Planning on getting a new PC

[tanithryudo]

My old PC should be over 10 years old by now, and I'm feeling the lack in performance compared to my work laptop. Now, with its Win 7 support ending, I'm planning on just up and buying a new computer altogether.

The price range I'm looking for is somewhere around the $500-750 range (not including warranty, taxes, shipping, etc.). I'm most likely going to buy from Amazon, since the prices are decent, and I have around $300 saved up in gift cards for it. And after some searching, here's my tentative list of potential candidates:


HP - Pavilion Gaming Desktop $529.99
AMD Ryzen 5-Series - 8GB Memory - AMD Radeon RX 580-1TB Hard Drive + 128GB Solid State (SSD)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JJ1ZFKH/

HP Pavilion Desktop Computer $616.99
Intel Core i5-9400, 12GB RAM, 1TB Hard Drive, 256 GB SSD, Windows 10 (TP01-0050, Silver) (UHD Graphics 630)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07X523BYZ/

HP Pavilion Home and Business Desktop $669.99
Core i7-8700, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Hexa-Core up to 4.60 Ghz, UHD Graphics 630, USB-C, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, RJ-45 LAN, DVD-RW, SD Reader, Win 10 (does not have regular HDD)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0817KJPS1/

HP Pavilion Gaming Desktop Computer $699.99
AMD Ryzen 5 3500 Processor, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 4 GB, 8 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD, Windows 10 Home (TG01-0030, Black) (does not have regular HDD)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07XV7YRSL/

HP Pavilion Desktop 595 $589.99
i5-8400 Six Core, 1TB SSD, 12GB DDR4 + 16GB Intel Optane, AMD Radeon RX 550 2GB, Windows 10 Pro, USB 3.1, HDMI, Bluetooth, WiFi AC, DVDRW, Wireless Mouse & Keyboard
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B081TJMSWT/

Dell Inspiron 5676 Gaming Desktop $734.99 (from Target)
AMD Ryzen 7 16GB RAM 1TB HDD 256GB SSD Recon Blue - 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen 7-2700X - AMD Radeon RX 580 4GB
https://www.target.com/p/dell-inspiron-5676-gaming-desktop-amd-ryzen-7-16gb-ram-1tb-hdd-256gb-ssd-recon-blue-2nd-gen-amd-ryzen-7-2700x-amd-radeon-rx-580-4gb/-/A-78305126

For reference, current desktop is: AMD A6-3600 APU (2.1 GHz) + 6 GB RAM + Radeon HD 6530D Graphics
And my work laptop is: i7-8650U + 16 GB RAM + Integrated UHD Graphics 620

Thoughts:

The #1 and #4 in the list are gaming computers, with a separate GPU. Though, from what I understand, both of the most graphics intensive games that I play (GW2 and STO), prioritize CPU instead of GPU. So probably the internal graphics cards should work ok... In terms of CPU, the i7 (#3) is the fastest, followed by #4.

SSD is also a big boost to normal performance even outside of games, and I think all of my important stuff can be squeezed onto a 128 GB SSD drive. But having 256 would give more room for growth. The 512 GB SSD drive on #3/#4 replaces the normal HDD altogether, but that's not an issue since I have a bunch of large external HDs.


EDIT: Added one with 12G RAM and dedicated GPU, and another more expensive one from Target with 16G RAM and dedicated GPU.

Comments

[cashew]

Consider that SSD is less effective once it reaches around 70% capacity (according to PureInfoTech). Also, if it's a desktop, you can always just shove another internal SSD in when you get one on sale at Newegg. (There's a Black Friday deal on internal SSDs right now for around 35% off, costing about $70 for 500GB or $100 for 1TB of SSD.)

Also, I do notice an improvement in performance when using a gaming computer with Guild Wars and the images are crisper. But I haven't done much serious PC gaming in while now. (I run emulators to play old console games, and the extra GPU really helps. No regrets.)

[tanithryudo]

Hm... that rules out the 128G SSD one, but 256G should still be enough, since STO + GW2 together take up about 100 GB, and then Windows files another 50+ GB, still leaves ~100 GB free.

The main issue with having a separate GPU is that they all seem to come with 8 GB RAM, which is the minimum requirement for the graphics card, but what about when I'm running a bunch of other applications? The ones that do have 16G RAM tend to be over $1000 which is above the range I'm looking for. So it's a matter of either 16GB RAM with integrated graphics, or 8GB RAM and a dedicated GPU.

(Yes, I suppose I could separately buy RAM or graphics cards and install them. But the whole point of me picking and buying a computer instead of upgrading my current one is to avoid all that hassle.)

[cashew]

Well, you're the expert CS major here. ^_^;; Would the extra 8GB RAM make up for a dedicated 8GB of graphics processing?

[tanithryudo]

Magic 8 ball (and google) gives me different answers for that so...eh.

There's also the possibility that one of the higher priced computers that do have everything I want will drop in price after Thanksgiving. So we'll see.

[cashew]

I say wait for Black Friday before pulling the trigger. *nods sagely*

[tanithryudo]

Raised the max price for my search out of curiosity and it looks like the computers that have all the good specs that I want are Lenovo. HP and Dell tend to have mediocre CPU or graphics card even at the higher prices. lol

2019 Lenovo IdeaCenter T540 Gaming Desktop $839.00
Intel Core i5-9400F up to 4.1GHz, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 TI Graphics 6 GB GDDR5, 16GB DDR4-2666 RAM, 512GB PCIe SSD, Windows 10, Black (no separate HDD)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07Y8X1LM5

2019 Lenovo IdeaCenter T540 Gaming Desktop $899.00
Intel Core i5-9400F up to 4.1GHz, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 TI Graphics 6 GB GDDR5, 16GB DDR4-2666 RAM, 512GB PCIe SSD + 1TB HDD, Windows 10, Black
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07Y8X1V2Z

Hm... a couple of entries for CyberpowerPC and iBUYPOWER at similar price range, but I'm not too familiar with those brands.

[cashew]

My comp is a CyberpowerPC. They do custom builds (which is what I got) and charge $60 for putting the rig together, which I think is worth the service cost, since it saves on time spent looking for the right motherboards and making sure the bits all fit together. And I can avoid amateur fuck ups when it comes to gluing the CPU to the motherboard and stuff. (After putting in the SSD on my own, I'm definitely not going to attempt putting together an entire PC by myself. The experience is nice, but damn, the possibly of wrecking something is costly. Maybe if I had cheaper parts I'd take the risk, but with the CPU, I'm leaving that up to the pros.) The fact that they're a big company means they can get parts for cheaper than an individual, so that allows them to keep the price low while making a profit.

I don't have experience with the iBUYPOWER. I imagine is something similar?