Getting PC Parts and Mic

[Shiny]

So I'm looking to owning a PC again. I want to purchase parts. I mainly want to use the PC for gaming and general stuff, but I'm considering customizing a PC laptop because I need to have mobility. My desktop I use for professional and personal work.

Also can you recommend some good mics for voice recording? It would be used for podcasts and possibly streaming on Twitch.

[Spuuky]

http://www.logicalincrements.com/

[Mirage]

What's your budget, Shiny? Do you want to get a very good desktop pc coupled with a cheap laptop for mobility, or would you rather put all that money into a single higher-end laptop? Keep in mind of course that gaming laptops are usually very clunky and often unattractive to use on the go. They have less battery life, make more noise, and are probably gonna be uncomfortable to use on your lap.

Personally, I like really small laptops with good battery life and very limited gaming performance, coupled with a good desktop.

Spuuky's site is pretty good. I'd say the superb/excellent range is probably what gets you the most bang for the buck. Going for something that costs twice of that will probably not give you twice the perceived performance/quality. At the same time, halving the cost from that price range is probably going to reduce your performance by more than half.

[Spuuky]

Yeah the site says to use Great through Superb for most cases, but you can evaluate based on budget or need.

I didn't use the site when selecting my wife's laptop recently, preferring to do a bunch of personal research myself; and I ended up getting one of their recommended ones anyway, I just discovered (the Asus Zenbook).

[Aerith's Knight]

Blue snowball mic is probably the cheapest USB condenser microphone I know of. Easy to use, plug and play, good quality, and only like 50 bucks.

Solid 5/7.

[CimminyCricket]

Personally, I like really small laptops with good battery life and very limited gaming performance, coupled with a good desktop.


Pretty much everything that Mirage said, plus this especially.

I have a desktop with my OS on an SSD, an AMD R9 390 (good performance with very little relative cost), an i7 5930k, and 32 gb of ram. I don't use most of that ram during gameplay, but I do run a bunch of virtual machines, so having that is necessary.

If you end up doing a lot of your work on it, the 32gb would help. Usually, a decent gaming desktop will have an SSD for games/OS, at least 8gm, and a dedicated video card (personally I would say with at least 4gb of vram, but I've seen 2 manage. I have 8gb.), and 4core or more processor. Usually a physical 4core means a logical 8 (1 core is treated like 2 by software). Obviously, you'll need a motherboard that can support the CPU and ram you pick. I picked the processor I wanted and then picked the motherboard.

I have a laptop with a 2.1ghz processor but 9 hours of battery life. It's what I use for internet browsing + when I'm on the go. I don't game on it.

[Spuuky]

Basically nothing in current computing other than virtualization requires 32GB of RAM. No game will get even remotely close to utilizing it. You don't need more than 8GB for gaming and you only need even 16 if you're doing extremely RAM-intensive work.

[Mirage]

Photoshop maxes out my 16 :p. Not gonna claim that I need 32 for my photoshopping, but i'm not gonna buy a machine with 20 or 24 GB :p

I wouldn't say that 4 physical cores *usually* means 8 logical though. That's really only true on i7 models. i5s don't have ht, unless it's a dualcore laptop cpu. The new AMDs might come with HT on most models, but those aren't out yet so it's not gonna be a choice in a built that's being made now.

[CimminyCricket]

If I remember correctly, Shiny does video editing stuff, so 8 probably isn't going to be enough for her.

Yeah, I should have specified i7s. They're the only ones I've used on either of my two builds.

[Mirage]

i7s are a lot more expensive, though, so they're not really ideal in builds unless you have a specific need that it helps with, such as video editing, I guess. In games, they don't really boost performance by a significant amount, and for everyday desktop use, even a 2.5ghz i3 would make the cut.

You can still play most new titles at 60fps with a 2500k, assuming you have the video card for it. And a slight OC. I'm actually just gonna let my next CPU upgrade be from my current 2320 to a 2500k and OC it. That'll give me all the cpu power i need in the forseeable future.

[Skyblade]

I'm currently planning a build based on this setup:
http://www.pcgamer.com/pc-build-guide-high-end-gaming-pc/

I'll be boosting the hard drive up to several TBs, and probably the base RAM up to 32 Gig.

Any other advice or suggestions would be welcome. It's been a long time since I've built my own machine. I'm not averse to spending the ridiculous amounts, I just want a good setup.

[Mirage]

What are you using 32 GB for?

[Skyblade]

What are you using 32 GB for?

Video editing, primarily.

After the nightmare that is this semester, I'll finally have a regular schedule (new job, yay!) and I'm planning to get down to regular updates on my Let's Plays. I even ordered a 3DS capture card, so I'll be able to stream/record things like Pokemon Sun/Moon.

But I've heard that video editing can really consume RAM, and I'd rather have it than not.

[Mirage]

Well that's a good reason. It's normally only useful for that, photo editing, 3d rendering and virtual machines.