Leaderboard

Always good to welcome more to the PC gaming 🙂 I'd disagree with Ren though about going prebuilt, while there is more hassle in building your own at your budget I'm almost certain it will be cheaper (or a better spec) and the warranty on individual parts is usually equal or longer to that offered by system builders. GPU - Parts are a pain at the moment but as James said an RTX3070 (or AMD 6800, maybe 6700 depending on benchmarks) at minimum should see you sorted for a good few years. Obviously if you want to splash the cash there's always a 3080 too. Or even simpler - buy the highest card up this list as your budget allows; https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html CPU - To disagree with Phil here, I think this is AMD all the way. The Ryzen 5000 series CPU's beat Intel in everything so that's what I'd be looking at. The numbering scheme is pretty simple; for your budget buy the highest number you can. Or, again, simpler - buy the highest CPU up this list as your budget allows; https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html Motherboard - will depend on which CPU you go for though I'd be aiming for middle of the road on price here. Top end has everything typically but is overkill unless you're pushing voltages and overclocks etc. The cheap end tend to use not so great caps and vrm's and some with no coolers on them either. Basically after that you're just looking to make sure they have the features you want (enough sata ports for however many drives you want, 3 or 6 audio jacks or optical, enough usb ports etc.) RAM - 16Gb 3200Mhz still seems to the be sweet sport for price and performance. 16Gb is the minimum I'd recommend but should see you good for a few years and somewhere you can save some £ now as it's easy enough to add another 16Gb in a few years if you find you need it. Power Supply / PSU - 650W should be enough though I'd probably say go for 750W as you'd be in a more efficient range of the PSU. PSU's are a pain though as every brand has good and bad ones, Corsair, SuperFlower and Seasonic generally fair the best but not all their PSU's are good. Find a few in your budget and google for reviews, there's usually full teardown reviews of them and it should let you know if it that model is a good one or not. Storage - NVMe for Windows, 500Gb as an absolute minimum but 1tb would be better. After that, it depends what you want to store and how much. Case - This will depend on where you want to put it though other factors to consider are to make sure it can fit your motherboard size (itx, m-atx, atx or e-atx - the motherboard listing will tell you). After that it's just down to how many drives you want, front panel usb's etc. Some cases come with front panel card readers which can be useful as it saves digging out cables camera's all the time. The final thing to consider is CPU cooling - depending on the route you choose you need to make sure it will fit. Almost all cases will list maximum height for air cooler and fan/radiator support for AIO liquid coolers. Monitor - As already said 1440p is the sweet spot still. 4k is still a bit out of reach for gaming at good refresh rates but 1440p isn't plus it's a nice resolution bump over 1080p. If you want it for photography, I'd look at one with good colour accuracy which generally speaking means an IPS monitor. However there are good TN and VA panels too so similar to PSU's this will be best done by googling for review of specific monitors.

He's a disagreeable cunt, don't encourage him 😁

Damn, Greboth... you need to post this up as a guide somewhere. I agree with every word you said. Great post.

Good to have opinions on this and great to see so much advice. If my 2p is worth anything, I have a Secret Lab chair and if you can afford one, then i'd always say buy one. I think its similar to having Astros as a headset over a cheaper version. Both do the same job but this chair has helped me no end, especially now I live in it every day for 12ish hours at least a day in lockdown. As we seem to have a bit of time here as i'm sure Gaz will be delighted about 😄 from a dummy to another dummy when it comes to this stuff around the highly tech guys and girls, we should make this as simple as possible. A self build I think is the way forward because it helps you learn as you go along. All it is, is a fairly simple jigsaw, and something that could be walked through on video. What helped right at the start though was - what pieces do I need! I think @Greboth pulls this out the most so Gary can see what he needs so he can learn along the way. Can someone check the list i've took from Greebs post and add to it where possible please? I've added Keyboard and Mouse which were missing at first glance. GPU / Video Card CPU CPU Cooler (Optional but you might as well) Motherboard RAM / Memory Power Supply /PSU Storage - SSD Storage - Internal Hard Drive Case Monitor Keyboard Mouse Operating System Chair (Optional like opening reply) @techno be super clear on the budget because now you know your money needs to cover these 13 must-have items above. Its then putting 12 of those items into the Case (13th item). I apologise if i'm sounding like i'm making you suck eggs but i'm dumming it down to how I told myself because I just turned myself off all things PC for years I hadn't pretty much forgotten everything I knew (which was very little compared to these guys anyway). The budget then should be like how @J4MES OX4D said. Minimum spend with a max you'd go up to. Make the objectives real. You want for officey stuff and photography and then I imagine some hard working games we all commonly play, right? If so, then I'm sure the others here will take your list and do a PC Part Picker List so you can start seeing what each part costs, lowest price today and where to buy them from. Once you get there, then its all about next steps of building it which i'm sure we can all work out together with you. But let's take one step at a time i'd say 😄 Great to see you making the jump though, one of the best things I did in recent years!

We are, not entirely sure you need to😘

Gary, please ignore one piece of Lee's advice.....do NOT try and put the monitor, keyboard and mouse inside the case, it'll make using the system a bit difficult and you might have trouble getting the side panels back on! 🤣

We're supposed to practice? 😕

I don't feel like starting a new thread about this game. I started really playing it on Saturday, and am now in a good part of the game where I can wander around. Thought it was interesting? Amusing? to stumble upon a bloody barrel with a hand sticking out of it. Not sure why it's there. But here it was.:

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... The chair I have from SecretLab is comparable in price to what's in office stores... with a better build quality and more comfortable. I've gone through so.many.office chairs between home and work. This is so ergonomic and comfortable. I think the gaming chair will need to depend on the quality and consideration. For example, SecretLab takes into account your height and weight. My chair is different that @TurboR56Mini 's chair. It makes a huge difference.

No apology needed Im at the stage where I haven't even bought the eggs that require sucking so your post is very helpful and saved me the time of piecing an actual list together. I also took a quick look through the links @Greboth posted. Thanks for the suggestion of putting a post up its definitely opened my eyes to what's involved and provided me with a definite learning opportunity.

I have an admittedly over engineered gaming chair (Noble Hero for height not weight), yes it was expensive but, with all the other PC stuff I do for bowls, part time work, etc I reckon I'm in it 5 - 6+ hours a day during autumn/winter and I think it's great. I never ache when I'm finished. Had it coming up for eighteen months and no cushion sag so far. Very pleased with it

I'd already decided to do this tbh, I want something that's suitable for both gaming and relaxing in. I'd also ended up on a site that sells reconditioned ejector seats from f4 phantoms😳

As part of looking for something to entertain whilst stuck in the house this year, i've really started to get into my board games as part of having something different to do whilst stuck in the house. The general feel for these have been to either be single player games or decent group games that aren't too difficult to get to grips with so the kids could join in easily. We've really enjoyed these so far and i thought it'd be good to share the experiences of these games with you all I'll continue to add to the thread as the collection grows as i have no doubt it will! So here goes!!! @GazzaGarratt - Told you i'd make the thread eventually!! 🤣 Edit: To be clear on the Stretch rating, i'm using a proper scale of 1-10 where 5 is an average game not poor

As my daughter is hopefully leaving home for good this year I have a spare room. This room used to be a place where my weights and other assorted shit lived in my house, that is not going to happen again. Due to covid stopping me spending cash on fun I've now got some money to finally waste on PC gaming, something I've thought about in the past but ultimately dismissed. This is possibly largely to do with not wanting to waste a significantly sum of money( though that's been happening throughout my life especially at various sex shops due to being married but that's a different post altogether 😉) so PC gaming for noobs any help/advice is welcome because I know jack shit. It's not something I need to rush into and with covid I hear hardware is still hard to get. I've looked into furniture as I want a space for myself as the wife has decided my usual gaming space, our front room is her office. I will when they are available add a ps5 as well. So publications,.websites and general things to consider all will give me something more interesting to look at than actually doing work at work. Oh I will also want it for other computer type stuff, no not porn🙄 but my photography shit which will be one of my other pastimes that gets some love this year. Thanks in advance. 🤔

11,000,001 now!

11m views!?

Did my 5:15AM HIIT workout today. Sometimes, what my coaches program leave me with anxiety. This week is actually more to my liking. 1/5/21 Workout 20 minute AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) 10 ring rows 10 ball slams 15 leg raises 20 box jumps Thoughts: Yup, still really hate cardio. But, I prefer old-school HIIT like this. I'll do box jumps faster than step ups. I'll do rowing before running. Apparently, some movements, I just move better if they are the more difficult versions. Have zero clue how many rounds I did. I stopped counting after 6. There was a point when I was about to do the ball slams, and I just did a single one. Had to catch my breath from previous movements. The coach turned around and said, "Sooo.. that's 1." Post-workout, he said to me that today was the fastest he's seen me move... so far. I've only been with him for 4 months. He, the other coach, and I have this "joke"/understanding that I always move at half-speed. Always. For me, I have a mental barrier to really go 100% in my HIIT. I'm literally just trying to survive lol. So, no, I don't think I will ever go 100% like some of the others. I might consider doing some jump rope later just to make it a full cardio day.

Hope you've all had a chance to practice. I'll set up the lobby early for those that want to get some laps in. Good luck tonight smashing @Misneach_ into the Blue Moon barriers😉

Please tell me @GazzaGarratt you didn't get a pod one??? Gotta grind those beans big boy!

Event Title: Deep Stone Crypt Raid Event Author: RedBeardCG Calendar: Destiny Calendar Event Date: 01/10/2021 09:00 AM After the success of the run last Sunday I thought it'd be fun to keep it rolling and go for another run this weekend! Deep Stone Crypt Raid N.B. If viewing this via the FG App, please visit the Calendar event via browser to RSVP. Thanks.

I'd be interested to give the seal a try! It's nice to have a raid group in general and if we wanna mix things up and go for a seal that's cool too. Either way works for me! I'll make a post for next Sunday and we can see what folks are up for that day.

The Turing Test. This is a puzzle game and honestly, it's worth a play through. The puzzles are simply just putting things in the right order, at the right time. It doesn't compare to the likes of Portal and honestly I was a little disappointed in the puzzles difficulty. Most of them don't take much thinking thought to get right, some I swear I didn't do as was intended but got the end result anyway. Graphically it looks great and plays really well, I completed main story (no optional side puzzles) in about 5 hours. I probably wouldn't buy this at full price but if you grab it in the sales, it's worth giving it a chance.

SpyCraft got changed a good bit in an update or patch a while back. It makes you immune to CUAV/Field Mics and you don't trigger proxy mines or gas mines. Also can hack enemy care packages. I'm sure there is a few more things it does just can't remember them all. Ninja is useless Vs Field Mics now, you show up on them.

DATE: 4th January 2021 SESSION: Week 8 Day 1 CALORIES: 2864 SESSION: Deadlift 3x5@170kg Box Squats 8x2@65kg+44kg Chains FEELINGS: Today is the start of my body recomposition, I’ve had a great time stuffing my face over the winter but it’s to trim for the new year. I will do a post about body recomp as there is a lot of miss information out there. Happy new lockdown! IMG_0586.MP4

Please do not buy a gaming chair. Go to an office store and buy a good ergonomic chair. It will be more than half the price of a 'gamer chair'.

With Blue Moon at 12 laps on Hard, cars will just about manage to di the full distance without needing to pitstop. Tyres will be a bit fucked on the last couple of laps but no need to change them. You need to be doing a lap in under 45 seconds. I tried half a dozen cars and they all managed that. Interlagos is a similar story, less laps but tyres may need to be changed, that's up to each driver and which tyres they choose to start with may influence that. Tricky little track this.

That’s a good shout James except...... ....You can’t get 30xx cards for love nor money and the same is generally true about the new gen CPU ranges. I’ve looked at pre-builts recently as there were rumours system builders were getting first dibs of the new gear but even they are say you can order but you’re in a queue on a “first come,first served “ basis I think you’ll need to be patient like me Gazz and use the time for research. Hopefully prices and availability will normalise in say 3 months

No Thanks This is a card game based around numbers and the idea being to have the smallest total once the deck is exhausted. The numbers in play are numbered 3-35. Everybody starts the game with no cards and between 7-11 "pass counters". The first card is then revealed from the deck and then it will be down to the first person to decide whether to take the card or to play a pass counter (No Thanks!) Obviously there is slightly more complexity and tactics to the game which is down to 2 factors. When you elect to take the card, you also collect all of the pass counters that have been placed previously. This will then give you an advantage in being able to pass in further rounds. Any cards that you have in a sequence only count to the lowest value. So collecting the 35, 34, 33, 32, 31 & 30 cards would only actually count as 30 points. This is a great dynamic to the game as you then start to think about not only what cards you need to lower your deck value but what cards you could take that would act as "blockers" for your opponents. We've found this one a bit more tactical in the thinking and given this it was difficult to get the psychology of the game through to the younger members of the family. Another issue is that the game is best played with a minimum of 3 players and it really is noticeable in the enjoyment when you play as a duo. I think i'd love to have a bash of this game with a group of adults as i think it'd be a great game, but maybe not as much a game to have an experience of a laugh with. Stretch's board game rating - At the moment, no thanks 4 out of 10 stretches

Love seeing new things like this. Nice to pop in and see how you're doing - let me know how it helps the motivation finding the time to write up how you got on each workout 👍

Ghost Blitz For anybody that's played Dobble and enjoyed it, this game takes to a whole new level of franticness! In this game there are 5 pieces: White ghost Grey mouse Green bottle Blue book Red armchair Then a card is turned over from the deck and it is down to you to decide which piece corresponds with the card and grab it from the table as quickly as you can. No points here for just shouting out the name! You must physically have the piece in your hand to earn the point Like with Dobble, the card may show an exact match to the piece, however the real curve balls are the cards that do not match anything. You then have to go through a process of elimination with what is wrong on the card which will leave one option remaining which is then the piece you want! So if we take the picture below as an example: The card showing a picture of the grey mouse is an exact match and you need to grab the grey mouse as soon as you can! However the other card doesn't show an exact match. So the process of elimination would go as follows: The armchair is the wrong colour, so this is eliminated The armchair is white which is actually the colour of the ghost, so the ghost is eliminated The book is the wrong colour, so this is eliminated The book is green which is actually the colour of the bottle, so the bottle is eliminated Which leaves the grey mouse as the correct piece to pick up It's amazing how quickly the brain can begin to process this elimination way of thinking once you're dialled in which leads to some really frantic grabs for pieces. When you get the right piece you earn the card, then the next card from the deck is revealed and so on until all the cards have been used. The winner is (shockingly!) the one with the most cards once the deck is exhausted. What is also really good on this game is the fact that age doesn't seem to play a part in this game and kids vs grown ups can be a really competitive affair. As a point of reference, Etta is (currently) 5 and she is able to more than hold her own on this and also correct the grown ups sometimes!! This has been our go to game this year since we've bought it and spent many, many hours having a great laugh with it. The box size is probably the size of 2 playing card boxes which means it's nice and portable and you only need a very small playing surface to be able to have a game. At just over £10 for this, it's an absolute steal and i'm sure this will be at the forefront of my game collection for quite a considerable time Stretch's board game rating - A ghostly 9.5 out of 10 stretches

Rhino Hero Probably the quickest game to play out of my current collection as it can be over in the space of a few minutes depending on how it goes! However, there is no chance that you'd play this for only one game, it's just too damn addictive! This is basically the opposite of Jenga, so instead of having to rearrange a pre-existing tower, you have to build this one up from scratch. It's the method of how you do this that makes this fun and different every time. There are 2 types of card in the game. A roof card, which you place on top of the walls and it will show markings on them to show where the next wall structures need to be built: And the wall cards themselves: There are also some roof cards which show the Rhino Hero character's face. On these cards, you have to move the character up to the relevant spot on the roof card whilst also placing the wall cards You then just continue to build the tower until either somebody makes the tower fall over or you run out of wall cards and you (all) win! I can't stress how much i like this game! It's fun every time we've played and it always creates a good atmosphere in the room. The simplicity of this also means that there is no problem with leaving the kids to have a game and there's no need for a referee to be involved!! There is an expansion pack to this game where there are more complicated structures to build in, but the premise remains the same. I have no doubt i'll be investing in this at some point in time and i'll be sure to add on the review into this thread Stretch's board game rating - A Super Rhino 8.5 out of 10 stretches

Bandido This is a great and simple card game where the object of the game is to trap the Bandido in the tunnels and send him back to jail. You do this by building a tunnel network using the cards in your hand to close off the escape routes. Once you've played a card, you then pick another up from the deck and the game continues until you either trap the Bandido, or you run out of cards and there are still open tunnel routes So in essence the game is very simple, but it is bloody difficult!! I've lost count of the amount of games i've had where i've got the tunnel network down to the last one, but no cards to close them up and then going on a bad run where that 1 open tunnel then proceeded to actually be 7 in 3 cards played time! However, it's such a quick game that there's no real element of frustration or wasted time with the difficulty level and it really gives that "one more try" vibe. The package itself is smaller than a standard set of playing cards which is great for being able to transport it, but you will need a big space to play this game! It has taken up my entire dining room table on many a time and there were times that it was actually overflowing in one direction as we tried our best to close off the network in that direction!! At just over £10, it's a great game and can be played solo or with a group of people. The only catch with the group play is that you cannot specifically say what cards you have in your hand which does lead to some face palming moments but it's all in good fun. Stretch's board game rating - A solid 7 out of 10 stretches

£1500 is a decent budget - a rig with a 3070 would be a fantastic entry point and it'll already get you ahead of the PS5 for the entire generation. This could handle 1440p like butter and would be great for 4K gaming for years to come. Trouble is you'd probably need another £500 on the side for peripherals and a monitor. If you aim to spend £1000 on the device and £500 on the side, you'll probably restrict yourself to 2K gaming and then have a pricey upgrade route going forward if you wish. It will be perfectly satisfactory though and still offer a great gaming experience but for just a few hundred more, you could literally put yourself in the high-end gaming bracket and get the best out of what is technically possible. It's a great time right now to be getting a new PC and there are some excellent pre-built devices available in the UK at exceptional prices. 2K would offer the best value and see you comfortable for many years and with a 3070, you'd get all the extra visual effects. 4K would be more demanding as time wears on but right now, a card like that should be comfortable at maxing out games at 60fps.

FG has form for building our own machines so I will encourage that😁 My advice is to first decide what display you want, 1080p, 1440p or 4K. That will determine which GPU to go for. Personally I'd go for 1440p. It's the sweet spot between lovely graphics and high frames. There's some good GPUs that will give 1440 and all the fps, that won't destroy your wallet. Then we need to decide AMD or Intel. @Diddumswill be better suited for that advice as I'm Intel only.

Spend the bulk of your budget for the PC on the GPU for gaming. Then, spend a hefty amount on the CPU, that will help with gaming and your photography.

A good starting point is your budget - that should enable us to point you in the right direction and we'll go from there.

Easiest recommendation on gaming chair? SecretLab For PC? Are you doing a pre-build or you building yourself? I no longer build myself because it's not cost effective enough to warrant it. If I'm going to drop $2k on components, I want a service and warranty. Also, going to PC build companies tend to get you the scarce components that are eaten up by bots.. like the GPUs.