Looking for a new PC for gaming. I haven’t kept current on gaming systems for at least ten years (insert boomer reference here) I would like to run DCS and Starfield any suggestions?

Found this at Costco (insert additional boomer reference here):

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Looks like a solid machine to me. The only thing I could add to the conversation is to see what those parts cost individually in case you're interested in building it yourself. It's fun and could save you some money as well.

Hah.  I've never saved money building a computer or AR myself.

At the low end, you don't save much if anything when building vs buying.   That system should be fine for gaming in the 1080 60hz/frames area.  You won't save anything trying to rebuild that system part for part your self.

ETA:  What are you running now? CPU/GPU?  Might be better to buy minor upgrades that can transfer to a new build next year.  Ryzen 9000 series CPUs will be in late 2024,  with the x3d series early 2025.   That will shift older CPU prices down,  and open options at the top end.

But they've always been nicer than the pre-builts, right?

This we must tell ourselves...

Exactly, that's what I tell myself.

The days of saving money by building your own PC are long gone. The "pre-built PC" factories buy in bulk and get discounts beyond what you'll find even on Black Friday.

Especially if you're 10 years out of the loop, you'll save a lot of headaches by buying a pre-built machine. If you want to get crazy, most of the online stores that sell pre-built PCs will let you customize to various extents.

I bought a 100% custom, built to order PC in Feb '23 and saved around $400-600 from what it would have cost to buy the components and assemble myself.

When I price comped custom v pre-built, my results were opposite.

That PC would run DCS fine. However, do you every want to run VR? If so, get something with a better GPU.

QFT

Same.

The ONLY time I've ever thought it was beneficial to buy a pre-built machine was back when you literally could not buy a video card aftermarket due to the coin miners going nuts with them.  The only people that had them were the builders that had them in stock and hadn't sold out yet.  Plus they were contractually obligated to sell them at a certain price.  


I've never seen a pre-built machine that I couldn't either beat for the same price, or build equivalent performance with more quality parts for less money.

Not to mention all the stupid software they stuff onto the pre-built machines.  


@OP - build it yourself.  Prebuilts are either overly expensive OR the cut costs by putting in poor quality components.  Mainly the PSU's are junk bottom of the barrel stuff that may likely take out the other components in the build when they go bad.  Visit pcpartpicker.com it takes most of the guesswork about whether or not your parts will work together out of it.  Also it finds you the best prices most of the time.  Putting together a PC now-days is extremely simple.  My 7 year old son built his without much help from me.  Cables/connectors/etc only go one place.

You and I define “fun” differently!

Just researching the parts is a PITA due to limited runs.

A better comparison is shopping the similar model thru larger retailers and online shops with similar platforms.

OP - its a 2024 entry level gaming PC that should suit you to run your games for a year or two before its starts bogging down depending on what other programs are put on the machine and what software upgrades come out for your games.

I am running a two year old machine from Costco also that I will be upgrading around FALL of this year.

If you're targeting 1080p that would be fine. If 1440p or 4K then I think the 4060 is a weak card. The 8GB version doesn't have longevity and the 16GB version is down-tuned too much.

Go up to a 4070 or a 16GB AMD card.  If longevity is a concern, definitely get 16GB of VRAM (4070 Ti Super has 16GB)

Spend a few hundred more and get a 4070. Best buy had a decent one for about 400 more. Personally i prefer amd for my cpu but thats just based on my own past experience with intel. Prebuilts are the way to go unless you like dealing with ups or fed ex. Waiting weeks to get the parts and dealing with returns because the company you ordered from is ran by chinese retards isnt fun or exciting.

Find a different builder. There are a few companies who don't shove bloatware into their pre-builts. One such company. https://velocitymicro.com/

If you're doing any gaming on a PC, I strongly suggest liquid cooling as it's more quiet than a fan.  I'm on my 2nd prebuilt machine from ibuypower, I think they're great and I'll continue to buy from them.  I find their 'low end' liquid cooled prebuilt machines are a sweet spot on value.

Yeah, my current comp is a prebuilt and the only prebuilt I've had for 20 years... because it cost me less for the entire thing than it would have for the 3080ti that's in it. Things have bounced back fortunately.

But the cooling, design, and motherboard are all inferior. Not inferior enough that I've bothered to change them, but I definitely would have made different choices in a less absurd market.

Tried configuring at each of those builder sites, & my DIY pcpartpicker-based build still costs less.

This is why building is better than buying.  

I've never seen a quality (Noctua) air cooler installed in a prebuilt system.  They're almost always low end no name junk coolers or stock coolers.  The former has poor performance and loud fans.  

Actually, the water coolers I've seen installed in prebuilts were no-name coolers as well.  I'm sure the high end builders will install quality coolers...but those builders like to charge a premium for their builds...so...

Noctua D15 coolers beat 120mm water coolers, are on par with most 240mm water coolers and beat some of them.  Which is what 98% of people are buying.  So there's almost no performance benefit really. Last I checked the D15 was still cheaper than the 240mm AIO water coolers that were of brand names I would trust.  360mm+ AIO systems handily beat the air cooler, however, they're twice the price and don't fit in a lot of cases.  

Noctua fans are way better than the fans that come with any of the AIO coolers (that I'm aware of anyway). Plus you have pump noise with AIO coolers, that usually isn't noticeable at first but gets worse with age.  

I have used a few AIO coolers on customer builds that insisted on water cooling but didn't want custom loops built because of cost.  My benchmarks showed that the extra investment wasn't worth the performance benefit.  I still suggest my customers go with a Noctua air cooler over AIO solutions.  People that are building a computer to impress their friends, still like to get an AIO cooler.  Mainly because if they don't they think their friends will make fun of them...lol.  Most of my adult customers that don't care what people think of their computer go with a Noctua air cooler and are very happy with them.

Another few parts that prebuilts love to skimp on:

Power supply - They love to do this. Garbage tier power supplies that are usually noisy as hell

GPU - What you pay would net you a top tier (e.g. Gigabyte 4090 Windforce) and what you get is the bottom tier one (Gigabyte 4090 Master). It is a 4090 though.

RAM - usually bottom tier spec

Case - rgb boy! Enough glass and poor airflow that the inside of it is a furnace

storage - NVME... but its usually the crap tier


If you see a banging price on a prebuilt (ie well bellow what the individual parts cost) go ahead. Otherwise buying the parts and putting them together is cheaper and you end up with a better system. It literally is easier than putting together a lego set.

To achieve it's full potential the 13700F (and K) both need to be water-cooled.  With a water-cooler it will achieve 95% of the performance of an i9 for less money but with an air-cooler, even a high end air-cooler, it will not be able to run at it's full turbo boost frequency.

For the last several years it's been better to buy a pre-build. Nvidia having amazing cards, the transition to ddr-5, and covid made it really difficult to piece together a build at a better price. That is changing, and I think that's really only changed this year. On the low end, I don't really like the 4060ti. I think the AMD options are a better bang for your buck. But you know an even better deal? A used 3080 off of ebay. Same price as a 4060ti, but leagues better, and you aren't getting that kind of deal from pre-builds.

You can also save some money. Do you really need new drives or is what you have now adequate? Do you really need new fans? Do you really need a new case? What's your current power supply?

Saving there you might be able to nickle-and-dime your way into a better graphics card. FWIW my current PC was a pre-build but I'm now pricing out a new PC that will likely be a custom build and I'm scavenging as much as I can from my current PC to save quite a bit of money.

I don't understand...because I've built numerous computers for people in the last 18 months who have come to me with prebuilts and I've been able to either beat the performance for the same price OR beat the price for the same performance parts.  Been like this ever since the miners stopped soaking up all the video card stock...

I've looked at a bunch of prebuilts lately and can handily beat them with off the shelf brand new available parts...

Prebuilt that wasnt astronomically overpriced - https://www.amazon.com/ZOTAC-Hero-A7646I-Spider-ManTM-GH4060TA7600SM-U-W4B/dp/B0CBD7ZQWV   $1279
Ryzen 5 7600 with 240mm AIO, ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB, 16GB DDR5, 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD, Windows 11
Couple of reviews out there that show the bargain bin parts that go into this build.

Don't care, didn't even look for sales build - https://pcpartpicker.com/list/MwbtTY    $1241 (with W11 key)
Ryzen 5 7600, 4060 Ti 16gb, 16gb DDR5, 2TB NVMe M.2 SSD, Windows 11(buy for $15)
cpu - same
motherboard - better i/o, expansion
cooling - the thermalright can beat a cheap 240mm AIO, air so no worries about pump noise or leakage
psu - modular, higher wattage (850 vs 600), ATX 3.0 vs 2 (native 16 pin for gpu), better build quality, quieter fan
ram - faster and better timings
storage - faster, 1TB more
GPU - 16gb vs 8gb, faster clocks
case - better airflow, front usb-c, better fans (quieter, more airflow)

With no effort $30 cheaper.
An aside if same specs were kept (8gb gpu, 1tb nvme) - https://pcpartpicker.com/list/RQWG4M  $1096. So $181 saved


What do I gain? Most notable is the gpu where you gain 8gb ram (16 vs 8), storage increased from 1tb to 2tb and faster. Otherwise every single component is better except the cpu.

What do i lose? The list speaks for itself.
ZOTAC GAMING x Spiderman 4060Ti Graphics Card Backplate
ZOTAC GAMING x Spiderman 3-Pack ZTORM figurines
ZOTAC GAMING x Spiderman Totebag, Stickers
ZOTAC GAMING x Spiderman Graphics Card Badges
RGB baby!

The prebuilt was chosen because it actually wasn't insanely overpriced and popular. I (lazily) tried to stack the deck against the the build it yourself. If you looked/waited for sales on the components the price would be even better.

If you can find a prebuilt that has good reviews, and is much lower priced than the individual parts, buy it. Otherwise you are buying subpar parts/paying a premium that you don't need to unless you just don't want to build a computer.

Lian Li Performance series AIO coolers are the way to go.

You are right.  A company selling prebuilts have expenses, like labor and probably rent that has to be covered in the cost, offsetting what they save buying in bulk.  If you know what you are doing than you can definitely save money doing it yourself.  Once you learn how to build a computer you can save money by upgrading the system a little each year to always keep it at the highest level.

You'll get a build warranty with prebuilt, if that's important to you.