PC gaming noob who does not want to build his own PC

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You're probably not going to find a pre-built desktop gaming PC that can run modern games like Battlefield 3 and Skyrim on max settings for less than about $800, and that's if you're lucky. Standard business practices are to overcharge you for an underpowered PC. Always build your own, if you feel up to it. You get way better performance for your money. Pre-built computers tend to look good at first inspections, but if you look closely, they always cut corners or skimp on a certain aspect of the specs, whether its the RAM, the CPU, the GPU, or the hard drive.

I've decided to go with the pre-built PC Stargazer43 recommended

http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-o ... Desktop-PC

But I added a GTX680 card and a 600w PSU to the package.

I'm wondering if I should get a bigger HDD though, would 1 TB be enough for gaming?

What components did you select, exactly? If you're going to go with that, I'd suggest going with 16 GB DDR3 1600, in the RAM department, especially with a GTX680; so your RAM won't be the weak link between your CPU and GPU. And 1 TB of HDD space is more than enough for gaming, if you're not going to be storing hundreds of GB worth of HD video footage on your computer, or something. A 600-watt PSU is plenty for that rig, but I wouldn't go any lower, just o be safe.

Personally, if I was choosing parts for that computer, here's what I'd go with:

OS: Windows 8 64-bit
CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K
RAM: 16GB DDR3-1600MHz SDRAM
HDD 1: 256GB Solid State Drive
HDD 2: 1TB 7200 rpm SATA hard drive
GPU: 2GB Nvidia GTX680

Of course, that comes to over $2000; but I know for a fact that if you buy all the individual parts yourself, you can build an even more powerful computer than that for just under $1800.

But, that's just, like, my opinion, man...

Is 16 gbs of ram really necessary?

Isn't hat's going overboard, plus its an extra $240, I figured 8 would be enough for now and the near future

Depends on personal preference, but modern games do chew up massive amounts of RAM, these days. They say 4 GB is the minimum, 8 is recommended, and you're pretty much guaranteed to be safe at 16. You'd certainly be OK with only 8 GB, but you'd probably have to upgrade to more and/or higher RAM in a year or two, and that can be humongous pain if you don't know what your motherboard specs are, like is the problem with most pre-built PCs.

The final decision's ultimately up to you, though.

If you're willing to buy refurbished or used, you could likely find a good deal here.

If you don't want to build the whole thing yourself, the main things you want to look at are the processor, motherboard, and power supply. If its through a company that gives you options, take the lowest offered RAM and video card as those are a piece of cake to add yourself, and buy them separately for less and do that, but make sure the power supply that comes with your computer supports whatever video card you are looking at, and the RAM you buy is the right type for your motherboard. Hard drive wise, thats up to you as far as how much space you want.



Regarding the RAM debate, I am running 24gb of DDR3-1600 in triple channel. Do I need it right now? Not really, but it was on sale and is the max my motherboard supports so I figured why the hell not?

If you're just going to be gaming, you're better off getting 8gb of RAM at the maximum (unless you want to do CGI rendering, which requires more ram and processing power), there's really no point in getting more, because if you need to upgrade in the future there will be faster, higher capacity RAM available to purchase. Also, an extra $240 for 16gb of RAM? That's ridiculously expensive, you can get 16gb memory for under $110.

Although they don't have them it in that build, I'd recommend getting an ASUS GTX 670 Direct CU II OC, and a i5-3570k.

Stick with the RAM you have. 16gb is an absurd amount and you will never use that much on that system gaming. Even 8gb is more than enough; I have 6gb and have never needed more than that running intensive games such as Crysis or modded Skyrim.

One GTX 680 will be more than enough to run most any game maxed. If anything it is complete overkill considering your initial target costs of $700. However if you still want to look into these price ranges I would recommend a Radeon 7970 Ghz over a 680 as it performs at or above the level of a GTX 680 and is cheaper. It is however noisier and uses more power.