• Build for games medium budget processor → six-core i5-8400, i5-9400F, Ryzen 5 2600. The AMD option is more suitable for game streaming.
• Build for games, medium budget video card → for FHD GTX1660, GTX1660Ti, RTX 2060 will deliver 2K (1440p). For budget builds, we can recommend a video card from AMD RX 570 8GB, but the RX 580 and RX 590 are not profitable to buy compared to the fresh GTX1660.
• Pre-top assembly processor → i7-8700, i7-8700K, i7-9700K, Ryzen 5 2600X, Ryzen 7 2700. Eighth-generation coffee machines with hyperthreading are better than their refreshes and are cheaper. The i7-9700K can be recommended exclusively for gaming builds. Ryzens are better at multi-threaded tasks.
• Pre-top assembly video card → for 2K QHD RTX 2070, AMD RX Vega 64. Video cards from NVIDIA are more energy efficient and generally faster, so it makes sense to look at Vega only if there is a big discount on these video cards.
• Top build processor → i9-9900K, i7-8700K, i7-9700K, Ryzen 5 2700X. In the top gaming builds, it makes sense to buy an eight-core, sixteen-thread i9-9900K processor.
• Top video card assembly → RTX 2080 Ti, RTX 2080, . For 4K UHD gaming, the only choice is the Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti video card.

Which computer to choose in 2018?

Due to the current difficult situation with the video card market and exorbitantly high prices, there is no need to talk about buying a budget computer in 2018. Players can be advised to switch to consoles - for example, the PlayStation 4 Pro/1TB now costs the same as an average GTX 1060 video card.

The rest of the pack boyars have to moderate their graphic appetites and choose a video card at a lower level. We wanted to take the GTX 1080, now, God willing, we can scrape together a GTX 1070. Thanks to the gentlemen miners and a small cartel of video card manufacturers, who in turn blame the RAM manufacturers, allegedly the latter are exorbitantly inflating the prices of their products and, on top of everything else, disrupting the supply of GDDR5 chips so necessary for the production of video cards.

So, what can you use to build the best computer in 2018? Which processor and motherboard to choose for it, how to choose a video card and optimal RAM - read below!

Top computer (enthusiast), budget from 100 thousand rubles

Gaming computer

We give preference to the latest generation Intel Coffee Lake processors. The most expensive in the coffee line is the i7 8700K. The processor will be compatible with a motherboard based on an older Z370 chipset. The Z370 will allow you to overclock the processor and increase the frequency of the RAM if the stock performance is not enough.

16 gigabytes of memory is enough for a gaming PC. It is advisable to buy a 2x8 GB kit kit for memory operation in dual-channel mode. The performance of the system as a whole directly depends on the frequency of the RAM, so it is advisable to select DDR4 sticks with a rating of ~2666-3000 MHz. Also pay attention to timings. Low latency CL14/15 memory costs more than standard CL16. By the way, the benefit from low timings is more noticeable on Intel processors; on AMD Ryzen, the high operating frequency of RAM will greatly benefit.

The main thing in a powerful gaming computer is, of course, the video card. The top Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti models are best suited for gaming builds. However, video cards are now indecently expensive even for wealthy gamers. Therefore, we can advise you to pay attention to video cards of the GTX 1070 Ti, RX Vega 56/64 level. Wealthy gentlemen choose monsters like Titan V, although buying the latter is more difficult than buying an iPhone X on the day sales start. According to the latest inside information, you shouldn’t expect a price reduction with the release of the 2000th series of Gifors, unless of course you are ready to wait forever. For comfortable gaming in 4K, one 1080 Ti with ultra graphics settings will not be enough; if finances allow, purchase two GTX 1080 Ti video cards.

Installing an SSD drive will help reduce the boot time of the system and games. For optimal performance, it is worth investing in two disks - allocate one disk for the operating system with a page file, and install games and applications on the second.

Hard drives are selected based on needs. Currently, models up to 14 TB are available on the market. If you do not work with huge amounts of information, you can completely do without classic HDDs. However, remember that in the event of a failure, it will be quite difficult, and most likely impossible, to recover information from a solid-state drive. So regularly backup important data to an external HDD.

Computer for work

For work tasks (programming, rendering, editing, modeling, photo processing, etc.), both the presence of fast cores and their number are important.

We recommend paying attention to the top-end Ryzen 7 1700 on the AM4 platform, as the most budget eight-core processor. The Ryzen 7 desktop uses the AM4 platform, so you can easily upgrade your existing computer that uses an AMD Ryzen processor. By the way, AMD will support the AM4 socket for another 2-3 years, so you won’t have any problems with a future upgrade.

For serious guys, the Intel LGA2066 platform is suitable, with a wide range of processors - from the ultra eight-core top i9-7980XE to more affordable eight-core processors, such as the i7-7820x. Quite expensive motherboards based on the X299 chipset are suitable for Skylake-X processors. The chipset supports four-channel memory and has a large number of free PCIe lanes, which allows you to connect several fast devices (video cards, nvma drives).

It is also worth considering assembling high-performance systems based on AMD Ryzen-ThreadRipper processors. There are only three processors available in this line: the eight-core 1900x, the twelve-core 1920x and the older ripper 1950x equipped with sixteen cores. Threadrippers require a motherboard with TR4 socket on the X399 chipset. The characteristics are similar to the X299 platform from Intel, but AMD costs a third less. The only drawback is the non-standard mountings for the cooling system and the small range of TR4 motherboards.

Pretop computer, budget 80 - 90 thousand rubles

An excellent computer for work and play. On this system you can equally comfortably play a popular game or render a project in Premiere or Blender. Note that Intel processors are more suitable for building gaming systems, and eight-core Ryzen for workstations.

Medium - mainstream computer, budget 60 - 70 thousand rubles

The optimal computer for gaming in FHD 1080p resolution, also perfect for office programs. The recommended video card is nvidia GTX 1060 in the version with 6 GB of memory. The price tag for the RX 580 is now too high.

In this category, Intel fans have some problems - in particular, Intel has not yet released budget motherboards on the 1151v2 socket (B360, H370, H310 chipsets), so you will have to buy an expensive motherboard on the Z370 chipset. AMD does not have such problems - for the popular Ryzen 5 1600 processor, you can choose any board on the AM4 socket (A320, B350, X370). The mid-budget motherboard based on the B350 has overclocking functions and has everything needed to build a high-performance computer, while the price tag for such boards is half that of the similar Z370 from Intel.

Budget option 35 - 40 thousand rubles

RAM: 8-16 GB 2400-2666 MHz

For a gaming system without a video card, we recommend the AMD Ryzen 5 2400G with a built-in Vega video core, which provides GT1030/RX550-level performance. The computing power of the R5-2400G processor is comparable to the R5-1500X, which makes it possible to upgrade in the future - you just need to buy a powerful video card without changing the processor. It is worth noting that the Ryzen 5 2400G out of the box is guaranteed to work with memory with a frequency of 2933 MHz (instead of 2400 MHz for desktop Ryzens).

Ultra-budget builds up to 20 thousand rubles

Such assemblies are suitable for mining farms or media centers.

Take the cheapest processor, for example Celeron G3930, equipped with a built-in Intel UHD 610 video core. This budget processor is capable of playing online video with 4K resolution.

For a media center, 4 GB of DDR4 RAM is sufficient. Any frequency will do, starting from the standard for DDR4 2133 MHz. We recommend taking the cheapest “green” dies from Samsung; this RAM is quite reliable and also overclocks well.

A discrete video card is not considered in the ultra-budget segment.

Popular builds - good PCs 2018

Even a beginner can build a gaming PC in the HYPERPC online configurator. Specify the gaming platform, and the service will offer components for stable collaboration, drives, cooling systems and peripherals. And our engineers can professionally assemble a custom computer in Moscow. When assembling a computer, the HYPERPC system unit configurator takes into account the requirements of heavy games - this is an excellent assistant for creating a powerful platform with the best components of 2018. When analyzing compatibility, manufacturers' recommendations, load test results and the experience of e-sports players are taken into account.

Select configuration

The designer of a system unit with a compatibility check evaluates not only the type of slots, buses, ports and connectors. All components are tested to work properly with each other, so even on a limited budget you can build a good computer with high performance. Start by defining your platform, and the configurator will offer available components to build your custom gaming PC.

Online assembly of the system unit

You build a computer online - HYPERPC brings your project to life! Specify the video card, processor, motherboard and other system parameters. The calculator will show the cost of the configuration taking into account assembly and configuration. There are tips for each component that will help you make a decision. You can immediately order peripherals, installation of the operating system and other software, modding and safe overclocking of your computer. You can create several configurations and compare them with each other.

PC Configurator

For each gaming platform, components with different characteristics are offered - from entry-level in its segment to top-end hardware. The compatibility-checked system unit designer contains components from different manufacturers, so the choice of gaming computer is not limited. The order will go into production immediately after confirmation from your side. If in doubt, the expert assistance of HYPERPC employees is at your service, who will help you assemble a gaming computer in 2018 to confidently conquer the gaming peaks.

A gaming computer can be considered a computer that is capable of playing all modern games, providing an acceptable level of comfort from this entertainment. But user requirements differ, so very different devices fall into the category of gaming PCs. For many users, it is enough that games play smoothly, the game world is displayed correctly and there are no control problems. Professional gamers (who make money from gaming) and those who spend a significant portion of their leisure time playing games have more stringent requirements for PC performance.

This material will tell you how to assemble a gaming PC with your own hands, both for users who just need a smooth rendering of the picture on the screen, and for gamers for whom the quality of graphics is paramount. Of course, for these two categories of buyers, both the performance of the components and their cost will differ significantly (up to ten times). But the general recommendations on how to assemble a gaming PC with your own hands will be similar for everyone.

Assembling a PC on your own is, first of all, a solution that allows you to select the optimal configuration for the needs of a particular user. Also, setting up your own computer is a way to save money. The question of how to build a cheap gaming PC interests many users. Unfortunately, the performance of a computer largely depends on its cost. Therefore, it is now impossible to assemble a completely cheap (for example, for 10-15 thousand rubles) gaming PC.

Where to begin

Budget is a key factor when choosing components. Therefore, first of all, you should decide how much money will be allocated for the purchase. It also matters whether you need the system unit itself, or peripheral devices (monitor, acoustics, keyboard, mouse).

Each manufacturer's model range includes several sockets (processor sockets). Each of them requires a motherboard with its own connector. If the CPU is equipped with Socket 1155, then the motherboard must have the same. In addition, you should consider the board's compatibility with specific processor models. As a rule, board manufacturers publish lists of supported CPUs on their official websites.

The requirements for the board itself are determined based on the number and capacity of RAM sticks that will be installed, the number of connected drives (HDD, SSD), their interfaces (SATA, PCI-Express or M.2) and overclocking capabilities. The future upgrade also matters: if one is planned in a couple of months or years, you need to choose a motherboard with a large number of interfaces and a fresh chipset (for example, MSI H61M-P31/W8 for Intel, ASUS M5A78L-M LX for AMD). If you are renting a computer for a long time and there is no provision for upgrading its components, you can save a little on the system board.

An advanced motherboard is needed if an upgrade is planned

Video card

The GPU in a gaming computer is just as (if not more) important than the CPU. It is the video card that is responsible for processing the three-dimensional image and displaying it on the display. However, you can’t just pick up and install a powerful video card and save on other hardware. Information for subsequent processing by the graphics processor is prepared by the “CPU + RAM” combination, which, in turn, receives data from the drive (HDD and SSD).

A weak processor will not allow you to unleash the potential of a gaming video card

The “weak link” (regardless of whether it is the processor, video card or hard drive) will drag the system down, becoming a bottleneck. An analogy can be drawn with a logistics terminal: no matter how high its throughput is, no matter how many cars are loaded, if there is a lack of loading equipment and labor, expanding the capabilities of the terminal itself will not help speed up its work.

Tandems like “inexpensive Intel Core i3 (or similar AMD FX 4xxx series) + Geforce GTX Titan X” are thus extremely ineffective and a waste of money. The “ceiling” of such processors is video cards of the Geforce GTX 750 Ti class. Such a chip will not reveal the potential of a more productive GPU.

To assess whether the combination of the selected processor and video card will have the optimal balance of capabilities, you can compare their prices. The cost of the GPU should exceed the price of the CPU. In the budget category (Intel Core i3, AMD FX 4xxx and 6xxx series) the difference is 10-30%, and in the niche of more expensive devices it can reach 100%. That is, if you plan to buy a processor for 8,000 rubles, then there is no point in installing a video card for 15,000 or more. But the GeForce GTX 980, costing up to 50 thousand, will be optimally combined with an Intel Core i7 CPU for 25-30 thousand.

You can install 2 video cards if the motherboard supports SLI (for Nvidia GeForce) or CrossFire (AMD Radeon) technologies. In the budget segment, such a solution looks pointless (1 GPU for 15 thousand will be more productive than 2 for 8 thousand). In the top class, connecting two video cards allows you to achieve an increase in performance that cannot be realized in other ways.

Two video cards in SLI will increase the performance of your gaming PC

If you plan to upgrade your PC, you can purchase a motherboard that supports two video cards and get a GeForce GTX 960-level GPU. For now, the capabilities of this video card are enough to play all games, and in a year you can pair it with another one of the same kind to improve performance.

It should be remembered that to work in SLI/CrossFire, video cards must be, if not identical, then built on the same version of the graphics processor.

RAM

When choosing RAM, the main thing is to take into account the compatibility of generations and operating frequencies. For example, sixth generation Intel Core i7 processors (and motherboards compatible with them) work with DDR4 RAM sticks, and AMD FX 8xxx - DDR3.

DDR4 memory is faster, but not supported by all processors

The amount of RAM is limited by the wallet and the number of slots on the motherboard. RAM is a resource that can never be enough (thanks to software developers who, after switching to 64-bit Windows, do not bother themselves with excessive efforts to optimize memory consumption). Therefore, whether to install 8 GB of RAM or 32 is up to users to decide.

When selecting RAM sticks, it is recommended to install them in pairs or triplets. In this case, the chips operate in two or three-channel (depending on the CPU model and motherboard) mode. In this case, the speed of data exchange theoretically increases, respectively, by two or three times. Two 4 GB modules will work faster than 1 8 GB module.

Drives

Hard drives are gradually losing ground under the pressure of rapidly reducing prices, gaining capacity and becoming more reliable SSDs. Since it is impossible to build a powerful gaming PC without a high-speed drive, a gaming computer cannot do without a solid-state drive. A capacity of 256 or 512 GB is enough to install Windows and games, and for multimedia content (music, movies), you can simultaneously install a capacious HDD of 2, 3 or more terabytes.

The capacity of modern HDDs has already reached 10 TB

Close

Computer prices

Today, consumers are increasingly less likely to buy a ready-made personal computer (system unit), to which they must subsequently connect a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Increasingly, the choice is being made in favor of laptops and monoblocks (all-in-one systems). If the user wants to get something special, then most likely he will prefer to assemble the computer from individual components himself. However, this does not mean that traditional systems are completely dying out; there are still quite a lot of them on sale and, if you wish, you can choose a very good system for yourself at an affordable cost, without wasting time on assembly.

The choice of a personal computer depends on what exactly you need it for. This will directly affect the cost - an inexpensive system for solving everyday problems will cost much less than a high-performance monster that can easily run the latest games. Therefore, choosing a personal computer should begin with determining what exactly it will be used for.

By the way, recently the so-called. nettops are systems characterized by very compact size and low performance. Their undoubted advantage is their small size; such a computer can even be hung from the back by the monitor, freeing up a lot of space on the desktop. In most cases, having purchased a nettop, the user only needs to connect a monitor, keyboard, and mouse to it and start working.

The disadvantages of nettops are no less obvious - there is practically no possibility of an upgrade; at best, the user can only increase the storage capacity and RAM (by the way, this problem is also typical for all-in-one PCs). However, systems with low performance become obsolete more slowly, and given the low cost, in a few years it will be possible to simply replace an outdated computer with a new one.

As for all-in-one PCs, these systems will allow you to reduce the number of wires on your desk to a minimum, especially if you use a wireless keyboard and mouse. When choosing here, special attention should be paid to the diagonal of the monitor and its resolution. After all, if you make a mistake in these criteria, you can correct it later only by buying another computer; it is impossible to simply change the monitor.

Desktop computers remain the best solution for those who want maximum productivity. Games, music, movies, work programs - your PC can handle everything. We won’t hide it - price in most cases determines performance, but in the case of prefabricated computers you have room to move and maneuver, no one limits you in modifications and modernization.

The choice is huge, your eyes are wide open, the prices are affordable. Office or home, budget or gaming, for graphics and video editing or for watching movies - you will certainly choose something to suit your taste. Now tell me, what do you feel when you hear the words gaming computer? We are a little worried, because each new PC is unique, assembled especially for you. What do you imagine? Something very beautiful, expensive and perhaps hard to find? We hasten to please you - this is not so!

Nowadays you can buy a gaming computer for quite reasonable money, and you don’t have to immediately buy the best hardware, because it can be easily improved in the near future. Basic components such as the case, processor, motherboard, power supply, RAM and, possibly, a video card will be required immediately (otherwise the computer will not work without them!), but this will not prevent you from becoming the owner of a powerful and reliable computer. Imagine how many different modifications and improvements are available to you!

PC is a construction set that is hard to put down. You can give it almost any shape, size and color. And by using our configurator you can easily realize your dreams and not worry about assembling your new, truly personal computer.

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