Windows 7 / Windows 8 and Gaming (new PC) - UPDATE!

So I'm thinking of finally getting a new PC.

Currently running XP and pretty happy with it.

But since new machines don't come with XP, and XP isn't technically supported anymore, I'm looking at 7 or 8. I have a laptop with 8 on it, and I hate it. I mean, I actually physically hate it to the point where I'm repulsed by it. I've never loathed an operating system like this before.

So my first question is, have they allowed users to customise it back to the standard menu format yet? I don't want to have to put up with stupid tablet-style tile crap. I want my Windows 8 to look like my Windows XP (which has the 'classic' shell), or at the very worst, look like Windows 7 (which I use at work).

Also, if they HAVE fixed the Windows 8 tile crap, is there any reason why I SHOULD get 8 over 7? I'm leaning towards 7 because I am more familiar with it and I don't like to get new things until I know they're well supported.

I'm thinking of getting an Alienware PC because I've never had one and I like aliens, but I might just take some specs down to the local PC shop and order them to put me one together.

I'm thinking option 1 or 2 here:  http://www.dell.com/uk/p/alienware-x51-r2/pd.aspx#overrides=d00ar201:11~576513|d00ar203:11~576513

Could I get some feedback pleases?

(Should state, mostly I'll be playing my old PC games such as BG, Witcher, NWN and all of its many sequels and expansions, Spore, etc etc. Since I kinda have my X-Box for generic non-PC gaming anyway. I know Win7 runs BG because I've tried it on a 7 machine, but I don't know if 8 is as old-game-friendly as 7. Mostly I use my PC for light gaming, Scrivener and interweb browsing, but I'd like to know it can handle newer games should the need arise).

New PCs and laptops don't come with W7 any more - W8 is the only choice. You'll have to pick up W7 seperately as an OEM disc.
Don't purchase Alienware, it's the biggest wankpile and a waste of your money - better to build yourself. I'm on my phone so response is short, I'll edit in a longer reply tomorrow if no one else has done by then.

Leifr Eiríksson said:

New PCs and laptops don't come with W7 any more - W8 is the only choice. You'll have to pick up W7 seperately as an OEM disc.

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WHAT?!? Well, that's just ridiculous. Alienware does come with and OEM but they charge you extra for it (I wouldn't mind paying extra if it gets me away from Windows-8~). Hell, I still have my original XP installer which is good for like another 3 installs, but sadly it's 32bit and I'd really like to get the most out of my RAM.

Don't purchase Alienware, it's the biggest wankpile and a waste of your money - better to build yourself.

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Noted, shall avoid and build one myself.

I'm on my phone so response is short, I'll edit in a longer reply tomorrow if no one else has done by then.

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Even short responses are appreciated.

For the record, I've almost always had AMD processors and ATI cards. Can't complain about the processors, but the ATIs have been a pain. in. the. backside. So I'm thinking of switching to Intel and Nvidia. But I might go completely crazy and combine AMD and Nvidia together.

I'm currently running an Intel processor with AMD graphics - ATI no longer exists (it was purchased by AMD). For games I recommend against an AMD processor because they are simply not as good as Intel's offerings.

As for operating system, without hesitation I put my support towards 7.

More details later if you'd like when I get to a proper keyboard.

Splintert said:

I'm currently running an Intel processor with AMD graphics - ATI no longer exists (it was purchased by AMD).

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Well, they existed when I built my current PC. Six years ago :\

For games I recommend against an AMD processor because they are simply not as good as Intel's offerings.

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Aight. I thought as much, but I've been out of the loop with PC-related stuff for soooo long that I wasn't sure which was best anymore.

As for operating system, without hesitation I put my support towards 7.

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Sweet, I thought as much.

More details later if you'd like when I get to a proper keyboard.

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Cool.

Speaking of keyboard, I don't need peripherals or anything... I actually like my old Philips monitor. It's not HD but it's good enough for me, and I have a keyboard and mouse which suits me fine. It's literally just the pros and cons of a rig that I need, as well as any suggestions (particularly about GFX and CPU. The rest I can wing it)

Not exactly talented in the arts of PC-crafting but I've picked up some pieces of information that I find useful.

-As far as I know, you can customize your Windows 7 to be somewhat (if not completely) like Windows XP.

-Intel processors are more expensive than AMD but offer better performance for gaming (now anyway, considering that the new consoles have AMD processors which have more cores than Intel processors, future games will start utilizing more cores more efficiently, making AMD a more valid choice for gaming. Not saying that it wouldn't serve you just fine now though.)

-Top end Nvidia cards tend to be more expensive than top tier ATI cards but they're quieter and run cooler (with the factory coolers at least), performance should be pretty similar with both brands so I can see why people would favor ATI cards. But then again, I love the program that came with my GTX 780ti, makes managing drivers even easier.

-Parts usually fit together as long as your motherboard has the correct slot for your CPU, Intel or AMD and then both have varying chipsets of their own with each processor series. Also you might want to check that your processor supports the speed of your RAM or you may end up like I did with 1600MHz ram running at 1333MHz. It should be possible to override those limitations though, or so was said somewhere sometime.

-Don't buy a bad PSU, that can seriously kick you in the arse later.

-Definitely build your own PC. It's like lego but cooler, also you'll save money.


Couldn't come up with anything else for now, I hope even some of that is of any use. It's also only my opinion of course, the debate regarding Intel vs AMD or Nvidia vs ATI is very old and still ongoing but what I said shouldn't differ from actual facts too much.

Pharaoh Llandy said:

Leifr Eiríksson said:

New PCs and laptops don't come with W7 any more - W8 is the only choice. You'll have to pick up W7 seperately as an OEM disc.

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WHAT?!? Well, that's just ridiculous.

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It does suck, but it seems to be the way with almost all new PCs. However, one advantage of a custom build is being able to choose your OS.

Also, this site has been a godsend for me while picking out the parts for my own build. You might find it handy: http://pcpartpicker.com/

Pharaoh Llandy said:

Speaking of keyboard, I don't need peripherals or anything... I actually like my old Philips monitor. It's not HD but it's good enough for me, and I have a keyboard and mouse which suits me fine. It's literally just the pros and cons of a rig that I need, as well as any suggestions (particularly about GFX and CPU. The rest I can wing it)

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Excellent. For the most part, the rest of the stuff doesn't matter all that much anyways.

CPU:

The most important part of your system. Probably cannot upgrade without also buying a new motherboard and RAM. Overall performance over the past 3 years or so has more or less not moved at all, giving you a huge selection of almost-equal processors to choose from. Despite Intel utterly dominating AMD in the high-end for games, AMD processors aren't totally useless. Pros and cons listed below:

Intel:
+ High Instructions Per Clock (more performace per GHz)
+ Excellent single core performance (all games are limited by the speed of their main thread, no matter how well they are multithreaded)
+ Good overclockability (with K series)
+ Power efficient
+ Generally quieter, cooler as a result of the above
- More expensive, in general
- More expensive motherboards, in general
- Hyperthreading is crap (especially for gaming)
- K series costs a lot more than non-K

AMD:
+ Cheaper, in general
+ All FX processors unlocked for overclocking
+ Far better Integrated Graphics performance
+ Very high multicore performance for much lower price than equivalent Intel offerings
+ AMD's "modules" are far superior to Intel's Hyperthreading
- Power inefficient
- Runs hotter
- Lower Instructions Per Clock
- Not as good single thread performance due to above

Conclusions:
It really depends if you're willing to spend a little more on your processor/motherboard combination to get the highest performance available on desktops, or if you'd rather save a few bucks and get something that's "good enough". I've used both AMD and Intel systems on modern games, and for the vast majority of current generation games, you will not notice much of a difference between Intel and AMD. Where you will notice a difference is on select CPU intensive games like the Arma series, most large scale strategy games, and similar.

My personal recommendation for you would be to go for an AMD FX processor. Your listed games aren't going to come close to stretching the legs even of a low tier modern processor. You simply do not need the increased level of performance that Intel offers. Alternatively, you could opt for a lower tier Intel processor to gain the benefits of increased IPC without breaking the bank, although you'll end up with a lower clocked processor that gets outdated sooner.



GPU:

You have 3 options, listed in order of my personal preference. The GPUs are considerably harder to compare because they are much closer in competition:

AMD Dedicated GPU
Historically they're known for driver issues and support problems, however I believe that AMD has drastically improved in those areas over the past few years. Their GPUs, despite supposedly having these driver issues, are maintaining toe-to-toe comparisons with their primary competition, Nvidia. This testifies to the raw power of their cards.

AMD is also historically known for being the more cost effective choice for dedicated graphics cards. Their mid-tier offerings have either outpowered, outpriced, or outfeatured their competition.

In general, AMD's cards, while keeping toe to toe with Nvidia in terms of performance, has suffered under other categories like power consumption, noise, heat, or size if that matters. From my observation, AMD's cards are less efficient, louder, run hotter and are physically larger than Nvidia's equivalent cards.

Nvidia Dedicated GPU
I don't know nearly as much of Nvidia, you'll have to get more information from others here who've used their cards, however I believe that Nvidia offers superior driver service, and as stated above their cards run quieter, cooler, are smaller, and more efficient than AMD's. For example, my laptop has an Nvidia GTX 460M which I used for Skyrim when it came out. Over the course of a year, the driver updates that improved performance on Skyrim increased performance by at least 100%, allowing me to run highest settings smoothly on a card that is horrifyingly weak to modern standards.

Integrated Graphics, Intel and AMD
Intel: ****
AMD: Slightly less ****, but ****.

Don't bother.



In order to make any specific recommendations, I will need more specifics like what kinds of modern games you'll be playing (or what types of games you'll play in the future), how much you're willing to spend, and other constraints like power usage, noise, heat, etc.

Leifr Eiríksson said:

New PCs and laptops don't come with W7 any more - W8 is the only choice.

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My new computer came with Windows 7. Agree with the stuff about Alienware, though.

I've also heard that there is no absolutely no reason to go W8 over W7. A friend of mine has 8 and while the 8.1 brought back the Start-menu and taskbar, it's still clumsy and ugly and wants to throw you back at the touch-screen tile abomination at every turn.

As for what Splintert recommends, remember that older games don't really support multithreading - and NWN2 is horribly non-optimized - so you're better off with Intel processors.

Desktop PC users are not the target customers for Windows8. It's the fault of computer brands to sell desktop PCs with Windows8. It was clearly made and designed for touchscreen devices.

Jhessail said:

I've also heard that there is no absolutely no reason to go W8 over W7. A friend of mine has 8 and while the 8.1 brought back the Start-menu and taskbar, it's still clumsy and ugly and wants to throw you back at the touch-screen tile abomination at every turn.

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I've got Windows 8, and the only time I ever see the metro interface is for a couple of seconds during startup.

On my desktop PC I have Windows 7, and this menu is one thing I definitely miss from Win8:

Windows key > type whatever you want > Enter

A beautiful tool destroyed in Win8 by sorting the results and forcing a mouse click.

Right. So. After much careful consideration and my PC throwing a couple of hissyfits over the last couple of days which has made me super-paranoidly set up my Firefox Sync and start backing up 1) my writing folder, 2) my music folder, 3) everything else (in that order) so I don't completely lose 6 years' worth of ****, I've decided I really have to bite the bullet and go order some delicious new PC-ness this weekend (hopefully get it the week after).

I've taken into consideration the stuff everyone's mentioned, and decided I've come away with 3 main aims:

1) My day-to-day PC usage should be anger/frustration free. Booting up my PC should be a joy, not a trauma. I use my PC almost every day for interweb stuff (usually just 1 to 2 hours), but quite extensively at weekends for interweb and writing. As a result, I'd like my new PC to be nice and quiet, unlike my current monstrosity which is so loud I have to switch it off if I want to watch TV or have a nap.

2) I want to play my old games, as mentioned in one of my previous posts. Old games will predominantly be what I play, because for new games I have the Xbox. But I would also like to be able to play some new games too. Which brings me on to...

3) Witcher 3. I want to be able to play right through The Witcher 1, 2 and 3 (when it is released). Of course, I realise Witcher 3 will be a brand new game and therefore will likely have some pretty high specs, therefore with this in mind I've come up with the following:

* Operating system: Windows 7.
- Should this be W7 Home Premium 64 Bit, or W7 Pro 64 Bit? I'm leaning towards Pro, which is an extra £40, but I'd need to know the benefits of one over the other.

* I'll probably need an Intel, for their coolness, quietness, power-efficiency, and decent combination of old-game friendliness and Witcher 3 friendliness. Looking at the W3 specs, I've selected the Intel Core i5-2500K which runs as 3.3 but seems it can be overclocked to 3.7, which I suspect will be MORE than enough. It's not cheap, and it'll be overkill for my older games, but I have a little freedom with my finances and would like to invest in something that's not going to break the bank but leave me wanting.
- The specs are here:  http://www.intel.co.uk/buy/uk/en/product/components/intel-core-i5-2500k-processor-6m-cache-370-ghz-126110
- Apparently I can get it from Tesco for £257, but I'll look around and compare prices a little. If anyone can suggest something "similar but slightly better" I'm willing to go to £300 on the CPU.

* Graphics: (and here, I have to strongly resist the urge to get a GTX 690 ) I'm gonna go with Nvidia, simply because I've had so many problems with AMD in the past. I quite like the sound/price of the GTX 660 Ti, as described here:  http://www.geforce.co.uk/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-660ti
- I'm expecting to pay about £150ish for this. Although if somebody wants to lend me the money I could get the 690 

* PSU: Looking for something big and quiet. I currently have a 950w PSU which makes a lot of noise. I'm looking for something around the 650-700w mark just to be EXTRA cautious and not blow up the PSU like the last 3 I had when my friend gave me an Nvidia card which was broken and blew 3 PSUs (my emotional breakdown around the time was immortalised in some thread I'm too horrified to go searching for).
- Suggestions?

* Motherboard: I'm pretty content to leave this to the shopfolks to work around.

* RAM: How much? DDR-what? If I had 8GB, as it looks like I may need to run W3, will that be adequate? Or should I fork out extra for 16?

* Oh poop. My monitor isn't HD. Am I going to need to get a new monitor to get the most out of my Geforce? Or to actually make it work at all? I have a Philips 190B4 19-inch Color LCD SXGA:  http://www.manualslib.com/manual/123198/Philips-190b4.html

* Soundcard: I'm not fussy. Will probably be happy with onboard sound. No need for anything soundblaster pro or expensive (I don't have a sub or want to spend money buying one).

* Standard DVD/RW drive etc etc. Modem will have wifi capability but I prefer to use my cable.

Did I forget anything? I'll be heading off to Make This So on Saturday morning so I'd appreciate any feedback/answers to my queries before then.

unlike my current monstrosity which is so loud I have to switch it off if I want to watch TV or have a nap.

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You have my sympathies. Loud PCs are annoying.

I currently have a 950w PSU

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Holy ****. And this is on an older rig? 

Yeah, I don't think you'll be needing anything that big, even for a new computer.

RAM: How much? DDR-what? If I had 8GB, as it looks like I may need to run W3, will that be adequate?

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DDR3 is what you want. As I understand it 8 GB is fine for most things, and will probably be perfectly adequate for older games. Dunno about The Witcher 3 though (I'll wait for someone who knows more about what he's talking about to answer that question :p). 

Did I forget anything?

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Yeah. You forgot the storage (hard drive/solid state drive), case, and whatever you're going to do for cooling (fans/water cooling/etc, especially if you're going to overclock).

Arvenski said:

I currently have a 950w PSU

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Holy ****. And this is on an older rig? 

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Nah, the PSU's a lot newer. After I blew a 450, a 650 and a reconditioned 800 I picked up the cheapest 950 I could find... it works great apart from being super-noisy.

Yeah. You forgot the storage (hard drive/solid state drive), case, and whatever you're going to do for cooling (fans/water cooling/etc, especially if you're going to overclock).

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I'm just gonna go for a terabyte HD or something... it's not like I need massive quantities of storage space. Hell, in six years I've only used up half of my 240gig capacity.

Case will be whatever best fits the component and has potential capacity for extra fans. Don't plan on overclocking much (if at all) so I'm not too worried about water cooling.

Pharaoh Llandy said:

Arvenski said:

I currently have a 950w PSU

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Holy ****. And this is on an older rig? 

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Nah, the PSU's a lot newer. After I blew a 450, a 650 and a reconditioned 800 I picked up the cheapest 950 I could find... it works great apart from being super-noisy.

Yeah. You forgot the storage (hard drive/solid state drive), case, and whatever you're going to do for cooling (fans/water cooling/etc, especially if you're going to overclock).

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I'm just gonna go for a terabyte HD or something... it's not like I need massive quantities of storage space. Hell, in six years I've only used up half of my 240gig capacity.

Case will be whatever best fits the component and has potential capacity for extra fans. Don't plan on overclocking much (if at all) so I'm not too worried about water cooling.

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Get yourself a "silent" psu suitable for powerful graphics cards. (they are usually branded as "gaming psu").

If size isn't an issue for you, I suggest you get yourself a nice 256gb ssd. I have an OCZ Vertex4 256gb and it's really nice to have your os installed on this. You can always get yourself a nice 1GB Western Digital Caviar Black later if you need more space.

Ugh, PC has slowed to a crawl. Now I must use the laptop. Stupid laptop. New comp can't come fast enough.  -__-

Ta ancalimon I'll google what you just said.

So, after much deliberation I finally settled on something. It's not a custom build but I'm so fed up of looking at parts and prices that it's worth it to just avoid the mess of having to build it myself:

http://www.tesco.com/direct/zoostorm-desktop-base-unit-with-500w-psu-intel-core-i5-8gb-memory-2tb-storage-gtx760-graphics-w81hp-black/152-8817.prd?pageLevel=sku&skuId=152-8817

Witcher 3 Specs say it'll run, which makes me a happy Pharaoh.

Edit: And yes, I know it's fugly and looks like something that fell through a time-hole from the 90s. But I happen to like the 90s (bits of it, at least) and it's not like I'll be out pimping my PC around town or anything.

Price looks a bit steep, maybe due to differences across the Atlantic. That said, it has sufficient specs to last you at least 6 years assuming nothing fails.