[Skybird]

Originally Posted by kurt250

please, i'm new at this. i want to be able to play silent hunters 5 on a desk top computer. the computer will be for gaming only and not connected to the internet. what would be a good computer to buy. please keep it simple and to the point. i don't need a bunch of letters that mean nothing to me. just a good solid computer that i can play on without having to take a corse in computer science. thank for any info. kurt250

Welcome at subsim boards!

Do not buy factory installed ready-to-use systems (often you pay more than you need, and while some installations may be killer systems, others may offer lower prices by including one or two foul eggs), but find a good shop where the dealer is trustworthy and willing to spend some time talking with you. He will help you find components matching the following details, and will put them together for you:

Generally: do not buy the newest and latest supercool stuff. It is overpriced. For your purpose, a solid "ordinary" machine sounds good enough, you do not need the cool supertoy for 2500 bucks.

CPU: look for a good deal on an Intel i5. This core has the best bang-for-the-buck ratio, imo. And some of its incarnations deliver as good a performance than much more expensive i7 cores.

RAM: 6-8 GB with Windows 7. Maybe really 8 GB to be totally safe, due to the low costs for memory.

Yes, go with Windows 7.

GFX: I would pick an nVidia GFX5600 with 1 GB, something in that range. Very good perfoamnce again for a reasonable price. It is hilarious what some people are willing to pay for just 5% more in performance. Sometimes people pay as much for a gfx card like they pay for the rest of the system.

Choose a solid power unit, this is often underestimated. With a config like above, a 750W will have you on the safe side. Power units degrade slightly over time, so you want a little reserve there, that's why 750W. It should keep you safe also when your system maybe runs at maximum performance, with all four cores and the gfx at 100%. Could happen in graphic-intensive games which are optimised for multiple cores. Noise level can be a concern. The more silent, the more expensive. Ask your dealer for a good opportunity.

HD: Choose a good brand, Samsung or Western Digital, they are silent and reliable. Size: they are beyond good and evil already, so choose the size for the selected model that gives you the lowest price. That must not be the smallest capacity! Prices are linked to production numbers, and people do not want the small ones anymore. So: smaller production numbers, translating into higher costs. I have a 1TB-drive. But only around 250 GB are used.

DVD drive: it pays off to not choose the cheapest there. The cheap ones more often run into problems with CDs/DVDs, and tend to be noisy and producing irritating sounds letting you think they are broken.

Take care the mainboard has sufficient number of USB ports. Cannot hurt if two of these are already 3.0 standard. But you do not want them all to be 3.0, if you use some older hardware (joysticks, digital camera!), it may not like 3.0 The compatibility is given in theory, but reality looks different with USB 3.0. If you must/want to buy a USB hub, always buy one with a separate power supply.

If you want or need USB sticks as storage media, Transcend imo offers some very good sticks that are both fast and solid for a reasonable price, I mean the Transcend Jetflash 600 series, and these are USB 2.0. I have several of these in use, with 8, 16 and 32 GB. They also have 3.0 sticks now, but I have not tried them.. With USB sticks, the differences in quality are immense, mostly effecting longevity, and write-/read speed. - More comfortable than DVD for sure to do the occasional data backup.

Consider to plan for a separate HD plus system image software. Your best insurance in case of an infection. You set up your system, tweak all details, then make an image. If you have security breaches or infections, NEVER repair them, but either reinstall - or format and copy back an image from a separate drive. Just takes you 1-2 hours when the machine works all alone, afterwards you just need to defrag again could take time), and then you have a clean machine without needing to do any manual installation and tweaking again, just copy back data backups that saw updates since the image has been recorded.

If linking to the web, always use a payware full security suite (firewall+antivir) plus a second suite designed to run along an antivir and specialising in detecting malware that antivir usually does not pick up. Be paranoid when going online, keep options of browsers as tight and sealed as possible for your needs.

A system solution like I suggest can be done for less than 900 Euro over here (Germany, my last experience from Spring last year when I put together a new rig).