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For some reason, I have a feeling that most of the criticisms in this thread don't consider the OP's audience and the implications that follow.
No budget builder would consider the quality they can play their games on. If they can play it smoothly on medium settings, that's fine. Low, that's fine too as long as the performance is consistent. On max, even better. However, that's not the point. We're looking for a build that sacrifices aesthetics over function. The OP mentions that a budget build can run sc2 in all max settings. Although I'm a bit skeptical about that, this just reassures me that the build is good enough to run sc2, and that's all that matters to me.
This goes without saying, why should we choose intel over amd? The main reason is that amd owners have the option to upgrade their cpu, provided their mobo is compatible with the new cpu. Some may think this is actually a waste of money (a new amd lineup is being released soon), but for those who are upgrading from athlon 2 to a phenom 2 after a year or two, it's kind of a big deal.
And personally, as an i7 owner, I didn't find the OP demeaning to any extent. After all, he is right. The i7 is pretty much unnecessary nowadays, especially if you're looking to play only sc2. But for photoshopping or any cpu extensive softwares, there really is a substantial difference as someone commented, but it's still works on a lower class cpu so I don't really see a reason to point that out, as this is thread is directed to those on a tight budget.
So why is an i7 owner looking at this thread? Well, I'm currently trying to build a computer for a friend so that he can play sc2 and sc2 only. He already has a laptop that has everything he needs to do except sc2, and this thread has really helped us a lot. If I might add, tomshardware does a similar type of budget builds every month or so, and everyone should check that out.
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@billy5000:
I, for one, am criticizing the authors objectivity. Someone who wants to build a PC might come to this thread for guidance, even if they intended to build a much more powerful rig, if they didn't know how to go about it.
Obviously, this guide is for people who have never built any PC before, as those who have would be able to scale it down for a budget. (Although the OP's hostile rhetoric towards "rich kids" belies this.) Given the obvious target audience, some amount of objectivity should be maintained through the guide.
For example, if two brand new graphics cards came out today, one from each major manufacturer, and I did a comparison benchmark, and chose Dragon Age 2 to compare the hardware's non-game-specific performance, knowing full well that Dragon Age 2 is optimized blatantly for AMD drivers, my benchmarks would be an unobjective, biased, slanted joke.
The author of this guide is overtly hostile toward people who have higher end systems, acting like they must be idiots with no knowledge of what their personal needs are, and whether their computer fits those needs now, or for how long it will continue to do so. He makes cracks about i7 being useless... Day[9] can push his OCed i7 920 almost to the max during the daily.
He comments about more RAM being absolutely useless, when there are quite a few applications where adding another $50 of RAM may massively boost performance for common gaming related tasks, like compressing FRAPs footage for upload.
He makes broad, blatantly false claims about computers, and what they can do, with no regard for the fact that people may actually believe him and end up wasting their own money. A $400 computer run everything on max settings for 2-3 years? I can't build a $400 PC today that will run games that are already OUT at max settings. Metro 2033 and Dragon Age 2 come to mind.
Overall, his intent is good, but he acts as though enthusiasts have done him and the rest of the world a slight by not scaling down their own computers that they build with their own hard earned dollars.
Whether it be writing a guide, a benchmark, or a product review, tech-related articles should be as objective as possible when possible. This guide fails that effort repeatedly, and doesn't constitute good, quality content that new builders should potentially try to learn from.
Edit: Fixed typo
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Do you really think i5/i7 owners are gonna read your guide and not be at least a little offended?
Noted. Sorry for the misunderstanding. If I was politlcally incorrect, I don't care, but I understand this may not be the best place for that. Right now I'm a bit busy so I'll edit everything up in 2 days. I actually hit "post" on accident.
I have a 1 gig 4850 and it is not nearly powerful enough to play on high at 1920 x 1080 with a playable framerate, ultra is out of the question. keep in mind that a "playable" framerate to me is above 30fps no matter what is happening on the screen, though i would prefer 60 to keep up with the refresh rate. It runs great on medium though and personally i don't notice the lower graphics since i'm too focused on everything else that is going on.
Theres no reason to be playing at such a resolution unless A)you don't realize higher resolutions on a monitor with a lower native resolution is hurtful or B) you aren't a budget gamer.
3) People want a computer that you build and forget. Your proposal doesn't do that.
it does do that.
I'm not calling you a liar, as your computer will certainly run the game on Ultra. However, it will not run it at acceptable framerates above Medium, and will need to be upgraded a year from now to handle new games. It's not a solid investment when you can spend $150 more and get something with twice the performance and three times the lifespan.
You are calling me a liar. I can post my FRAPS and show how I play on all Ultra with over 60 FPS average.
Also, the parts you mentioned in your op come out to around $450 on Newegg - not $350, or even remotely close to $250. That's even with cutting corners, like a $30 motherboard (which is strongly not recommended).
I discuss my motherboard, and the accessories are not included because they are not necessary.
a176 your build isn't really what I talk about at all. The 460 is a better gpu for a quick look at that.
I talk about what MINIMUM *works* so anything higher is just more headroom - but not necessarily performance. The merit is not in the parts I talk about but my explanation of how to choose parts.
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5930 Posts
Overclocking is never a "leave and forget" situation, it is always a situation where: 1) Your computer is so shit but you want to delay the time where your parts become obsolete. 2) You are an enthusiast who wants to have fun with the hardware and benchmark it.
Leave and forget is where you build the computer, install software and let it do its own thing. Your computer doesn't do that, unless you want it to perform badly when the late game of the majority of strategy games occurs.
Either way, you're backpeddling to a position where you should have been in the first place. This computer can only play games adequately, its not some max setting monster like you've been saying.
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On March 19 2011 11:21 Womwomwom wrote: Overclocking is never a "leave and forget" situation, it is always a situation where: 1) Your computer is so shit but you want to delay the time where your parts become obsolete. 2) You are an enthusiast who wants to have fun with the hardware and benchmark it.
Leave and forget is where you build the computer, install software and let it do its own thing. Your computer doesn't do that, unless you want it to perform badly when the late game of the majority of strategy games occurs.
Either way, you're backpeddling to a position where you should have been in the first place. This computer can only play games adequately, its not some max setting monster like you've been saying.
The whole guide is hyperbole and personal attacks on enthusiasts. I'm giving up on trying to point out the flaws in it, and would just strongly suggest to any people reading this thread who actually need guidance to not trust a word he says.
I think a piece by piece rebuttal of all his lies and exaggerations would probably just be a waste at this point, he seems far too emotionally invested in his "opinion", although how you can have one of those where objective fact plays in is beyond me.
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On March 18 2011 10:02 billy5000 wrote: I really appreciate your contribution! It's really hard to ask people about the most "cost effective" parts since the most common response is something like, "Personally, I'd spend a bit more on this because for a few more cash, you'll get a much better deal." It may be true, but it's a deal worth not taking when all I want is to play starcraft 2 and nothing more! It seems that it's degrading to talk about "older" generation parts whenever I check tomshardware, anandtech, and even on tl.
Anyway, would you mind posting a tl;dr version of your specs? Thanks
This is false. If you post on the TL tech support forums asking for help stating your budget, all the regulars of the forum will abide by that budget and even lower the cost for you. I have yet to seen any regular recommend a build over budget because personally they would spend more.
Tomshardware I'm not a huge fan of so I won't comment. Anandtech is for enthusiasts, of course all enthusiasts would shame on older generation parts.
On March 19 2011 08:58 Belial88 wrote: Theres no reason to be playing at such a resolution unless A)you don't realize higher resolutions on a monitor with a lower native resolution is hurtful or B) you aren't a budget gamer.
On March 17 2011 04:12 Belial88 wrote: Also note that you need to play on your monitor/TV's native resolution. Screens/resolutions/monitors are beyond the scope of this thread, as you probably have one anyways, but besides the fact resolution is about the 3rd or 4th most important thing (read: not most important) on a screen, playing above the number of pixels your monitor actually has may look nice by making things look small, but is really just reducing picture quality.
You need to learn more about displays since you don't seem to realize that the native resolution on LCD screens is the maximum resolution, you cannot play at a resolution higher than native on LCD screens.
You talk about how most monitors have a resolution much lower than 1080 which is completely false. Most monitors have a native of 1080 or 1050 and these can easily be found at a sale price of $100.
Also increasing resolution actually increases image quality because there are more pixels.
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http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/buyers-guide/2011/03/10/pc-hardware-buyer-s-guide-march-2011/2 Bit-Tech mentioned the dual-core socket-1156 Intel G6950 for $100 as a viable budget-range intel CPU, since it can be overclocked over 4ghz. I wouldn't recommend it over the amd X3 or x4 at stock speeds, but if you're willing to overclock it it's not a bad budget option
On March 19 2011 07:14 JingleHell wrote: Whether it be writing a guide, a benchmark, or a product review, tech-related articles should be as objective as possible when possible. This guide fails that effort repeatedly, and doesn't constitute good, quality content that new builders should potentially try to learn from.
Edit: Fixed typo Nobody is forcing you to buy a budget system, much like nobody is forcing you to read threads you don't like. Your criticisms are misguided as fuck and there's really no bad advise found in the OP. There's a general computer building thread with good guides to mid-range and higher-end builds there - this is not what this thread is for. Stop trolling.
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did you end up getting a temp monitor to work on your cpu?
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To OP:: Good work on the thread. Gave me inspiration to tinker round a bit. I think I'll contribute to my future PC. I like to shop at Microcenter because they price-match everything even Newegg. As far as the Processor + Mobo combo, I'll have to shop around at the store and see what they gots, I just looked up what I found on their website. There's some more homework to do I know for a fact. And I have some questions here.
Total Cost so far $387.93 with Monitor, $347.93 after rebates, ($277.94 without Monitor and $237 after rebates) for shizzle! Though I still need a Case, Keyboard and Mouse...
==MON== $109.99 S201HL bd 20" Widescreen LED-backlight LCD Monitor http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0354438
c'mon, that's a nice deal i think. LED backlighting hm? Or is this just a piece of crap
==PROCESSOR== $59.99 Pentium Dual Core E5700 LGA 775 Boxed Processor http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0355427
$70.99 @ newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116381
I still don't know what the difference between this product and the i3 is... can anyone elaborate why I should spend $100 on it? I don't plan on overclocking it. http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0350692
==MOBO== $59.99 ($49.99 after $10.00 mail-in rebate) P43D3 LGA 775 P43 ATX Intel Motherboard http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0343064
$59.99 no rebate @ newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138185&Tpk=P43D3 LGA 775 P43 ATX
==GPU== $49.99 ($19.99 after $30 mail-in rebate) NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS 1024MB DDR3 PCIe 2.0 x16 Video Card 01G-P3-1302-LR http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0354355
Not a bad video card for 20 bucks
==RAM== $39.99 4GB DDR3-1333 (PC3-10666) CL9 Desktop Memory Kit (Two 2GB Memory Modules) http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0353218
I think it's a standard price.
==HDD== $29.99 Western Digital AV 320GB 7,200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - Recertified http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0357772
cheap no matter what I look for....
==PSU== $37.99 Antec Basiq 350 Watt ATX Power Supply http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0257451
This is what I really need some help with, I think it's enough for what I want, but I could use some input. Should I go for something more?
==ACC== todo:: -keyboard + mouse -headset for venTrolololol
==CASE== ummmmm I'll shop the cheap massive collection...
so OP, I think I actually can build a computer for $350 WITH A MONITOR!! except the case...
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People should relax -_-
the title itself says it all, its a budget pc, that itself means it cant be highend, so why talk about i7 etc and as this is clearly for sc2 only use u dont ve to bring up other stuff. the build itself will play sc2 on a moderate level and thats the whole purpose of it, isnt it?
if people get offended by someone who has like a month of experience with hardware they should probably stop being so insecure~
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Good guide. I like the section on PSUs and motherboards. The only issues I have are as follows:
1. Hard drive space. Drives are cheap; the fact OP can stay under 100 GB relates only to his personal habits. Someone doing media work, for example, might easily use a terabyte. Family photos, a large music collection, or just a few games can really bump up the space. I would just explain that it's unrelated to Starcraft and unnecessary for it.
2. CPU. More than a few games require a faster CPU. Starcraft does for anything outside of 1v1, as do many other applications. I'd acknowledge that the guide does not apply to everything.
3. Display resolution. 1920x1080 has become or is becoming standard for 23" monitors now, and even some smaller ones. I just bought one for $99 from Dell as a second screen. This doesn't really apply to the recommendations - just something you might want to consider in the wording.
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On March 19 2011 13:38 Aduromors wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2011 07:14 JingleHell wrote: Whether it be writing a guide, a benchmark, or a product review, tech-related articles should be as objective as possible when possible. This guide fails that effort repeatedly, and doesn't constitute good, quality content that new builders should potentially try to learn from.
Edit: Fixed typo Nobody is forcing you to buy a budget system, much like nobody is forcing you to read threads you don't like. Your criticisms are misguided as fuck and there's really no bad advise found in the OP. There's a general computer building thread with good guides to mid-range and higher-end builds there - this is not what this thread is for. Stop trolling.
I'm curious how you think I'm trolling to call this "guide" inaccurate and hostile.
Also, given some of the OP's statements, I'm not in the wrong place at all. Lets check it out with some excerpted sections.
However, don't turn away rich kids - I will tell you how to build a great system for cheap, not because we are skimping, but because we know what we need. By knowing that your system doesn't need as much power, or that SLI is stupid, or that despite having 2400mhz RAM your system can only run at 1333mhz, we can save a lot of money. Pointless hostility, and sweeping generalizations that don't really accurately portray anything.
My advice - buy a $400 PC today, buy a $400 PC in 3 years, be able to play everything on max settings, and still spent less than an i7 $1500 system. Buying an i7 today is just as useful as buying an i7 10 years ago - there's just no point to it. This is a series of bald-faced lies. Just because needing an i7 is situational, they aren't useless, and only an idiot would claim that a $400 PC will run everything at max now, let alone on a 3 year upgrade cycle.
SLI/Crossfire, NVidia and Radeon's take on using multiple graphics cards, are stupid. Plain and simple, there is no reason to do it for the budget, or rational, PC builder. You do not get a 200% performance, you get somewhere between 110% to 160%, the average around 140%. The extra heat can cause your system to slow down as increased heat over a certain point, generally around 60*C causes system parts to slow down SLI/Xfire performance scaling is based on game, SLI profile, Driver, and hardware. SLI, on a game with a good profile, scales between 80-90%. Trying to find an average between the two manufacturers and every game would be beyond irrelevant anyway, there's too many factors. Also, any decent quality system isn't going to start crying like a girl at a miserly 60C. Maybe he should stop buying the cheapest parts on the market.
A 3dmark score as his benchmark when suggesting GPUs to people who probably haven't heard of it before? Why not a REAL benchmark, involving performance on games, since that's what he claims to be telling people how to build for?
theres no reason this article isn't for rich people - going anything above this guide's maximum recommendations is overkill for not only SC2, but all of the games out today, including Crysis 2 Ignoring the minor detail where Crysis 2 kind of isn't out yet, this is more needless hostility that feels like it's based in jealousy towards enthusiasts, and he's lying like a rug. Metro 2033 and DA2 would beat his suggested rig into the floor at max.
4GB will be enough to play SC2, stream, have multiple browsers, download, play music, and run a movie at the same time. There's no reason to get more. No reason? Really? Can't name one? Maybe you shouldn't write a guide if you can't think of ways to use over 4GB RAM.
I see people recommend systems that either play max and they like but don't realize is overkill, recommend because their system sucks, and overall have no idea what is needed to play SC2. Remember, buying a PC is about buying what you need, not what is the best 'value'. How do you know whether those people know it's overkill, or if, due to other tasks, it isn't? I see YOU recommending a lot of garbage because YOUR system sucks, and you think everyone else's should too. You're personally affronted by enthusiasts. Buying a PC is whatever you want it to be.
So again, feel free to explain to me how I'm trolling to call this guide unobjective and inaccurate.
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My comments about rich kids is tongue in cheek humor (the fact we are building a PC JUSRT to play a single game is not lost on me).
For a BUDGET pc to play SC2, intel is unnecessary. I am aware SC2 is optimized for intel, but the cheapest intel at 125 is only a dual core.
Womwomwom I discuss how overclocking may affect purchasing decisions for the budget builder. There are already many artickes (albeit horrible ones) on overclocking. You can do it, or not do it, it doesn't really matter.
Jinglehell: My comment about rich kids not needing to turn away is about how this guide may be useful to those who aren't on a tight budget. I diont really care if you don't appreciate the humor. Its a rather boring topic that I am trying to make more intersting (to most anyways).
Its pretty well known AMD syystems start to lose performance around 60. Obviously some parts are different like video cards, but you are more than welcome to tell the intended audience of this guide that running at above 60*C is cool. You really aren't trolling?
As for RAM this is an SC2 pc guide. If you are going to stream and do crazy things, I assume the audience is smart enough to figure out what they'll need for that. Meanwhile, this is a guide to play starcraft 2 at all, with the added bonus of better than low grapphics. Your suggestions are just as extreme as fine, if mine are extreme at all, in how you apparently bash this system.
Isay other systems is overkill because of the low medium high ultra comparison page in the gpu section. My system doesn't suck, I spent 350 on it and play on all ultra, above 60fps average, on stock. Chill out.
In case any of you haven't realized, this is a stacraft 2 forum. This thread is posted in it. There are no other applications to this PC. I think to most people this would be obvious. Sorry I didn't make clear this PC may struggle with folding @ home (which is bs anyways, but thats because of the person behind it disagreeing with the fundamentals of physical chemistry established by more respectable academics)
And at stock setting yea its pretty beastly. I don't know where you guys get off on saying I dotnt play ultra at a decent fps and resolution. Do I play 1900x1028? No - if You did you would probably not need this guide. On the other hand I have tried it and was fine.
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Anyways sorry if any commenst aren't clear or the roughness of the guide (no regards to JH and other haters ofc) but I have only been posting via phone. Kinda busy so ill be able to clear things up more within the week.
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I don't recall saying over 60C is cool, I merely stated that isn't an explosion point unless you have incredibly low end gear.
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Maximum-CPU-Temperature/143/9
Back in 2007, AMD was rated higher than you're saying they start dying from heat at now. If they lose performance under load, then you bought shoddy hardware, which comes back to my actual statement.
As for your sudden claims that this is an SC2 PC guide, maybe you should keep it that way instead of making blatantly false claims regarding what else the PC can do? Take out the hyperbole, and I'll retract my complaints about the same.
And again, as far as your comments about enthusiasts, building high end PCs for whatever reason we so choose, you sound bitter. The way you approach the subject is needlessly hostile and aggressive, and you high-handedly state that enthusiasts could stand to learn from your supreme expertise. It boils down to the technical nature of a guide, and you kill it by turning it into a personal attack.
If you really think enthusiasts could learn from you, you shouldn't start by lying about the capabilities of a cheap PC (max settings on any game, $400 machine? Nope), and you certainly shouldn't make personal attacks on people for the crime of not being broke.
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I am currently building my own computer, I have the parts but have not yet bought any of yet, still trying to find the best deals. After reading this thread makes me rethink of buying all the expensive stuff and go and buy the cheap stuff to play atleast most games on high with GOOD fps.
This thread is good, but.. it keeps saying something like "will be able to play starcraft2 in max settings" , for you saying this does this mean in max settings for starcraft2 will I have good fps? doubt it. I would probably reword it and say play on medium or high with GOOD fps. basically any computer can play any game on max settings but w/ horrible fps.
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On March 19 2011 23:28 JingleHell wrote:Show nested quote +However, don't turn away rich kids - I will tell you how to build a great system for cheap, not because we are skimping, but because we know what we need. By knowing that your system doesn't need as much power, or that SLI is stupid, or that despite having 2400mhz RAM your system can only run at 1333mhz, we can save a lot of money. Pointless hostility, and sweeping generalizations that don't really accurately portray anything. Overspending on PSUs, ram and dual-gpu setups can be a huge waste of money though
On March 19 2011 23:28 JingleHell wrote:Show nested quote +My advice - buy a $400 PC today, buy a $400 PC in 3 years, be able to play everything on max settings, and still spent less than an i7 $1500 system. Buying an i7 today is just as useful as buying an i7 10 years ago - there's just no point to it. This is a series of bald-faced lies. Just because needing an i7 is situational, they aren't useless, and only an idiot would claim that a $400 PC will run everything at max now, let alone on a 3 year upgrade cycle. Following the OP, you could, in theory, get an athalon x3 or x4 with a GTX 460 768mb for less than $450 usd. At 1680x1050 that should last 3 years easily
A 3dmark score as his benchmark when suggesting GPUs to people who probably haven't heard of it before? Why not a REAL benchmark, involving performance on games, since that's what he claims to be telling people how to build for? idk. But SLI is rarely cost efficient when compared to anything other than the biggest $500 flagship cards, which have a cost/performance ratio that's xxxtremely bad. SLI is probably great for 2560x1600 monitors but this is definitely not the thread for that kind of recommendation
Show nested quote +theres no reason this article isn't for rich people - going anything above this guide's maximum recommendations is overkill for not only SC2, but all of the games out today, including Crysis 2 Ignoring the minor detail where Crysis 2 kind of isn't out yet, this is more needless hostility that feels like it's based in jealousy towards enthusiasts, and he's lying like a rug. Metro 2033 and DA2 would beat his suggested rig into the floor at max. Metro 2033 is a bit unfair because it's a really ugly eastern european mess that doesn't run well on anything. I heard DA2 ran badly on nvidia GPUs due to a driver problem but I think that's fixed now, it's not that system intensive and any build from the OP with a 4850 or more would run it fine
Show nested quote +4GB will be enough to play SC2, stream, have multiple browsers, download, play music, and run a movie at the same time. There's no reason to get more. No reason? Really? Can't name one? Maybe you shouldn't write a guide if you can't think of ways to use over 4GB RAM. Basically this from the other thread:
On July 21 2010 11:35 FragKrag wrote: Don't need 8GB of RAM
4GB of RAM is the standard now. There is almost no need at the current moment to get more or less than 4GB. There are certain cases in which extra RAM may be useful such as heavy Photoshop use. Like many parts it's heavily dependent on what you and what applications you use. Ram's cheap right now so it's not a bad idea to buy up 8gb now for the future, but still it seems dumb to recommend more than 4gb of ram in a budget PC thread
Show nested quote +I see people recommend systems that either play max and they like but don't realize is overkill, recommend because their system sucks, and overall have no idea what is needed to play SC2. Remember, buying a PC is about buying what you need, not what is the best 'value'. How do you know whether those people know it's overkill, or if, due to other tasks, it isn't? I see YOU recommending a lot of garbage because YOUR system sucks, and you think everyone else's should too. You're personally affronted by enthusiasts. Buying a PC is whatever you want it to be. So again, feel free to explain to me how I'm trolling to call this guide unobjective and inaccurate. I'm sorry your offended at people who like to save money on their hobbies / just want a computer that handles sc2 and general desktop things well enough
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Yknow, Aduromors, I get the feeling that if you had written this guide to begin with, I would have a lot less complaints. At the least, you're able to discuss it rationally.
I never argued that the concept behind this guide was good. My issue was always with 2 main things.
1: Rhetoric attacking enthusiasts, while suggesting they could learn something from this guide. (Not really likely, since the majority of enthusiasts have much more in mind than playing on low-mid and a slow upgrade cycle.)
2: Major exaggerations and inaccuracies. It was never about the fact that a budget PC is possible, it was about what the OP said could be done with a budget PC, which frankly ignored reality.
As for Metro and DA2 being unfair choices for pointing out, they ARE two of the most demanding DX11 games on the market right now. Yes, DA2 has major driver related issues with Nvidia. (Not resolved yet that I know of, without either 460 SLI or a flagship level card, I would have had to beat it below max settings.)
I know as well as you do how situational my disagreement with the OP is. The thing is, he was stating things in a categorical all or nothing kind of way that belied the situational uses. Again, it wasn't about whether a budget PC could be expected to do those things, it was his claims that they could, and anything more was pure waste.
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