 when just doing regular computer work? Gaming on two or more monitors is a joke, then there is other things like programming where people debug stuff or whatever, that's a good way to use it but I doubt you would actually need more than 1 monitor. Is it just to show off?

[Treynolds416]

Two monitors (for me at least) is really useful. At the very least I use one for games and one for web browsing. It's also really useful for video editing and watching
If you have 3 monitors, you're using them for surround gaming. If you have two monitors and a tv, you should probably be using the two monitors for productivity and the tv for television/movies

[|Shadow]

Do people even use more than 2 monitors, hell even 1 when just doing regular computer work? Gaming on two or more monitors is a joke, then there is other things like programming where people debug stuff or whatever, that's a good way to use it but I doubt you would actually need more than 1 monitor. Is it just to show off?

yes, i can watch a show on one screen and internet browse on the other, the top one's just acting as my speaker for the time being lol. Plus my bro got them quite cheap for himself ages ago and gave them to me a few months back.

Two monitors (for me at least) is really useful. At the very least I use one for games and one for web browsing. It's also really useful for video editing and watching
If you have 3 monitors, you're using them for surround gaming. If you have two monitors and a tv, you should probably be using the two monitors for productivity and the tv for television/movies

mhm, that's what I'm currently doing, was just wondering if it would be worth it to do a portrait-landscape-portrait setup with my current monitors/tv lol

[John Constantina]

I came up with this, would this be decent for low/medium settings on games like ArmA II and BF2? And it should definably be fine for Minecraft/Blockland.

Also 250GB is enough, he doesn't need any more than that, so unless you find a HDD bigger for around the same price, don't say how I should get more GB.

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Moby1997/saved/363t

CPU is okay. Motherboard, meh.  The memory isn't that good, more and more games coming out are using up to 8 GB so 4 wouldn't be good. Good hard drive.  Case seems fine (i think titanium has that one). PSU, okay. 

Seems good other than the memory, I recommend 2x 4GB corsair vengeance.

[Steve5452]

intel hd 4000 could probably run stuff better than that

so its better to just save up

My friend's laptop with HD 4000 can hardly run Skyrim on lowest possible settings at 640 x 480. My old 5450 can run Skyrim on lowish medium at 1080p.

[Treynolds416]

My friend's laptop with HD 4000 can hardly run Skyrim on lowest possible settings at 640 x 480.

1) It's a laptop
2) Skyrim is limited mostly by processor power
3) Most laptops use low-speed dual core cpu's with intel graphics slapped in there

[Cut Glass]

CPU is okay. Motherboard, meh.  The memory isn't that good, more and more games coming out are using up to 8 GB so 4 wouldn't be good. Good hard drive.  Case seems fine (i think titanium has that one). PSU, okay.  

Seems good other than the memory, I recommend 2x 4GB corsair vengeance.

Thanks
I have 3 monitors, 23" in middle for gaming, 20" on the left for Skype, iTunes, other stufff, and a 21.5" on right side for web browsing. I'm getting another 21.5" on left so my set up looks nicer.

Anyway, I find multiple screen very useful because I multitask alot to it helps me.

[Steve5452]

1) It's a laptop
2) Skyrim is limited mostly by processor power
3) Most laptops use low-speed dual core cpu's with intel graphics slapped in there

Yeah, it's an i3, but the computer with the 5450 had a cruddy Althon II X2. The bottleneck is in the integrated GPU.

[Treynolds416]

Yeah, it's an i3, but the bottleneck is in the integrated GPU.

I guarantee you it isn't. I could disconnect my gpu and test skyrim myself with my i5-3570k. My laptop with worse integrated graphics (i5-460M) could run skyrim better than that.

[nerraD]

i find different sized monitors very ugly together, thus i removed my second screen and gave it to my dad, i'm intending on buying two new monitors soon when i get the cash

or i'll just bring back a thunderbolt display from work