PC Builds state of play 2022

troyzer

Hi guys,

Let me know if this is in the wrong place but I wanted to get a general feel for the state of building PCs at the moment.

For some background, I'm primarily a console gamer but I do have a high spec laptop from PC Specialist that lets me play my map games, city sims, strategy etc. Nothing that's overly demanding graphics wise (I just leave that to my PS5).

My partner and I are finally buying our own place and it's been four years since I got my current laptop so I'm thinking of moving onto a full desktop build.

I've never had my own desktop build before and I know with COVID and crypto mining that card prices all over the price so I wanted to get an idea of what sort of budget you need in 2022 to build a desktop with middle of the road graphics but an absolute beast of a CPU/RAM that will last me at least five years. I say this because as I say, I'm not a big graphics person but I have found that the games I play are really CPU intensive (Paradox games in particular aren't really multithreaded and only run well on high end CPUs with amazing single core capability, I also play a lot of physics simulator games that are also CPU intensive). So I'd rather spend money there and upgrade the GPU later if need be.

I don't really have any peripherals either, but I'm not looking to go 4K and I'm not fussed on a competitive gaming level keyboard/mouse setup so I can save a few quid there as well if need be.

What do you guys reckon then? What kind of money would I need to be setting aside for such a rig?

ancapailldorcha

Hi,

You might have better luck in the PC Building & Upgrading forum here:

https://www.boards.ie/categories/pc-building-upgrading?utm_source=sidebar_categories

It looks like any sort of decent card will cost a fortune. I'm a bit Paradox fan and they're not that hard to run, really. I have an RX 580 and an R5 1600. Both were mid range at the time of buying, 2017 and have performed quite well. Late game in something like Hearts of Iron IV is laggy but even professional streamers have issues there as the AI just pumps out daft amounts of units.

troyzer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118526371#Comment_118526371

For some context, my laptop is running an i7 8850H and it really starts to chug in Paradox late games in particular. Some of that could be thermal issues with having a laptop which is good news because that could mean that even a modest outlay in 2022 would be a VAST improvement over my 2018 upper-mid tier laptop.

I'd love to have a PC that can demolish even late game HOI 4 division spam.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118526673#Comment_118526673

I'm not sure that such a PC exists though if streamers are memeing that their machines can't handle late game HOI4. It's likely due to limitations with the Clausewitz engine more than hardware. Best of luck though. Maybe someone knows better than me.

Kiith

I'm still running an i5 4700k and a GTX 1070, and its fine. Can't run any new games above medium, but no way in hell i'm spending €1k+ for a new GPU.

I'll buy a PS5 before that happens.

CastorTroy

I'm using a FX8320 with RX480 8GB and still able to play anything I try. Currently playing Half Life Alyx at Medium settings.

Guess that's the advantage of not being too worried about high settings as long as it's playable by my standards. 😁

troyzer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118533443#Comment_118533443

Neither am I. Which is why I don't mind saving on the GPU.

But Half Life Alyx isn't the kind of game I'm looking for. It's the CPU heavy games where graphic settings don't really affect performance that I'm after.

The CPU in my laptop has twice the CPU benchmark score of the FX8320 and it genuinely struggles with some of these CPU heavy games.

Skerries

I would go for a prebuilt as you will be hard pressed to find a gpu on your own especially without being fleeced

look at companies that deal in Ireland so you don't get hammered with duty like Dell, Lenovo, HP, PCSpecialist, I think also overclockers.co.uk as well