Comment on Why Shouldn't I Use A Small Gaming PC
Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 1 day ago
If your tight on money, building a system will always come out on top in the long term, specifically in terms of upgrade paths to keep up with the times. In that mini pc you won't have any upgrade option except maybe swapping the SSD, and not even this is guaranteed - could be soldered on too. So the only thing you can do is replace the whole thing again, having the full cost again.
Get yourself a mainboard, a nice Ryzen CPU, an dedicated GPU, 32 Gigs of RAM and an NVME drive, a Case and PSU your done.
I've done the works for you and slapped together an entry level gaming pc with lots of upgradeability:
https://geizhals.at/wishlists/4654924
This system is expandable in every way:
- The Cpu is on an current AM5 socket and you can upgrade whenever it starts to be the bottleneck
- You can simply double the ram when you decide to, but 32 GB is fine for now
- The PSU is decently sized and should support pretty much every sensible upgrade, just have an eye on it if upgrading the GPU
- The Mainboard has a lot of M.2 slots available to add more fast disk space and you can add sata disks in addition
- The Case has cable management, place for 2 hdds for tons of storage if needed and good connectivity (usb3, usb-c, audio, sdcard)
- The GPU is fast enough for current titles in 1080p, and older titles should run on 1440p too.
Disclaimer: i don't know where you are so i took that graphics card because it's a good price here and has nice performance without burning a hole in your purse, ymmv depending on where you live. You can definitely take a tad slower card and be fine - look up the card on https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/ and look for a card in that range that is priced good at your location, but dont go below 8 gb vram or you wont be happy.
And the next time you think your pc is too slow identify the slowest part and replace it (and sell off the old part), meaning that every few years you invest a little bit instead of a completely new mini-pc. same with broken parts - simply replace the part instead of the whole pc. it's better regarding e-trash too.
Regarding the Steam Deck: it's a nice device and i love mine to death, but for a main gaming rig it's neither powerful enough nor upgradeable enough - you would be back at playing about the same stuff performancewise you do now.
The steam deck can only play pretty recent titles because it only runs on 1280*720, and uses upscaling, which doesn't matter on the small screen, but it matters a lot on a larger display - i haven't tried using my steam deck to play cyberpunk hooked up to the TV, and i won't try it, because it's clearly too underpowered for that and would simply suck.
If your tight on money, building a system will always come out on top in the long term, specifically in terms of upgrade paths to keep up with the times.
If you’re actually strapped for cash, buying a used system will always come on top. If you’re patient, watch goodwill and other spots for home-built systems that have new enough components to have an upgrade path in the future.
If you are lucky and get your hands on a AM5 platform i agree, that would be even cheaper. keeping your eyes open on secondary markets can pay off for sure.
untorquer@lemmy.world 1 day ago
That’s a great midrange/budget rig!
Looking at OP’s link it’s still twice the cost though, and given their gaming requirements it may be overkill.
I would agree if space, portability, and modularity aren’t factors then your build is a very good suggestion.
Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 1 day ago
It really depends on the cost and availability of the GPU. I tried to look up the costs for the US, but those price spikes (some cards that go here in europe for 200€ run for 2300$ there, wtf?) make it hard - therefore it's really a case of "what is available and in the performance/buck range i'd like".
That said, you CAN get away with an about 1/3 Passmark score slower card for entry, which should open the field even on the US market.
Further probable cost reductions are the NVME drive - you can halve the space, but with game installations for AAA games cracking the 100GB mark, i wouldn't recommend it unless you have a lightning fast internet connection and dont have an issue with swapping the installed games in and out.
You can further reduce costs at the PSU by reducing efficiency (i went for 80 plus GOLD standard, which gives you around 88% efficiency according it's certificate), but what you save there at buying you pay with your energy bill.
Last thing you can do is reduce RAM to 16GB - for normal operation it's still enough, but we're very close to the point where 32GB become mandatory for good performance and it would be the first thing to upgrade - at least it would be easy and not very expensive to do so.
Taking all that together you can surely drop the costs here in the EU by around 100-150€ without losing upgrade potential, at the cost of dropping detail levels in AAA games to medium and probably some swapping issues with very RAM-dependent games (i'm looking at you, modded minecraft ⎝❮Ỡ益Ỡ❯⎠ ).