Best Gaming PC for under $1,200?

The dell looks like a better deal since the systems are pretty similar. The alienware has a lot better gpu. But if your running at 1080 on a tv you do not need a top end gpu. A midrange will do just fine. Plus you could get a better gpu for it for around $200 a nvidia 960 or an amd 380/380x. 

Is there any reason why you could not build your own. It's pretty easy to do in this day and age with pcpartpicker. It will Then you can get exactly what you want.

If you want more "bang for your buck" look at a previous gen i7/i5 system. You should be able to get one for around $500-800 bucks. Then you can upgrade more components. But most games are very gpu intensive. So top cpu speed isn't needed anymore. Unless your doing rendering or something along that lines.

You could get something like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227509&cm_sp=Homepage_FDD-_-P1_83-227-509-_-11272015

And add some ram, upgrade the power supply and gpu later on and have a better system for a lot cheaper.

 
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Great advice from all - thank you for your recommendations. While I could build my own computer, I lack the tech skills (I struggle with figuring out my cell phone!)

 
It's not very hard to build a computer. Just look at a few youtube videos and you'll see how easy it is. Plus with building your own. You know exactly what your getting and what you can upgrade.

Here is a good computer to start with. You could use it the way it is then upgrade it later and come out a lot farther ahead. I know you said you don't have the skills to do it. But search youtube/google on "how to build a computer" and you'd be amazed how easy it is. I built my first one when I was 16 without the internet (18 years ago). And it's a 1000 times easier to do now.

 
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I ended up getting this from HP custom built. The overall cost was $953.39 shipped:
 

•7-in-1 Media Card Reader, 4 USB Ports (Top), Audio [Top 2USB2.0, 2USB3.0]
•Integrated Sound
•16GB DDR4-2133 DIMM (2x8GB) RAM
•2TB 7200 RPM SATA 6G Hard Drive
•SuperMulti DVD Burner
•500W Power supply
•Windows 10 Home 64-bit OS
•HP Wireless 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac 1x1 with Bluetooth M.2 NIC (Stone Peak 1)
•6th Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K processor quad-core [4.0GHz, 8MB Shared Cache]
•4GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 [DL DVI-I, HDMI, DP, DP, DP]
 
Wow... that's a monster of a machine. Not to criticize (well, maybe a little) but I would have done 3 things different.

1. I would have gotten at least one SSD for the OS + an HDD for storage. Or maybe 1 SSD for OS, 1 SSD for games and 1 HDD for storage... you definitely had the budget for it. Makes a huge difference in OS/program/games starting up. 

2. 16GB is definitely overkill for RAM... even the most demanding games don't see much of an improvement with 16GB vs 8GB RAM. Plus, it's DDR4 so I can't imagine it was cheap. 

http://www.techspot.com/article/1043-8gb-vs-16gb-ram/page3.html

3. I would have gotten a more powerful PSU just to be safe. 500 watts should be enough no saying if that's enough if you decide to upgrade components in the future. 

Honestly though, it's a beast of a machine... the only real issues here is the lack of an SSD, which helps loading but really, it's not a major fault in any way. I'm super jealous, contacts on the new machine. :D

 
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There are sites that will build your computer for you for shipping, part cost and a $50 sur charge. It will be cheaper and you'll get a better PC.

 
That's a good deal. The cpu and gpu together are almost $700 bucks by themselves. The only thing I'd do is get an SSD like the other people said. Since its black friday/cyber monday time. You could get a 500gb one for around/less than $150. Which you will notice a huge difference in Windows starting up compared to a regular hard drive.

 
Vinny said:
Wow... that's a monster of a machine. Not to criticize (well, maybe a little) but I would have done 3 things different.
1. I would have gotten at least one SSD for the OS + an HDD for storage. Or maybe 1 SSD for OS, 1 SSD for games and 1 HDD for storage... you definitely had the budget for it. Makes a huge difference in OS/program/games starting up.

2. 16GB is definitely overkill for RAM... even the most demanding games don't see much of an improvement with 16GB vs 8GB RAM. Plus, it's DDR4 so I can't imagine it was cheap.
http://www.techspot.com/article/1043-8gb-vs-16gb-ram/page3.html

3. I would have gotten a more powerful PSU just to be safe. 500 watts should be enough no saying if that's enough if you decide to upgrade components in the future.

Honestly though, it's a beast of a machine... the only real issues here is the lack of an SSD, which helps loading but really, it's not a major fault in any way. I'm super jealous, contacts on the new machine. :D
Click to expand...
+1 especially on the ssd point
 
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