Question time! Since I didn’t find a thread about it, I thought it could be interesting to start a new one.
I’m wondering on which machine you are playing your beloved games. Limits your setup the games you are able to play or is your setup way over the top for the games you actually enjoy playing? So:
What’s your current gaming setup?
Since I don’t have access to my tower PC, I currently game on my humble laptop, so I have to stick to the graphically less intensive games.
Processor: i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60 GHz
Graphics Gard: GeForce GTX 960M (2GB VRAM)
RAM: 16 GB @ 2.133 Mhz
Motherboard: Some Dell OEM
Peripherals: Standard Logitech Keyboard + Mouse; XBOX 360 Controller
How about you?
Edit: Added some more details (as far as laptop build allows). Feel free to be more specific with your build, though.
Do you just want to know about processor, gfx and RAM? Or more?
Processor: Core i7 3770K
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
RAM: 16GB DDR3 1600 MHZ (4x4) Corsair Vengeance
Other stuff:
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V LK
Liquid CPU Cooler: Corsair H100 v2
Monitor 1: Dell 24" UltraSharp U2412M IPS panel
Monitor 2: Acer H223HQ
PSU: Corsair Enthusiast Series TX750 v2
Case: Corsair Carbide Series 500R Black
HDDs: WD Caviar Green 1TB + Toshiba P300 3TB 7200RPM
SSD: Intel 330 Series 120 GB SSD
Mouse: Logitech G700
Keyboard: Logitech G510s
Most of it is kind of old… Like several years. Except for the gfx and the Toshiba HDD.
It works pretty decently. I mostly play Deceit, L4D2 and Sleeping Dogs at the moment though. Also Hearthstone, haha.
Right now, I am using an abacus in a room full of monkeys. ITW an 8 yr old PC. I have monies put away for a newer beast (maybe a gorilla or orangutan) as soon as the dust settles on this Spectre and Meltdown CPU vulnerabilities fiasco going down.
We are in the same boat, my computer is from 2012. It still runs a few newer games with much reduced graphics settings, but I am running into a lot of issues with anything that demands any kind of heavier output. The only new part of my computer is my monitor, which is about 2 yrs old… lol…
The core of my computer is starting to get rather old as well. Will also be looking to upgrade things if prices ever stabilise or I get rich somehow.
i5-3570K
Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe
16GB RAM
Corsair RM850
MSI Geforce GTX 970 4G
In a Corsaid Obsidian 800D case.
For the most part it’s holding up really well still but every once in a while there’s a title which bottlenecks a little on the CPU. I expect to be able to run this one for another 2 maybe 3 years with few issues.
Monitor 2: I have no idea, it’s an AIO computer, but I use the display for my workstation and use the hardware for a server, ChronoGG Notifier is hosted on it
My PC was bought on the 7th of June 2010, and has served me well.
CPU
AMD Phenom II X6 1035T (2.60GHz, 512kx6) Memory
6144MB (2x2GB) (2x1GB)1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel Memory Video Card
1GB ATI® Radeon™ HD 5870 graphics card with Vision Black label Hard Drive
1.5TB (7,200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive Floppy Drives and Additional Storage Devices
19 in 1 Media Card Reader Microsoft Operating System
Genuine Windows® 7 Professional, 64bit, English Optical Devices
DVD +/- RW Drive (read/write CD & DVD) with Roxio Easy CD and DVD Burn software Sound Cards
Integrated HDA 7.1 Dolby Digital Audio Wireless Networking
Dell 1525 Wireless PCIe Network Card 802.11n
Over the past few years I’ve finished the Mass Effect Trilogy, Skyrim with mods, the Dead Space Trilogy, Ryse and the FEAR trilogy. I sort of lucked out getting a decent GPU way back when AMD struck gold over Nvidia.
The main issue I have is crypto currency - I want to update but can’t afford a decent graphics card with the hyper inflated pricing.
Absolutely - Ryse in particular required lower settings, and features like AA and shadows and detail turned right down. Even with settings at medium or low my GPU runs at around 90 degrees Celcius! Fortunately there are a lot of classic games from the 2010 to 2013 period where my setup runs fine (but hot!).
I finally upgraded to 4K to enjoy Total War: Warhammer in glorious splendor, but even with a GTX 1070 it doesn’t handle max settings when running at 4K. The main issue is 4K resolutions are just so oppressively hard to number-crunch for, both for GPUs and CPUs. So my choices are: run everything at 1080p max ultra whatever, smooth as butter 90+ fps, or 4K and tweak shadows down a lot (mediumish), adjust reflections and particle effects down a bit, and sometimes knock the AA down from max (16x->8x) to get 60+ fps. I have a lot of experience from college-era Farcry (2004) and Crysis (2007) resource hogs to quickly adjust settings, knowing what can be dropped with little to no impact on visuals or “fun”.
One game that stands out at being optimized to an outstanding level - Warframe. It looks gorgeous in 4K, plays super smoothly, and can routinely maintain insane framerates even at max settings. Even on my older test machines, it ran on a GTX 250 and a GTX 650 Ti BOOST. Hat’s off to Digital Extremes!
Anyway, the rest of the rig is pretty vanilla - i7-4770k, 16GB 1600MHz DDR3, 250GB Crucial Bx100 boot drive, 2 x 1TB storage, and crucially 2 x USB3.0 ports (that was a fairly big deal to add in 2014). Still very happy with it, paid ~$1000 mid-2014 with the intention of upgrading the graphics card once the next generation dropped (900 series was best at the time). That was the best decision ever, as even the cheap 1000 series cards blows all the 900s out of the water, cheaper to run (less electricity), and because I was ready with my order and what I’d spend ($400 max) I got in before all the cryptocurrency miners elevated the GPU market prices to astronomical levels. You can still see my exact card selling 2 years later, used, for $600+ because of the shortages. So stupid.
