which PC should I buy

Hi,
I want to start using unity but at the moment I have a very shitty old laptop and it can barely run anything. So I want to buy a new PC, my price range is somewhere around 500 euro.
Thank you very much.
Also I know NOTHING about computers

My setup was about that much:
Processor: AMD athlon x4 860k
GPU: GeForce GTX750Ti
Memory: 8gb
Motherboard: Gigabyte F2A78M-HD2

I’m pretty satisfied with this setup. Also a 120gb SSD, and a dvd reader fit in that price range. I think I bought a cooler later for about 40 euros because the stock one was extremely noisy. As for screen I got a 24 inch one later for about 170 euros I think. I’m roughly converting from my local currency. :stuck_out_tongue:

EDIT: It was a while ago, and here components tend to be outdated and a bit more expensive than in say America (750Ti was the best gpu available), so you might be able to get way better parts for that price.

If you can, get more than a 120GB SSD. Just assets eat up that much space on my systems :slight_smile:

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True that, mine is entirely filled with Unity stuff. xD

I would suggest getting 1TB HDD rather than 120GB SSD. I wouldn’t consider an SSD unless my CPU is not fast.

You’ll constantly find yourself having to empty your disk space.

Apart from that, SSDs are freaking expensive!

The sanity loss of HDDs make SSDs worth it. Get an external drive if you REALLY need tons of space later, and for backups. 250GB SSDs are no longer very expensive either. In fact, if you can get a laptop with a regular (9mm) HDD AND still afford a reasonable SSD + external drive enclosure, that’s what I’d go with.

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With a budget of only 500€ I definitely wouldn’t invest in an SSD. A tiny drive won’t go very far at all and you’d be reducing the capabilities of your other components which are already going to be weak with that budget. You can always add an SSD to the computer down the road but upgrading the processor, motherboard, and so on requires outright replacing them.

That being said SSDs are absolutely worth every penny they cost. The difference in performance between even a very high performance HDD and a budget SSD is just immense. Easily dozens of times the performance for small files and many of your daily activities will involve those.

Just as an example Visual Studio Community went from taking a minute or more to taking a few seconds to load.

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Yeah SSD isn’t that necessary, only if you’re left with some cash after you buy everything else. I use the SSD for work stuff, but I have others for plain storage and gaming.

If you value your sanity get at least 8 (or better 16) GB of RAM, at least DDR3 1666Mhz.
Even a minimal install of VS2015 community / express (compared to VS2013 express) lags like hell on 4GB.
Android Studio is also a huge memory hog on Windows (it runs okay-ish under OS X on a mini with 4GB of ram).
SSD is pricey, so try to get a 7200rpm HDD instead (if possible).

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If you don’t aim for the newest you can get something not too shabby very cheaply. Example from a random site:

I think your best bet is to just save your money. Put money aside until you can build the computer you actually want rather than settling.

You can get DDR4-3200 16GB (either one 16GB stick or two 8GB sticks) for $90. Unless you’re planning on buying older hardware (like the current AMD processors) you’re better off picking up a motherboard and memory that are designed for DDR4.

If you’re going with a CPU that supports it

Practically everything from Intel is now capable of DDR4. Current generation AMD processors are limited to DDR3 but they’re so far behind Intel at this point that they aren’t even worth considering.

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@Ryiah Is DDR4 worth switching out everything I have just to use it? I have AMD stuff. So is re-making an entirely new PC worth the performance to the price of making a new PC?

Right now using
8 core FX8350
32 gigs of DDR3
Radeon R9-290

4th Gen CPUs are still very decent and are cheaper than 6th gen, so they are still considerable

For both short and long term DDR3 is basically dead. Every processor from Intel’s current generation is capable of DDR4 and AMD is preparing to support it as well with a new socket (Socket AM4). Last I heard motherboards with support for this new socket are supposed to become available in October.

Unless you’re building with older processors like @QFSW is suggesting you’re better off with DDR4 for future purchases.

According to AMD their next generation processor (currently codenamed Zen) has twice the performance of the AMD FX-8350. At one point they released benchmark information comparing one of their engineering samples with the Intel i7-5960X (a Broadwell extreme edition processor) and they were almost identical in performance.

AMD’s Zen series is supposed to be out sometime Q1 2017. It’s an eight-core processor with hyperthreading.

http://wccftech.com/amd-zen-cpu-performance-double-fx-8350/

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Is it a true 8 core or similar to AMDs other high core counts where it’s 2 cores per module?

Four cores per “unit” as they call it. Up to 8 cores/16 threads for desktop. Up to 32 cores/64 threads for server.

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/204523-new-leak-hints-at-amd-zens-architecture-organization