My dad passed away a while ago and I just received my share of the inheritance.
I’m looking to by a new pre-built computer (don’t know shit about computers so to scared to build one)
anyone got any recommendations? The last one I bought is from ibuypower a couple of years ago and I’ve been happy with it so thinking of going with them again. I got about 5 -6k to spend. Is there anything better out there you can think of or recommend?
Also looking for a good gaming chair. I’m 5’10" and 400# my main problem is the hydraulics just don’t last long any suggestions?
I can’t really help you with a pc since I purchased the parts and had my pc technician build it for me, but I would suggest you check out Maingear Chairs. My son is a bit over 200 lbs and I purchased one of these chairs for him a couple of years back and its still going strong.
You can check them out here and see what they offer. I actually physically walked into Micro Center when they had them on display and were running a sale on them. One of their sales guys was about my son’s size so I asked him what he thought. He suggested the Maingear chair line because he used one and was a gamer himself. So check these out.
Whatever you do, do NOT buy an off-the-shelf prebuilt! Do some research into what components are good and what components are not. Always assemble/pick your own parts.
Almost all prebuilts at this point contain maybe 1 part that’s good, and the rest are utter garbage they’re trying to either get rid of, or want to foist on you for exaggerated prices.
Things to look for:
- Upgradeability (avoid Dell or HP like the plague)
- Performance impact. (For example: Do not ever accept a single stick of RAM with an AMD CPU, the performance increase of dual sticks on AMD CPUs is significant)
- Pricing. Check actual prices across the board not just for “the computer” but also for components.
- Reliability, Return Policies (avoid Newegg like the plague)
And as an aside, if your current system is still doing well, this is probably the worst time to buy a new one, since all prices are inflated across the board. The machine I built in 2020 now prices out at almost double on pcpartpicker.
And that’s another one: Use pcpartpicker to compare components, but also to price out whatever you end up selecting, to see if the pricing is actually reasonable or not.
That’s some basic stuff…
As for gaming chairs? A good office chair is better than any gaming chair. But since that’s been known for a while now, the office chairs have also gotten more expensive 
SOOOOOOO…you recommend building my own? I’m to scared I’ll screw it up. How hard is it? I heard there were good you tube vids on this. My main problem is I don’t know shit about motherboards I would like one that is VERY up gradable with lots of PCI slots.
I’m a Pentium person. I have always used Pentium just because I don’t know how to compare it to other CPUs.
I use Nvidia GeForce for the same reason. along with corsair for ram.
I just don’t know how to tell which one is better.
Been hearing alot of horror stories with new egg what is another site to get parts from?
An from what I discovered when I got parts for my first built pc was to purchase the sticks in pairs of the same package. I kept the outside wrapping so that I could add two more later when I was able to afford them, and got the same brand/type as well.
Here are the parts I have built with. When I replaced my motherboard, my technician made sure all my parts were compatible with one another, which is important too. I actually got these parts from our local Micro Center. I’ve used them over the years for a lot of my technical parts needs. They are competitively priced and carry major brands, as well as some off-brands, but I’ve never heard of them selling knock-offs.
This is what my latest parts list looked like:
What’s really telling is I am still using my original power supply unit I purchased in 2016.
Corsair Enthusiast Series TX850 V2 850W ATX12V v2.31/EPS12V v2.92 80 Plus Bronze Certified Active PFC High Performance Power Supply
If you don’t feel comfortable building the unit yourself, do like I did and ask around your area to see who might be recommended (word-of-mouth type without advertising) who does build rigs.
I checked around my area and did research on the reputation of a small computer repair store recommended to me by a salesman working at, of all places, BestBuy. He suggested a one man owner who their Geek Squad unit usually had to go to for help because, well they were Geek Squad. I was happy to see that young man several months later still working there because I was afraid he would lose his job for sending me elsewhere for my needs.
Anyway, the owner employed some extremely smart and tech savvy college students to help him out. It also helped that two of them were heavy gamers which expanded his clientele. So he services many small business owners who needed computer support, but cannot afford a large tech company who probably over charges for everything they offer.
That’s true, however, my son works from home and could not find a decent office chair that fit him. Most were way too uncomfortable and did not have the adjustments needed for the arms and back. So when I got the Maingear for him, he was ecstatic because it fit and was adjustable as well. He uses it for his at-home work setup as well as for his gaming. So its served multi-purposes for him.
I am too small for that brand and have gravitated toward an artist’s adjustable chair without arms. It looks like a bar stool with an adjustable back and can be raised up or down depending on how far I want to be off the ground.
I googled 24 hour operator chairs and came up with this one
An operator chair is as it says designed to be sat in for 24 hours a day and would be used in call centres / emergency services and such
Admittedly its a uk store but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was available in the US too but will at least give you an idea what’s out there
Sorry to hear about your father and my condolences.
My two cents… mileage may vary.
Building your own computer is like restoring an old vehicle. It sounds like a lot of fun, you will be intimately familiar with the vehicle when your done, but it can be an arduous journey from start to finish and can teach some very expensive lessons when mistakes are made if you don’t know what your doing.
People always look at a pre-built system from a major brand versus building one yourself but, I rarely see people recommending local computer repair shops. If you can find a local shop that has been in business for a few years you probably can find a shop that will build you a computer. It’ll be somewhere between the qualities of a build your own and a pre-built system at a price somewhere between the two. You’ll also have someone local you know who can work on the system if you have issues with it. Many local shops offer 30 day parts and labor warranties that are as good as buying a prebuilt system in a store or online. Some offer extended warranties too. The big difference is you get components that were individually sourced versus in bulk from a traditional pre-built.
Just like going to a car dealership don’t buy the car on the first trip and make sure you have an someone who is some sort of expert look over what your getting and being charged. They will probably grumble at the labor costs but at least you know its guaranteed for 30 days unlike if you let a nephew who thinks they know something about computers build it.
As far as the chair, I have no idea. I’m 6’3" 320# and I go through chairs like nothing else. I refuse to pay what they ask for the big and heavy chairs and every time I do it’s not like they last any longer than the regular chairs. I have always wanted to try out one of those custom chair rigs where they use the seats from cars that are adjustable and have all the bells and whistles you’d get in high end sports car. Seems like something that is designed for you to sit in for hours on end and over long distances would be as comfortable and more durable than the office chairs they make these days.
Sorry. I meant any of the ‘prepackaged’ deals 
I know places like iBuyPower you can put together your own system and have them build it, which is perfectly fine. Just do the research on the components.
Just don’t buy one that they have put together in advance, because those are invariably terrible.
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Exactly - the literal prebuilt already in a box at a retailer isn’t just mass produced but as you said very well their parts that they sourced from vendors that were close out or going out of production. They got a lot of them cheap and decided to put them into a system they could mass produce.
Ya I don’t but “prebuilt packages”, If I can’t customize it I go elsewhere. I’ll see what they have to offer and then swap stuff out for what I want. The hardest part is doing research on the parts they have to offer because halve to time I don’t understand what I"m reading. my 2 biggest things I have trouble with are motherboards and graphic cards.
GPUs isn’t an issue, because you can’t get any anyway for any reasonable price 
As for motherboards:
- What CPU are you looking at, since that will limit your choice of motherboards straight away.
- How much storage do you have? How many M.2 slots do you need? How many Sata connections?
- How much memory do you want? Will the motherboard handle that?
- How many external USB/etc devices do you normally use (including external disks) and does the motherboard provide sufficient interfaces for that?
- Do you use wireless or cabled connections? There’s no point in having wireless on a motherboard that goes into a desktop if you have a cabled connection (Which I’d recommend at all times anyway)
- Is there an upgrade path for the CPU on that motherboard? Or is the CPU already the last generation that fits it? (AMD has a LOT of upgrade paths for most of their CPUs and motherboards right now)
- Do you need/want overclocking options? And does the CPU you plan on getting actually support that? Don’t pay $50 more for a motherboard with overclocking if you’re going to put in a CPU that isn’t unlocked.
- Form factor, will it fit the case you want? Do you need to get a case to fit the form factor? Also check online for cases that are terrible vs good. Airflow really is still important especially when you’re building a gaming rig.
- Does it have onboard audio, and if so, how crap is it? Look things up again, see if a lot of people are complaining on reddit about bad drivers, etc. (I personally have a separate studio quality Soundblaster card, because the builtin audio on my motherboard is absolutely garbage. And that’s a $1K motherboard, so don’t assume anything!)
On memory: Also read up on things. For example AMD chips do best with specific speeds on memory, alongside them really needing dual sticks (or quad sticks, again, check CPU/Motherboard).
Steve’s Gaming Nexus channel on Youtube has a ton of reviews of a ton of cases and CPUs. (And of prebuilts, which are very funny 
It’s worth it spending the time to figure out what everything does and how it works together even if you’re not going to put it all together yourself. It also helps when you want to upgrade something, since you know what’s what and why.
Sager. Never had a problem with one. Also Lenovo, good experiences with them.
If you don’t want to play “build a computer” and I never do… I have had very good experiences with XOTICPC.com. I have an MSI Raider I bought and had “beefed up” by them and it has been a joy to use. MSI builds components, mother boards and graphic cards… that means that their stuff is their stuff and works together very well.
re: chair – Herman Miller Aeron chair B or maybe C.
Chair for life, the parts are replaceable/repairable.
I bought a used one for $400 on ebay 15 years ago and used it for 12 years…
Splatt,
I’m a retire computer security guy and was in the IT field for about 30 years. Here are the real factors you need to consider:
1 - When it breaks/fails can you fix it yourself? (I’m assuming that is a ‘no’ based on your comment)
2 - Do you know of a good local shop that can repair it at a reasonable price?
3 - Would you like to be able to call a technician and have them remote into your machine and fix it for you?
(and if remote doesn’t work, due to network issue or other, have them walk you through each setting to fix it)
4 - Do you need the best rig in the game or just one that will play all the latest games without a problem?
If you answered No, No, Yes and Just a good one then you should really look at getting an Alienware system with the 3 or 4 year warranty. Alienware is known in the gaming community as a solid gaming rig. My last 4 systems have been Alienware (even after Dell bought them out they remain a fairly autonomous business unit). My last system was around $3,200 including the warranty. I assume you do not want to wait until the next Christmas season (Black Friday deals) so you might have to pay a little more to get one now.
Key factors in any gaming system are:
1 - The graphics card(s) - get one or two (some systems can link 2 together to get you a little better performance) that have dedicated gpu memory and have a decent gpu score on passmark
2 - Random Access Memory (RAM) - Choose at least 32 gig, but 64 if you can afford it. RAM is mainly for multitasking (running many apps at once like a game, Discord and several web browsers open at once. RAM is quick and helps take data from your slower hard drive and keep it available for the CPU. It’s a little more complicated than that but think of it like the local grocery store versus the farm.
3 - Solid State Drive (SSD) - This is the hard drive technology and is much faster at seek/access and load times versus the old platter based Hard Disk Drives (HDD).
4 - Low latency monitor - anything under 4ms should be fine for gaming but look for as low as you can get.
5 - Monitor Resolution - If you are like me (getting older and have to enlarge the screen to see text sometimes) then getting a 3440x1440 or higher monitor isn’t going to be as beneficial as getting one that has a good refresh rate (100-144hz) and getting a good sized monitor so you have more viewing area. Also look for one with good nits (candelas per meter squared (cd/m2) which measures the brightness of a monitor. Think of it like horsepower for a car.
Hopefully this gives you enough information to make an informed purchase.
-Ronin
I started out with, over the years, one pre-built from Fry’s Electronics and two refurbished PC’s one a Dell and another a HP after that.
Over those years I had practice installing RAM, videos cardS, sound cards, catching a virus and having to do a fresh install of my windows operating system. I’ll be honest it was “freaky” getting use to installing RAM the first couple sticks. You apply quite a bit of pressure. Have you had any practice installing components or installing a operating system on a new drive?
Then I came here to the guild to ask for “where to start” equipment wise.
I followed that up by researching part by part. First I would go to intel’s website to familiarize myself with what was old to current CPU’s. Checked Tom’s Hardware … you can find system builds when comparing video card performances for instance. ie: say I’m comparing a Nvidia GTX 2060 vs Nvidia RTX 3060. I’m rocking a EVGA Nvidia GTX 1060 at the moment and wanted to see the generations after mine.
Now that you have a CPU picked out now find a mother board. I’ve been going with ASUS my last 2 builds. The mother boards will state what CPU’s are compatible. Along with how much RAM and the number of drives/devices can be attached to it.
Next step … I would suggest “C” drive alone for your operating system. A drive that you will not be installing your games on or most other applications to ie: turbotax. I like to leave my “C” system drive alone as much as possible minus software that should be there + updates to those programs. So 1 TB drive for your “C” sysem should be plenty. Follow that up with one or two gaming drives “D” and “E” … 2 TB each and your set for a few years on storage. What I’m not saying is … there’s something or was something about drives above 2TB’s that you must break up into partitions. Maybe that was the old windows 32bit systems … maybe 64 bit operating systems don’t suffer such nowadays. I remember it’s something I had to consider or at least know of with my previous 2 builds and I didn’t want the hassle of paritioning a 4TB drive when I was new to building a PC.
Find a PC case that’s made of metal more than plastic. Make sure it can fit the mother board along with enough room for a 2 fan or 3 fan video card. My past two builds have been thermalake’s. One was a jr. armor in silver … beautiful thing. I forget my current Thermalake case model but being made out of metal they’ll last / could last you for a couple PC builds.
When you pick a PSU , power supply unit, I’d goggle power supply calculator … add all the components …find what you’ll need power wise and get one a little more powerful to future proof your new system. ie: newer design video cards requiring more power than video cards years older.
Yes it’s a process but just take it part by part. I’ve found it helpful to diagram my PC build listing my chosen parts on it. Helped me focus on what’s been researched , what needs to be, and my end build. case, cpu, ram, video card, sound card, one 1 TB drive manufacturer and model , two 2 TB drives manufacturer and model, modular PSU, operating system, external or internal CD/DVD drive)
Be ready to read and re-read ALL the install manuals. Install / focus one part at a time. Expect to take half a day / day if your build time turns out like mine.
** both times the little leads you attach from the PC case to the mother board proved to be the most confusing to me as the install diagram didn’t match what I was working with. ** A friend at work helped me work through it the first time. The second build I knew what to expect and worked my way through it.
I don’t know if this is more harmful than helpful. Anyways … some of the things I’ve learned building 2 PC’s so far.
ps ps : if you order multiples, like I have, of the same hard drive write down on a piece of paper the identify information on the hard drive. ie: WDC1TB4045101 so you can tell that one apart from WDC1TB4065055. That way when your setting your boot order you know which one is your “C” boot / operating system drive and which of the others are not. Then you know WDC1TB4065055 is on SATA 2 (D) and WDC1TB4041111 is on SATA 3 (E).
Maybe there’s an easier way but … besides pointers and advice … it’s really lonely when it’s just you at ground zero encountering so much NEW from moment to moment. If you take away anything … research , make a diagram of your future PC listing the components , write down that hard drive identifier information before installing so your not totally lost when your in BIOS tagging which drive is part of the boot list.
I think you have gotten some good advice here. I am 400+ and I got a Serta Big and Tall chair from staples a couple years ago and it is working great.
As far as building goes if you are not wanting to put it together you can look at some one like MicroCenter they are a local parts shop near me but they have a build service so you can take the part suggestions you see below and have them put one together for you. Hope this helps
This thread tells me I need to up my gaming computer budget! LOL!
Or someone please end this global supply chain shortage!
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