*** VD 13 Commentary Thread ***

[johnnya24]

Building your own is still the superior option but you're saving about ~$100-150 nowadays. My time is worth more than that, particularly with having to order many packages from many sellers, inevitably something is missing/wrong/broken/yada yada.

Just buy a premade one on ibuypower.com or one of those similar sites. Even the bargain basement ones are good to go unless you're trying to run the newest games on the highest settings.

Linus Tech Tips made some really good videos comparing all the major US prebuilders last year. ibuypower was one of those companies ... i'll find the link. Can't remember who they recommended.

I'd say the difference is more like $300+ rather than $100-150. And as you build more powerful PC's the difference is even more than that.

[johnnya24]

Linus Tech Tips made some really good videos comparing all the major US prebuilders last year. ibuypower was one of those companies ... i'll find the link. Can't remember who they recommended.

I'd say the difference is more like $300+ rather than $100-150. And as you build more powerful PC's the difference is even more than that.

Yeah ... this was a good series:

[Bene Futuis]

Linus Tech Tips made some really good videos comparing all the major US prebuilders last year. ibuypower was one of those companies ... i'll find the link. Can't remember who they recommended.

I'd say the difference is more like $300+ rather than $100-150. And as you build more powerful PC's the difference is even more than that.

At the ~$550 price range there's no way a build your own will save you $300+ over an ibuypower or cyberpowerpc build, imo. Certainly once you get into the big and expensive builds. Best way to shop for computers these days, honestly, is to wait for Black Friday and purchase one of the insane deals that inevitably pops up. The PC I just bought was on sale for around $650 last Black Friday. You'd be very hard pressed to build mine for that price. I assume it's possible but just the time you'd have to devote to picking the parts would make it not worth it. My time is expensive!

[johnnya24]

At the ~$550 price range there's no way a build your own will save you $300+ over an ibuypower or cyberpowerpc build, imo. Certainly once you get into the big and expensive builds. Best way to shop for computers these days, honestly, is to wait for Black Friday and purchase one of the insane deals that inevitably pops up. The PC I just bought was on sale for around $650 last Black Friday. You'd be very hard pressed to build mine for that price. I assume it's possible but just the time you'd have to devote to picking the parts would make it not worth it. My time is expensive!

Yeah, you got a deal on that prebuilt that's for sure. What you paid is about what the self-build cost would be. Your exact specs are still on ibuypower for $1149 (reduced from $1449 )

That's a lot more than a $300 markup ... more like $5-600. I had to double check that that didn't also include a monitor and peripherals, but no ... just the tower. Dang.

[Bene Futuis]

Yeah, you got a deal on that prebuilt that's for sure. What you paid is about what the self-build cost would be. Your exact specs are still on ibuypower for $1149 (reduced from $1449 )

That's a lot more than a $300 markup ... more like $5-600. I had to double check that that didn't also include a monitor and peripherals, but no ... just the tower. Dang.

Yeah I bought mine on amazon and did a bunch of shopping around first. Amazon and newegg are far superior than those "build on our site" places like ibuypower or origin. However, and however weird this is, you can still buy ibuypower PCs on Amazon and they're both very good and competitively priced.

At revo's price range by far the most difficult thing to get is a halfway decent graphics card. I see some okay prebuilds out there but the cards are all pretty shitty.

[johnnya24]

Yeah I bought mine on amazon and did a bunch of shopping around first. Amazon and newegg are far superior than those "build on our site" places like ibuypower or origin. However, and however weird this is, you can still buy ibuypower PCs on Amazon and they're both very good and competitively priced.

At revo's price range by far the most difficult thing to get is a halfway decent graphics card. I see some okay prebuilds out there but the cards are all pretty shitty.

True. The best value when buying GPU's is the second hand market (craigslist etc). You can get an RX570/80 8GB in the US for about $80 on craigslist. That's still a solid 60FPS with new titles at 1080p. You can get a last gen 1070 for less than $200 these days. But you're always rolling the dice on second hand.

The current 2060+ GPU ranges have been heavily price gouged.

[The Feral Slasher]

Just started.a.game....man there is lots to figure out. I need to write a list of question

[johnnya24]

Just started.a.game....man there is lots to figure out. I need to write a list of question

Civ 5? I can play it on my stream some day and give you a beginners guide. I can also link you to some important mods I think you should install.

[The Feral Slasher]

Civ 5? I can play it on my stream some day and give you a beginners guide. I can also link you to some important mods I think you should install.

Yep...man there are a lot of options. I need to research the very basic ideas i think. And how to track all my stuff

[DMT]

It's all Greek to me.

[Bene Futuis]

Yep...man there are a lot of options. I need to research the very basic ideas i think. And how to track all my stuff

You just need to figure out how to start. Scout-->worker (or another scout)-->monument (unless using liberty)-->granary-->spam settlers until your empire gets 4 cities
Steal an independent town's worker as soon as you can, usually around turn 30
Two scouts can really cover some ground and get you ancient artifacts which are a big difference maker in the very first few turns
Focus on things that get you science
Voila, science victory

[Bene Futuis]

True. The best value when buying GPU's is the second hand market (craigslist etc). You can get an RX570/80 8GB in the US for about $80 on craigslist. That's still a solid 60FPS with new titles at 1080p. You can get a last gen 1070 for less than $200 these days. But you're always rolling the dice on second hand.

The current 2060+ GPU ranges have been heavily price gouged.

I don't trust my town's craigslist. My 1660 Ti runs about $250-300 new, which isn't that terrible. But I mean when the whole rig is only $600-800 then after a few years you're probably within your rights to just replace the whole thing, particularly during Black Friday / Cyber Monday. I saw a couple deals that I passed on a few months ago that would have gotten me a better computer for substantially less than I paid. In particular, I wanted to go big on the SSD but ended up settling for a 256GB SSD and 1 TB HD, which is fine I guess. But I fill that SSD up quick.

[johnnya24]

I don't trust my town's craigslist. My 1660 Ti runs about $250-300 new, which isn't that terrible. But I mean when the whole rig is only $600-800 then after a few years you're probably within your rights to just replace the whole thing, particularly during Black Friday / Cyber Monday. I saw a couple deals that I passed on a few months ago that would have gotten me a better computer for substantially less than I paid. In particular, I wanted to go big on the SSD but ended up settling for a 256GB SSD and 1 TB HD, which is fine I guess. But I fill that SSD up quick.

I watch Better Call Saul ... that makes sense

I picked up a 500GB NVME-M2 drive for around £50 on a non-Black-Friday Amazon sale last year. If you have an open NVME-M2 slot on your motherboard, that is something to look out for in upcoming sales.

[The Feral Slasher]

thought you teeth looked a bit fuzzy.

yeah, they feel pretty nasty the last 6 weeks. Need to get back in the habit of brushing every other day or so

[The Feral Slasher]

There is a B99 moment for everything

so they say