Of course, that wasn't exactly a promise to spend lots of money. I figured correctly that I wouldn't be getting a new computer for several years, and I knew that even a relatively inexpensive PC in the ambiguously distant future would be far more powerful than what I presently had. Then again, when investing in a new PC, one might as well invest enough to play contemporary games on the highest settings as well. So, whether I knew it or not, I was telling myself that someday I'd blow a bunch of money on an expensive toy.
It wasn't until about a year ago that I started to think more seriously about it. By this time, the personal computer had truly become my video game platform of choice, and the machine I had been using for years was starting to show its age, particularly with some of the more recent games. (I suppose I should be surprised that any of these modern games worked at all on such an old system, which had only been given a few small upgrades over the years). Although I'd only encountered a couple of games that simply refused to work at all, it was clear that it was time to move forward.
After some quick research, I decided that $800 would be a sufficient budget for a replacement. I just didn't know what to buy. My old PC had originally been a family computer not purchased by me, so I didn't know much about how to shop for a computer, let alone parts for a custom build. Of course, figuring this out doesn't really take a whole year. If I'd gotten my act together, I might have been done with the whole process by last Christmas, but I procrastinated. The holidays (and then spring and then summer) came and went before I got around to doing the research, setting aside the money, and making the purchase.
At this point, I could just buy one of the new consoles that are coming out later this year, but I've fallen out of love with consoles in general ever since I started playing shooters with a mouse, namely F.E.A.R. and its expansions. (I don't think I can ever go back to thumb sticks for anything requiring precision. Sure, consoles are still great for any genre that really does play better with a gamepad, but you can play those on a PC with a USB gamepad anyway.) Besides, very few of the games I've wanted to play over the past eight years have actually been console exclusives. Enough of them have been released for Windows that, throughout the lifetime of the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, I've been content to keep playing on the computer I already owned instead of buying new hardware. Now that I have another opportunity to get on the console bandwagon, I don't think that's going to change.
I can certainly see the appeal in the idea of standardized hardware, though. I've been agonizing for weeks over how best to balance the money I'm spending with the performance I'll get, but console owners don't need to make these tough decisions. I can also see the appeal in the exclusive games if there are enough of them to make a difference. However, I don't want to be stuck on the same hardware for the next eight years with no possibility of upgrading, and I don't really want enough of those upcoming console-exclusive games to justify the purchase of any particular console.
So, a number of weeks ago, I started actively researching PC parts, reading reviews of mid-to-high-end graphics cards and asking for advice in various places. One of those places, for better or for worse, was 4chan. It's worth noting that, on the site's /v/ and /g/ boards, the standard response to any question about PC building is a link to a guide called Logical Increments. I was wary about taking too much advice from a single popular source without going any further down the rabbit hole, but it seems to be a competently written guide, and a good starting place for anyone in my position. As of now, I highly recommend it, but the nature of the site means it changes constantly. I don't know how good it will be any number of months or years from now, if it still exists.
After some further research (which mostly involved lots of careful comparison of benchmarks, reviews, and prices), I did ultimately take quite a bit of advice from Logical Increments, getting a processor and a motherboard presently listed on the site's "Superb" tier and a graphics card which was until recently listed on the "Excellent" tier. Then I added some memory, some storage, a power supply, and a case, as well as an inexpensive optical drive (because I still have plenty of old games on discs), and I was done. Here's the breakdown:
CPU — $194.99Disregarding sales tax and applying the rebate, this puts my subtotal at $793.39. Most of the components were cheaper than they'd been in previous months, according to their respective price histories, so it looks like I got a decent price overall. Unfortunately, the effect of sales tax (usually a negligible annoyance) was a real bummer.
MOBO — $129.99
RAM — $68.46
HDD — $59.99
GPU — $209.99 (before $20.00 rebate)
PSU — $74.99
CD/DVD — $14.99
Case — $59.99
I made my purchases from three stores — Amazon, Newegg, and NCIX — and while NCIX didn't seem to add any tax to my subtotal, Amazon and Newegg both did. (I think the current rule for New Jersey, though I believe it's going to change soon, is that an online store must charge sales tax if it has a physical presence within the state, so I can only assume that NCIX does not.) After applying the 7% tax to everything but the CPU, RAM, and HDD, my $800 build was suddenly much closer to $850, which I can only bring down to around $830 if I do the mail-in rebate. I'm not sure if I will, though, because I've heard these rebates tend to require that you send in the proof of purchase that is also required to get a replacement under warranty, and I don't want to jump through too many hoops if I need a replacement part. So $850 it is, until further notice. If sales tax had been applied to everything, I'd be looking at $870 (or $850 after the potential rebate), so I guess I should be glad for that.
Did I really get a good deal? I'm sure someone will tell me I didn't. After deciding on my parts, I could have waited months to get the best possible deal on each individual component, but I felt it would be best to buy them all at once. (Keep in mind that I do want to test them all before any of them are too old to return.) I had already considered prices when choosing my components in the first place, and I'd have to do that work again if I waited long enough for prices to start fluctuating away from the low price/performance ratios I'd deliberately sought out, so I just bought the whole list as soon as I was ready. Sometimes prices go down if you wait, but sometimes they go up, and I can't see the future.
Yet, even if I did get a good deal on these parts, I can't help but wonder if it was simply a bad time to buy a PC, given next month's launch of Xbox One and PlayStation 4. The next-generation (and soon-to-be current-generation) consoles are as close as they'll ever be to state-of-the-art. Although this PC will easily crush the outgoing generation in terms of performance, it won't have such a strong lead for very long. It's also worth noting that many games released for Windows are actually ports that were optimized for consoles, so the performance on a PC might be worse even if the console has weaker hardware. Now that consoles are suddenly getting more powerful, I can only hope my PC will be ready for whatever I throw at it.
We also might see further price drops in the AMD graphics card I bought, since a new round of AMD cards have just been released. Everything I bought might be cheaper when Black Friday comes around, as well. Waiting for the holidays might be the best time-for-money trade-off I could have made. However, my experience with Black Friday sales is that the deals aren't as good as people think and everything sells out fast, so I can't even be sure that waiting for late November would have helped.
In any case, there's no sense in worrying about it now. I don't spend money on myself very often, so if the computer works and I enjoy using it, I'll call it a win. I'll admit that $800 plus tax is a pretty hefty price tag, though, especially when I haven't included the peripherals. (For the immediate future, I'll be using the monitor, speakers, keyboard and mouse from the old PC.) I haven't even included a copy of Windows (since I'm still trying to decide between 7 and 8).
To put things in perspective: My brother just got a new laptop for around $1000 (and my computer will play Crysis a lot better than his), but the cost of that laptop probably includes an extended warranty. The cost of mine doesn't. I'm putting my faith — perhaps too much faith — in manufacturer's warranties, which might screw me over if one of my parts dies two years down the line. Buying additional protection plans separately for each important component likely would have pushed my budget over the edge. But at least I'll be able to replace a single part without replacing the whole rig. I'm not sure if my brother, or any console owner, can say the same.
All that really concerns me right now is the Sapphire GPU, since I've heard that Sapphire's customer service is somewhat lackluster. On the other hand, I've heard some good things about the quality of their cards. I guess I'll just have to hope mine isn't defective; if it is, I'll just have to hope I can arrange for a new one without too much trouble. If worst comes to worst, and my new PC explodes after a month, I'll just hope I'm selected for beta testing one of the prototype Steam Machines, preferably the one with a GTX Titan. (Please?)
In times like these, the most comforting thought is that what's done is done; my PC is ordered and will be arriving in many parts shortly. At least, that's what I hope. Thanks to the free shipping from Amazon, I might not get to put this beast together until the weekend before Halloween. In the meantime, I'll keep on playing old games and some indie stuff from Humble Bundle. The Binding of Isaac, by the way, is a fantastic game. I regret that I didn't get around to it sooner.
