TANE, TS12, others, and my computer

[Bluewater]

Hey all,

I now have my first steady job (actually, I'm coming up on a year of employment) and my laptop is growing weary of running all my stuff. I'm hoping to take the strain off of it by transferring my games and such to a desktop, but I want to be able to get one that can run programs with a reasonable level of graphic and sound detail. My laptop (HP ENVY touchscreen) freezes up every once in a while and starts making this robot-like sound. Can't run TANE, can barely run TS12 (despite the fact that I got this laptop specifically to be able to run TS12 on more than "minimum system requirements"), and my other games have some sort of framerate issues. My question is, what would be a good desktop to buy? I'm looking at maybe 500-600 max because I still have a car and other payments to take care of. These are the games in running:

T:ANE (Can't run)
TS12 (Barely runs)
WarThunder (Lag)
Star Trek Online (Lag/Graphic and sound issues)
World of Warships (Occasional lag)
Heroes and Generals (Severe lag, graphic and sound issues)

Thanks!

-Bluewater

 

[pdkoester]

Honestly, I'd try to save more money than what you suggest you were budgeting for.
CPU should try, just suggesting, a high end Intel i5 or an i7. I went with the i7 4790K, unlocked multiplier... original was i7 975 Extreme Edition. That 975 CPU cost more than my upgrade this week!

...as for AMOUNT of memory, 16 GB should suffice, more is better to allow a lot of things to run at the same time... I went ahead and maximized it to 32 GB.

For the storage, I encourage you to get a Solid State Drive (SSD), and recommend Samsung's 850 Pro, at least for the operating system. About $216 for a 512 GB size. That could handle having the operating system and Trainz on it. I personally have a 1 TB sized one, to alleviate any future storage worries.

GPU, GTX 9X0 series Nvidia graphics card will work wonders! Wait a bit, the prices on these will start dropping, as the 10XX series is out now. The 970 should be more than enough, although I chose the 980.

PSU - power supply unit, should be sized for the power requirement of all the components you put into building your system.

Motherboard, most are pretty good today, Asus has been pretty good for me. MSI, Gigabyte, EVGA, ASRock, etc., those are pretty good. I personally got the Asus Z97-A / USB 3.1 model (socket 1150)

Sound... you could use the onboard, seems sufficient for most stuff, I went with Soundblaster Z... seems pretty good, but again just optional.