I want a new gaming rig

[Barrister]

Thinking of finally getting a new gaming PC. Browsing the local retailer, I see a system like this:
Intel Core i7-6700 3.40 GHz
256 GB SSD, 3 TB HDD
nVidia GeForce GTX 1080
16 GB memory

Reasonable? Price $2,200

Very roughly it sounds reasonable.  I'm sure Viper will tell you that you can build your own for cheaper.

[Hamilcar]

Thinking of finally getting a new gaming PC. Browsing the local retailer, I see a system like this:
Intel Core i7-6700 3.40 GHz
256 GB SSD, 3 TB HDD
nVidia GeForce GTX 1080
16 GB memory

Reasonable? Price $2,200

Very roughly it sounds reasonable.  I'm sure Viper will tell you that you can build your own for cheaper.

I'm sure I could, but I don't have the time or patience for that at the moment. Plus, that's a Swiss price. Everything is more expensive here.

[Syt]

My new rig is:

CPU:Intel Core i7-6800K, 6x 3.40GHz (BX80671I76800K)
Mainboard:MSI X99A SLI PLUS (Sound G-LAN SATA3 M.2 SATAe USB 3.0)
MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G, 8GB GDDR5X (V336-001R)
32GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 PC-2400 Kit 4x8GB Red
SSD:256GB Samsung 850 PRO (MZ-7KE256BW)
HDD: 2TB Seagate HDD Barracuda 7200.14 2TB, SATA 6Gb/s (ST2000DM001)
PUS: 750W Corsair RMx Series RM750x (CP-9020092-EU)
Case: Corsair Graphite 760T V2 Black (CC-9011073-WW)
Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock PRO 3
Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64Bit Key & DVD

Comes at slightly over €2600. I'm ordering from the same company that built my last computer which has lasted me 4 years (only upgraded gfx card once, and had to replace a fan), so I'm willing to pay a little extra.

[viper37]

Thinking of finally getting a new gaming PC. Browsing the local retailer, I see a system like this:
Intel Core i7-6700 3.40 GHz
256 GB SSD, 3 TB HDD
nVidia GeForce GTX 1080
16 GB memory

Reasonable? Price $2,200

With the case and monitor, it seems reasonable for a complete system.  Yes, of course, as BB said, you can get a better price by selecting your parts and either have it assembled at a local shop or do it yourself.

256gb SSD is the absolute minimum, you'll have to shuffle games from the HDD to the SSD and vice-versa all the time.

[viper37]

My new rig is:

CPU:Intel Core i7-6800K, 6x 3.40GHz (BX80671I76800K)
Mainboard:MSI X99A SLI PLUS (Sound G-LAN SATA3 M.2 SATAe USB 3.0)
MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G, 8GB GDDR5X (V336-001R)
32GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 PC-2400 Kit 4x8GB Red
SSD:256GB Samsung 850 PRO (MZ-7KE256BW)
HDD: 2TB Seagate HDD Barracuda 7200.14 2TB, SATA 6Gb/s (ST2000DM001)
PUS: 750W Corsair RMx Series RM750x (CP-9020092-EU)
Case: Corsair Graphite 760T V2 Black (CC-9011073-WW)
Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock PRO 3
Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64Bit Key & DVD

Comes at slightly over €2600. I'm ordering from the same company that built my last computer which has lasted me 4 years (only upgraded gfx card once, and had to replace a fan), so I'm willing to pay a little extra.

Looks good.  But I still don't trust Seagate, even though they've gotten better these last few years.  Burnt too many times.

[Syt]

I've had several Seagate Barracudas, never had an issue. I'll also transfer some of the HDs of my current machine, definitely the SSDs (a 128 GB SSD, a 512 GB SSD) and maybe the 2TB HDD.

[Berkut]

SSDs are pretty damn cheap these days, no reason at all to pay actual money for something as small as 256GB.

[Berkut]

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-75E500B-AM/dp/B00OBRE5UE/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1478107357&sr=1-1&keywords=SSD

Stupid cheap.

[viper37]

the market is moving beyond SATA SSDs.  PCI-E hybrids are still overpriced though.

[Berkut]

the market is moving beyond SATA SSDs.  PCI-E hybrids are still overpriced though.

Oh?

Tell me more...

[viper37]

Stuff like that:
Link
The M.2 interface


Manufacturers have mostly stopped investing in R&D for SATA based SSDs, they're not really releasing new products as tweaking older ones.
PCI-E SSDs and hybrids (say, a 256gb SSD combined with a 1TB hard drive) are becoming increasingly popular, but prices are a still a tad too high for my tastes.

I'm just waiting to see what the market will look like in a couple of years before changing mine.  Right now, despite it's close to 4 years old, replacing my SSD for a newer one would not get me much more speed.  The fastest drive would give me, at most a 10% increase, under very ideal circumstances.

[Berkut]

Hmm. I did a little research, it sounds like for a current build it is probably not quite there yet price wise, at least from a "bang for your buck" standpoint.

Rather than spend an extra couple hundred to go from a SATA SSD to a PCIe SSD, you would be better off spending that money on a faster CPU or GPU...?

[Syt]

My computer has arrived. Jesus, that case is huge. Whenever I get a new one, I can refurbish it into a decent sized nightstand/book shelf.

I clumped in the SSDs from my previous computer. The old 128GB system drive now houses My Documents etc, the 500GB one moved over with my currently installed games.

There's some technobabble reasons why the on board graphics for the mainboard is disabled, so I plugged in my old GTX 770 to run my second screen. Which might be just as well - on my old system second screen ran off the Intel on board gfx, and my system didn't like me playing a CPU intensive game while watching YouTube or other videos.

However, the GTX 1080 is a beauty. It's nice to run games at maxed out settings again, and it's the first card that gives me constant 60 FPS in RTW2's benchmark (I use vsync in strategy games).

For some games it defaults to supersampling (i.e. rendering frames at a higher resolution, but outputting them at my current 1920x1080, which results in a higher graphical fidelity). American Truck Sim runs at 400%, Battlefield 1 at 150%. Only GTA5 is dropping a few frames if I switch supersampling on. I look forward to playing Witcher 3 on this.

[Liep]

My 2011 Dell laptop has died on me (disk failure). What's good? It should be able to handle football manager, paradox games, world of warcraft, civ games, etc.

Intrigued by the small macbook, could that run those games though?

[Barrister]

My 2011 Dell laptop has died on me (disk failure). What's good? It should be able to handle football manager, paradox games, world of warcraft, civ games, etc.

Intrigued by the small macbook, could that run those games though?

The games you mentioned it should be okay, but you won't be running on maxed out graphics.

Really though if you're first concern is running games, you're probably better off getting w windows machine than having to worry about dual-booting.  If you look around you can find some machines that, while not as thin-and-light as the Macbook, are very thin and light, plus have discrete graphics to boot.