Now that I've finished up school and been working for a bit, I wanted to buy a great custom gaming PC. I've only bought laptops recently as I've had to move around a lot, but now that I'm settled I'm looking into desktops.
I want to get a custom computer but I don't want to build it myself. I'm wondering if anyone knows of any good sites or stores (within Canada) that will let me pick custom parts, and have it assembled by them (I was looking and it looks like NCIX Canada has that capability). I don't trust myself to build my own PC as I've never really done anything like that and I'm not very savvy in regards to computer hardware.
That being said, here's what I'm thinking:
Budget: Between $1,000 and $1,400 CAD
OS: I want to stick with Windows. Probably Windows 8.
Uses: This will mainly be used as an entertainment machine, specifically for gaming, casual browsing, watching movies, listening to music. I don't do anything like video editing or streaming. I'm learning photoshop a bit so that might be something I'd tinker around with, but nothing super intensive.
Games: I want to be able to run WoW and Heroes of the Storm on High/Max. I want to play Pillars of Eternity (It's unplayable on my current laptop). Other than that nothing really cutting edge. I want to be able to play current releases (GTAV, Mortal Kombat X, Elder Scrolls Online, etc...) on medium/high. I don't need everything to be ultra.
Features: I want a DVD drive. I want a cool looking case! lol. I think 1TB of storage would be plenty for me. I don't know if I need an SSD. I've gotten by without one so far, but TBH I don't really know what I would need one for or if it's even relevant to me.
Sound: I'm fine using built in speakers for the time being. I'll look into getting a good headset at a later date. I think I'll be fine with an integrated soundcard.
Peripherals: I just bought a new mouse (Logitech G502 Proteus Core) so I'm good there. I have a keyboard so I'll be fine for a while. I have a surge protector power bar. I will need a monitor though. Any recommendations? I think this would be over and above the aforementioned budget.
I don't really know what else to add. My current laptop is an Asus (can't remember the make sorry, it looks similar to the current Asus ROG G750JM) that I bought in the summer of 2012. It has an Intel i7-2630QM CPU @ 2.00GHz 2.00GHz and 8 GB of RAM. The video card is a Nvidia Geforce GTX 560M 3GB. This laptop was amazing for the first year and a half I had it, but now it crashes a lot and stutters during gameplay. I recently had to bring WoW down to low-medium which is strange as I had it maxed out when I first bought the thing. I guess I'm mentioning this because I really liked the way it handled when I first got it, before it started crapping out on me.
Alright, so if someone could provide any suggestions I would very much appreciate it. As mentioned I'm not very savvy, but I would love to chat with someone and hopefully get a better understanding of the next steps I should take.
Thanks for the help folks!
Blaqk
Last edited by blaqkmagick; 2015-04-22 at 02:39 AM.
I know that you won't like my answer much but i would like to be honest with you. Being in Canada that everything is much more expensive and have someone else build it for you, with your budget and needs won't get you too far with good hardware. You need a monitor too in there.
I can show you what you can get for around 1400 CaD so you can get an idea of what your money is worth if you were to build it yourself. Its very easy, more and more ppl build themselves nowdays, why not you too.
In the following list if you are going to have it build you can drop the ssd, use the money saved to get the parts into a local shop and assemble the lot for you. As to if you need the ssd, well its not a necessesity, but its awesome to have with how much prices have dropped.
Thanks for reply and sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I actually really do like your answer; like I said, this is all new to me so I appreciate an honest and realistic take. I think you're right about building it myself. Maybe I'll look into it a bit more and see if it's something I'll be able to do. I'm just really nervous about ruining a part or messing up, but I guess I can overcome that by doing some research.
Thanks for the part picker list. It looks like it covers everything that I wanted/required. Any idea how this build would perform for casual gaming? You said that the budget wouldn't get me too far, but it looks like it'd be a pretty strong machine.
Thanks again for the help man. I really appreciate it. You've given me a bit to think about
For 1080p@60hz gaming it will be good, i would have preffered a little better cpu cooler when you decide to do some overclocking. The one listed is probably the best for the money, i would usually look at "be quiet! PURE ROCK" but is not available, mostly cause its quieter. Then again have to work with thebudget given.
As for my comment that budget wouldn't get you too far, that is if you were going to get a pre build pc. For the pc above you would usually see it at 200-300bucks,cad,euro more unless it was a special deal.
Ok cool. THanks for the clarification. And thanks again for the pep talk about building it myself. I've watched a lot of videos and done a lot of reading these past two days and it definitely looks more manageable than I thought it'd be. I'm actually kind of excited to give it a shot now!
However, I just realized that I forgot to mention that I needed a wireless network adapter card. I'm taking a look through PCPartPicker but I don't exactly know what I should be looking for. Do I want a PCI-Express one? WIll that work with the above motherboard along with everything else in the build (PSU, space in case, etc..)? I'm hoping you can make a recommendation.
There is 2 ways i would reckon this. Either get a pci-e wifi adapter or a power plug, with the later in most cases being alot better.
1. Wifi adapter. I usually prefer intel ones cause they seem to work better that the rest (again usually ). So it depends how much you want to spend on it. Intel@60CaD and Gigabyte@35CaD . Does the almost double cost worth it? honestly I can't give you a solid answer, i've seen expensive adapters not work very well and other times cheap ones work decently. I would say it probably depends more on how good your router is than the adapter on the pc.
2. Power plug or home plug. In case you don't know what it is. You get a 2 plugs with this. One next to your router you plug to a electricity wall socket and connect a utp cable. Similarly to where your pc is. So you transfer data through your electrical network in your home and make wireless....wired. In most cases this is alot better than wifi especially when the router is far or on a different floor. That assumes ofc that the router and your pc are on the same electrical network. If you are on a huge house, it might not be the case (99% of houses have 1 network). Now here again it depends how much you want to spend, you can start from like 50 to 300 cad depending on how fast you want it be, features etc. After looking abit on amazon.ca i found a cheap solution that a 2 friends of mine use and works without problems for them. Tp-link av500 on a 27% discount atm.
If your router is close and have a good router pick whatever you want. If thats not the case i would try powerline.
Last edited by mmoc73263b3bd5; 2015-04-24 at 06:57 AM.
What part of CA are you from? If you're near Windsor, im just across the river in the Detroit area. Might be able to not only save you some money (US prices being cheaper than CA prices and a Microcetner being about 15 miles from the border) but i'd put it together for just a nominal fee, and walk you through what i was doing so if you wanted to build your own later on, you'd have that at least.
Wow I had never heard of those power plugs before. Sound very cool. I think I'll try that out. Thanks again for the advice Kostattoo!
Hey Kagthul, I'm up around Ottawa so I'm not really willing to drive to the US to pick the parts up. Thanks for the idea though. If I was closer I'd definitely consider it. And thanks for your offer as well. I've been reading a lot about building recently and I think I'm comfortable enough to give it a shot on my own, but I appreciate the help!
The power plug tech was actually developed out of a tech to send Broadband over Power Lines. A company tested it in Texas and got good speeds (10-ish Mb down/4 up) - they were promptly bought by Time Warner cable and buried.
Really sucks, too, because it would have brought Broadband to literally anywhere with power lines.
The technology was then shrunk and liscensed for indoor use.
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). So it depends how much you want to spend on it. 
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