Need help setting up a gaming desktop

Alright, so it looks like you're primarily interested in two things: Graphics performance and data storage. Let's see what we can get...

For graphics performance, I think the components you need to examine are the Processor, which is like the "brains" of the computer, the RAM, which is *sort of* like it's short-term memory, and the Graphics Card, which, as the name implies, is responsible for handling the graphics. Here's how to judge the quality of those parts:

Processors: Essentially, the more GHz and cores, the better: 3.5 GHz is better than 3.0, and quad core is better than dual core.

RAM: The more GB, the better. 16 GB is better than 8 GB.

Graphics Card: Again, the more GB the better, along with the model number (generally). 4 GB is better than 2 GB and 980 is better than 970.

For data, there are both super fast Solid State Drives and normal speed hard drives--SSDs are expensive so I'll just look at hard drives. The more RPM a hard drive has, the faster it goes, but for data, which is important to you, it's all about TBs. The more TBs a hard drive has, the more stuff it can contain (i.e a 6 TB drive can hold twice as many games, songs, movies, whatever as a 3 TB one).

With all that said, here's a config for you to look at:

https://www.digitalstormonline.com/configurator.asp?id=1055085

I took the cheapest desktop (the Virtue), shaved off a few dollars by moving it to a cheaper but bulkier case and going with default Intel overclocking, and gave you some features which should allow you to play at the max settings of Battlefield 4 very comfortably.

You have the default quad-core 3.5 GHz Intel Processor.
You have 16 GB of RAM
and you have the NVidia 980 graphics card, which is significantly more expensive than the default 970, but I thought you might need it for the absolute best performance.

I also gave you a single 3tb hard drive. That ought to keep you set for a long time, even I've never used much more than 1.5 TB on any individual computer I've owned.

The total comes out to 1945$. Remember, though, that's BEFORE shipping and taxes, so you might want to go with the default 970 and maybe even the default 8 GB of ram or a 2 TB hard drive to reduce the price if shipping is expensive.

Also remember that this computer is going to be both bulky and noisy. If space is an issue for you, you may want to go with the original Virtue chassis, or if you want to go really small you could look at the Bolt II. That's a little more expensive, though.

Now, I'm not an expert--you should wait for Alex or a forum veteran like Arkansaswoman or bprat to come along with suggestions. I also HIGHLY recommend talking to Brian Benoit via chat, if you can. :D


Edited by Gunlord - 26 Sep 2014 at 5:20pm

With all of that help it's going to be one solid system. Looks good with the suggestions.