Square One It Is Then...

Per the last post I fired up my old computer to see if anything was salvageable. As it turns out nothing was.

When my buddy and I turned the old machine on it gave a constant high-pitched beep, much like one would expect to hear from a flatlining patient in any good hospital drama. We checked online and that noise tends to indicate that there has been some sort of catastrophic failure with the motherboard: something has overheated, melted, and the whole thing is now fucked. Bad Times.

So that means I'm working with a completely clean slate when it comes to this project. Nothing will be used from the old machine; I'm even getting rid of my gaudy, plexiglass-sided case and going for something more living room friendly.

The upshot of this is that it will give a much more transparent view (pun?) of what the build actually costs.

Cost is an important consideration in this project. It's not a limiting factor as such, I have some disposable income each month (yes, it really should be going to the wedding fund and our flat needs a new carpet, but god dammit I want to play The Witcher 3!), however, the whole point of the project is to match/beat XBONE/PS4 performance with a PC for around the same price. This means that while in theory I could afford Nvidia's latest monstrosity known as the Titan, I won't be using it in this build because I could buy an Xbox, a PS4, and take a short holiday abroad for the same price.

So what is my upper cost limit? That varies depending on how much I've been playing about with options on PC Part Picker, but it should really be based on the PS4 and XBONE prices, which are £324 and £278 respectively.

At first I said: fine, £300 is the average between the two, so that's the cost limit. It makes sense, but here's the thing: investing a bit more just now will mean the rig will stay relevant for longer. The current build I have weighs in at £450.00 and should last a good long while. It should vastly out-perform the current gen consoles and when the next gen comes out there is room for improvement, hopefully without having to completely rebuild the whole computer.

Details to follow. I'm finalising the parts list and am aiming to order at the end of this month (after the credit card bill has been paid).

Until then,

Steve