what PC to choose

hello
I am trying to find a new PC. I basically want some thing to play Civ with (4, 5 and the coming V6) and Total War. I got this list of choice from a French comparer (it's in French sorry):

http://www.ldlc.com/informatique/or...47-7880+fv403-8217,10180+fv394-5912,5524.html

It's all within my budget, though I do not necessarily want to throw money out of the window unless it is worth it.
Any advise? Can I buy any screen size with this?

I am not completely "blind" in terms of hardware (I did change graph cards on my old PC) but I am not very "enlightened" either

They are all way overpriced imo...

I'd recommend you build your own pc, check this out, specifically the "buying guide" and "build your own pc" sections : http://eu.pangoly.com/en/

I'd highly recommend a gtx 970 video card, amazing bang for the buck, low power consumption and no noise/heat issues.

If though you are only going to play strategy games, it could be better to spend more on the cpu instead. the i7-4790k has ridicolous performance, but you could save some money by buying an i5 and overclocking it instead. AMD is also a option if you want a budget friendly build, although the performance will be a bit inferior.

Build yourself a PC according to what you need, and you can save yourself a lot of money. Plus, you can decide to get good quality components instead of relying on what the shop/retailer is giving you.

If you are not entirely confident in building a PC, you can ask a friend or read some guides online. It isn't as difficult as it may seem.

Also, if you do choose to build your own customized PC, post up what you're buying on these forums and I am sure the members here will help you decide before you buy.

You can buy whatever monitor you wish, but make sure it has a DVI connection. Some monitors out there only have VGA connections. Most GPU cards come with either DVI or HDMI connections. Yeah you can use an adapter, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Is building your own machine completely out of the question?

Starting from scratch will enable you to get exactly the stuff you want/need, without either having to compromise somewhere or pay an outrageous sum for a "boutique" system.

Some of the pre-builts from your site don't look so bad to me, though. E.g.:
http://www.ldlc.com/fiche/PB00132339.html (would need a SSD and Windows in addition)
And not that much more expensive given that it has decent components.


If you do not care for high(est) graphics settings, and use 1080p display or smaller, a reasonable option would be a business line PC from the likes of Lenovo, Dell or Fujitsu coupled with an energy efficient entry-class gaming video-card like the GTX 750 Ti.
Something like that should be found for about €800 for a i5 system with a 256GB SSD and a 750Ti.


Contrary to what was recommended, for strategy games a i7 is pretty much pointless.
Civ 4 and 5 AIs run on a single core, and as far as I know it's the same for the TW games. It's improbable that Civ 6 will be different.

For powering the graphics a i5 will be plenty enough, too.


In any case, you will want a SSD as pretty much the first priority. It's that much of a difference, not so much for gaming (loading times will get better), but for general usability.

It looks increasingly likely that new games will see a jump to 4GB VRAM as a requirement for "really pretty" graphics settings fairly soon-ish (a year or two), and maybe even for minimal requirements not that much later, so be careful if considering getting a fairly powerful/expensive card with "only" 3 or even 2GB VRAM.
It might become obsolete faster than comparable cards in the past.
Getting a less powerful card with the perspective to replace it in about two years (or when Civ 6 comes around and needs more juice) might also be an option, the GTX 750 Ti for example should be fine at present for any game on your list.

And yes the GTX 970 is indeed THAT good in nearly every aspect, but there are models that are not very quiet (or at least get loud when running at full load).

You should be able to use any screen with any modern graphics card, but VGA-only ones should indeed be avoided. But those are mismatched to a €1000+ machine anyway.
Some of the less expensive 4k displays run only with 30Hz on a PC, those are to be avoided, too.
And with a 4k display, you should consider a card in the GTX970 class.

I'd avoid 4k displays, imo it's just a marketing gimmick. btw, on the i5 vs i7 issue I agree with you ( I prefer i5 ) BUT the model I cited runs at 4.0 vs 3.5 for the best i5 which is quite nice. Also I'm pretty sure civ5 uses two cores.

It's not a marketing gimmick at all, 4k displays are beautiful, good ones just aren't affordable yet.

Building a PC these days is about as easy as putting together a lego toy (actually the lego toys they have these days look more complex than putting together a PC). If you have never done it though, I can see how it would be intimidating. If you are unlucky enough to get a defective part it can also be a huge headache, especially if you do not have any other equipment to troubleshoot parts on.

Piece together a PC with parts from a site like Amazon.fr (you are in France, oui?) and then see the price difference between buying an equivalent pre-built PC, and see if the price difference is worth it to you. In the US you can usually piece together something from iBuyPower or Cyberpower for $50 to $100 more than you could just buy it and put it together for yourself. I can see how that might be worth it, it's not much more money. Some sites like NCIX also will actually put a PC together for you from individual components you select, although not sure if they ship to France.

Zelig posted this link once before and I really like the site. It can help you pick the parts you need based upon you budget. From that, you can then set priorities and deviate to meet your goals.

tokala said:

Is building your own machine completely out of the question?

Starting from scratch will enable you to get exactly the stuff you want/need, without either having to compromise somewhere or pay an outrageous sum for a "boutique" system.

Some of the pre-builts from your site don't look so bad to me, though. E.g.:
http://www.ldlc.com/fiche/PB00132339.html (would need a SSD and Windows in addition)
And not that much more expensive given that it has decent components.


If you do not care for high(est) graphics settings, and use 1080p display or smaller, a reasonable option would be a business line PC from the likes of Lenovo, Dell or Fujitsu coupled with an energy efficient entry-class gaming video-card like the GTX 750 Ti.
Something like that should be found for about €800 for a i5 system with a 256GB SSD and a 750Ti.


Contrary to what was recommended, for strategy games a i7 is pretty much pointless.
Civ 4 and 5 AIs run on a single core, and as far as I know it's the same for the TW games. It's improbable that Civ 6 will be different.

For powering the graphics a i5 will be plenty enough, too.


In any case, you will want a SSD as pretty much the first priority. It's that much of a difference, not so much for gaming (loading times will get better), but for general usability.

It looks increasingly likely that new games will see a jump to 4GB VRAM as a requirement for "really pretty" graphics settings fairly soon-ish (a year or two), and maybe even for minimal requirements not that much later, so be careful if considering getting a fairly powerful/expensive card with "only" 3 or even 2GB VRAM.
It might become obsolete faster than comparable cards in the past.
Getting a less powerful card with the perspective to replace it in about two years (or when Civ 6 comes around and needs more juice) might also be an option, the GTX 750 Ti for example should be fine at present for any game on your list.

And yes the GTX 970 is indeed THAT good in nearly every aspect, but there are models that are not very quiet (or at least get loud when running at full load).

You should be able to use any screen with any modern graphics card, but VGA-only ones should indeed be avoided. But those are mismatched to a €1000+ machine anyway.
Some of the less expensive 4k displays run only with 30Hz on a PC, those are to be avoided, too.
And with a 4k display, you should consider a card in the GTX970 class.

Click to expand...

thank you all guys for your comments, and especially you tokala as you gave me an advise that suits me better ;-). I do not treally want to take the chance nor do i have enough time to "build my pc myself, oh and i am old enough past college age and am not that "short" on money

now based on your advise found those:


1. http://www.ldlc.com/fiche/PB00150139.html
have it all but maybe a little bit overpiced? i may be using it for a longer time though

2. http://www.ldlc.com/fiche/PB00175860.html
misses only SSD, how important is this? hw can I "add" it?

3. http://www.materiel.net/ordinateur/materiel-net-canhard-xxii-haswell-pc-gamer-109381.html

this is exactly what you advised , I can either add 120€ and have it with windows 8.1 or buy W8.1 for the same price and install it my self. what do you think?

I supose 3 is the right choice?

Re: 1) This looks indeed a bit over the top. You will get about 20% faster turn times due to the increased clock speed compared to the i5 from 2). Apart from that, for your purposes this system won't give you much of a benefit compared to a €1000 class system. And its fairly likely that this won't change for Civ6.

A somewhat intermediate solution between 1) and 2) would be this one:
http://www.ldlc.com/fiche/PB00132339.html
Which will also give you the option of trying a bit of overclocking if you need/want a bit more performance, as PSU, mainboard, CPU and CPU cooler are designed for that.
If overclocking is not an option for you, 2) is the more sensible choice.

Re: 2) If I had only those three to choose from, this would be my recommendation.

Re: 3) I'm a bit skeptical there, as the video card is "bottom of the barrel" of the various 970s, as opposed to the MSI in the hardware.fr systems which is considered one of the contenders for overall best choice of the various 970s.
But still, it would be a good gaming system, if you do not mind the video card getting fairly audible under load.

In addition, hardware.fr is probably one of the premier hardware sites in europe, and those gaming systems seems to build after their recommendations (as they all look decently for their given price point).

You should be able to get Windows 8 for €100 or less, e.g.
http://www.amazon.fr/Microsoft-WN7-...F8&qid=1414089815&sr=8-1&keywords=windows+8.1
, and I would recommend the non-OEM version, as it is not much more expensive, and it is rumored that you will be able to upgrade to Windows 10 for (almost) free from the full version.
I would advise to install windows yourself, as pre-installed systems tend to come with a lot of rubbish programs you will spend about as much time to get rid of as you will need to install a clean windows.


If my extremely rusty French doesn't deceive me, for those "hardware.fr" systems you have the option of getting a SSD (or other upgrade) already installed by the shop for you, it will simply take a bit longer compared to an off the shelf system.

If you need/want add a SSD yourself, adding a SSD is about as straightforward as plopping in a new video card. Especially if you haven't installed windows yet.
See for example this video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JOxKSkkdMM

If you are sure you will be using only a limited number of games and applications at any one time, a ~250GB should be large enough, but prices have come down so far that I would tend to a ~500GB SSD.
With a larger SSD, you could put windows, all games and applications and most/all of your data on the SSD.
A good choice would be the Samsung 840 evo series (e.g this one, but these days you cannot do much wrong with a big brand SSD (just avoid OCZ)

How important is a SSD? If you fire up your PC once a day just for playing Civ, you can argue that it's not THAT much of a difference. Watching videos is another use where a SSD won't make much of a difference.
But for pretty much anything else, especially anything remotely resembling productive work, it's a drastic improvement.
Starting programs and opening files in most cases will be close to "instantaneous" compared to a harddrive system, especially if trying to to several things at once.
(Starting Civ will still take some time, because it's mostly limited by how fast the CPU can decompress the packed data into the main and video memory)

I'm still waitng for SSDs to have a large enough size to make them worth getting in the first place (especially as the size of games continues to grow) for an affordable price.

HannibalBarka said:

I do not treally want to take the chance nor do i have enough time to "build my pc myself, oh and i am old enough past college age and am not that "short" on money

Click to expand...

There really isn't much of a chance, putting a PC together really is easy and simple. The directions are almost all covered in the manual for the motherboard and there is a wealth of knowledge available via google and youtube if you do have any questions.

It doesn't take too much time either, depends on how fast and cautious you are. Admittedly I did take about 6 hours to put together my first computer several years ago, but now it takes me about an hour to take it apart, dust it all off, and put it back together and I have only ever worked on my own computer. It is fun too

Its even easier to do these days with large and helpful communities like /r/buildapc.

tokala said:

, and I would recommend the non-OEM version, as it is not much more expensive, and it is rumored that you will be able to upgrade to Windows 10 for (almost) free from the full version.

Click to expand...

Upgrading to Win10 isn't going to be any different depending on which version of Win8 you have.

I would advise to install windows yourself, as pre-installed systems tend to come with a lot of rubbish programs you will spend about as much time to get rid of as you will need to install a clean windows.

tokala said:

A good choice would be the Samsung 840 evo series (e.g this one, but these days you cannot do much wrong with a big brand SSD (just avoid OCZ)

Click to expand...

OCZ is pretty much fine now that they're Toshiba. Still wouldn't get them though, for most consumers there's pretty much no reason to get anything other than Crucial, Samsung or maybe Sandisk.

Maniacal said:

I'm still waitng for SSDs to have a large enough size to make them worth getting in the first place (especially as the size of games continues to grow) for an affordable price.

Click to expand...

We've been there for years already. At any price level without an SSD, you'll get a better PC experience by getting a PC that's $100 cheaper and installing your own $100 SSD.

I was referring to buying your own SSD.

Okay? Same thing applies.

For any current PC you own without an SSD, you'd get a better experience by selling it, buying a used PC for $100 cheaper, and installing a $100 SSD.