Stilivan wrote:
I am willing to build, it's just makes it more complicated doing it that way. This is easier, and I'll give him my old parts as I upgrade my own.
Thanks for confirming it's okay to use - was afraid I may have missed something.
With prebought, you'd have less hassle in that if the rig dies in the 1st year, BB would service it. You're paying overhead for that though, so not as much value in the parts. It is definitely the easier route.
I built my current rig for $800 ish, 2 years ago. It's enough to play maxed out, but in choosing the parts I did (budget, high performance:cost ratio), I limited myself on the upgrade path. While you can build a high end gaming rig that is more upgradeable, you also pay for that potential. With the mobo choice I went with, I'm limited to 1 graphic card (so no SLI/xfire etc without replacing the mobo), can't overclock (not unlocked), and limited hdd sockets. That said, if you're planning a budget rig, you probably wouldn't be considering anything above that, so it's a good deal in the sense that you're not paying extra for unnecessary potential.
you can also cut out costs like the OS which is factored into store-bought. Can pick up a case on CL or kijiji or whatever bbs, at reduced cost as well.
That said, the mirror match to the pc I built, taking parts which have replaced it at a similar performance:price point, while stronger, is still >$500.
corsair tx650 $70
various budget mobo (no upgrade potential - asrock/msi) $50-$55
gskill 4x2 $75-$93
gtx 660 $190-210
haswell cpu $190-200 (same range as the old i5s)
wd black hdd $60-76 (320-500gb)
case $20 (2nd hand) - $50 (new)
Still looking at around $650. Could probably scale back the gpu a bit, but the 660's at a pretty solid p:p point. Black Friday may well ease this a little.
I'm running on an i5-2500, but I didn't see any listed on newegg in the cursory glance I took.
Others would have probably better suggestions. This is just to give you an idea of power achievable vs price.
My worry about that prebought is where they're likely skimming: the psu. I don't think you'd be able to upgrade from a 7450 (which is decent at best) with whatever generic low-wattage psu they're probably shipping with that.
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tl;dr
PS4 still looking to be the best option unless the utility of having a PC is a necessary.
I'd agree with this, if the purpose is solely to play 14, but wouldn't carry forwards as well as a PC would if/when he loses interest in 14.