Gaming PC build under $450 on Facebook

Timothy Kim60 said:That thing is dead. It’ll be a relic like floppy disks soon enough.

Dead? No way... in some parts of the country, it's just getting started! 😉
Anyway, I already got it sorted out.

The old Star Mill over in Indianapolis is the absolute Law.
The guy is super honest and his prices are actually killer...

Thanks for the help, everyone!

coastaltiger2 said:yeah... I usually just carry Windows on a thumb drive... but still... I need a DVD drive.. what kind of computer is it even if it doesn't have a DVD drive???

🤣 I get you, but at the same time, this is hilarious. For the next month, keep a log of how many times you actually pop a disc into your PC and let us know. I'm genuinely curious. 😁

I mean, the only thing he’s actually going to use it for is running Windows and maybe grabbing some drivers—though honestly, I’d just download those from the web anyway. By the way, let me know if you can hear that fan spinning, I'm dying to know!

coastaltiger2 said:Extinct? Hardly... it’s barely even hitting certain areas yet. 😉
Anyway, I've already got this sorted out.

The old Walmart over in Indianapolis is absolute gold.
The guy is incredibly honest and his prices are super fair...

Thanks to everyone for the help...

How much did he charge you?
You could have just grabbed one for about $40 on Amazon and installed it yourself (way easier).

Timothy Kim60 said:So how much did he charge you?
You could've just grabbed one for about $40 on Amazon and popped it in yourself—super easy.

I didn't want to DIY it since I've never actually done any work for you... he charged me $47... didn't charge extra for the labor though... unlike that other repair guy over on Main Street back in the day... he wanted $13 just to install it...

I’ve gotta say, my cousin can be such a pain sometimes—and I mean that in the most literal sense. A few years back, he charged me for installing some cooling fans $50, and what’s really annoying isn't even the money, it's that he didn't even give me a receipt. So, I get home and tell my parents he charged me $50 for about three minutes of work. My folks called him up and were totally fine with paying, but they asked if he could just send over an invoice. He actually had the nerve to act all tight about it... we could have easily called an inspector on him, but honestly, we just didn't want the headache, so we ended up just handing him the $50 anyway.

The whole point of me bringing this up is that $13 the price for an optical drive isn't actually that crazy, even if it truly takes maybe two minutes to set up. But hey, at the end of the day, people have to make a living too, right?

Anyone can do that; it's just that people are intimidated by computers and act like they're some kind of alien technology.

I know the guy. He runs a small local shop out in the suburbs, but he actually knows his stuff.

One time, they didn't even charge me for the diagnostic. My motherboard and GPU both fried at once, and they still came through for me. They'll work with you.

A few years back, I was hunting for a Molex to 4-pin adapter. I hit up every single computer shop in Indianapolis looking for one, nothing. Then I roll up to his place, the guy just has it sitting there. Charged me, too. $3.75 Instead. $5.00.

His component prices are pretty steep. Even compared to Amazon, he's charging more.

I was just comparing the R5 performance, and honestly, looking at it in Task Manager, it’s about... $283 If I recall correctly, he's pretty close to him. $400That’s not a small gap. For that kind of difference, you might as well just buy a better power supply.

Finally had some downtime last night to get everything set up. I am STOKED 🙂 about this rig. It took me maybe three hours to get Windows 7 fully installed (sp1) from the base image... just for context, doing that same thing on my old clunker used to take two whole days...
The speed is absolutely INSANE... seriously mind-blowing...
At the end, the system ran its own little "assessment," and the last item—data transfer—hit a measly 5.7. That makes me think one of the drivers Windows automatically pulled in is outdated, especially since this Hard Drive is supposed to be way faster than the old one... I'm guessing it's a motherboard issue (I noticed a "PCI something" driver dated back to 2006)... what do you guys think?
I'm at work right now so I can't dig in and see exactly which driver it is...

If you're talking about that last point, it’s just the data transfer rate, which is sluggish because Hard Drives are honestly just slow. I guess if you swapped in an SSD, that number would probably jump up to 7 or something

fadedorca66 said:If you're looking at that last bit, you're talking about the data transfer rate. It’s slow because, well, Hard Drives are just slow. Swap in an SSD and you'll see that number jump up to like 7 or something.

So we're talking about... the data transfer rate... that one is barely over 5 while everything else is sitting above 8... and Max told me this Hard Drive was supposed to be faster/better... wait, so that's the absolute limit for a Hard Drive? That's wild... I'm guessing there's no way to "speed it up" with drivers, right?

Unfortunately, you've hit the ceiling with a Hard Drive. It’s just old, sluggish tech; besides capacity, it’s pretty much the only thing that hasn't really evolved in the last 20 years. I guess drivers won't change a thing here—it's just the way it is.

If you want actual speed, maybe grab a 120GB SSD once you've scraped together about $75. Put Windows on there along with your apps, and you'll finally see how fast things can actually fly.

If you're obsessed with speed compared to your old setup, you shouldn't be stressing over some random number in the Windows experience...

Timothy Kim60 said:if you actually care about speed instead of obsessing over some random number in Windows...

that Windows experience index is basically useless anyway😁

It’s basically useless now—it looks like they finally caught on at Microsoft and stripped that junk out of Windows 8.1 ☕ I mean, look, a Hard Drive is just a mechanical disk, whereas an SSD uses flash memory and doesn't have any "moving" parts. Honestly, once you make the switch to an SSD, your computer feels like a brand-new machine. There isn't a single hardware upgrade that can boost your speed quite as much as an SSD can.

I'm just gonna roll with it... honestly, why overthink things? This PC is absolute perfection... huge thanks to everyone!
One more thing though—I'm totally blown away... I swear the audio coming out of these same speakers sounds three times better than before. Is that even possible, or am I just tripping?

coastaltiger2 said:You're spot on... I'm not even going to stress about it... this rig is perfect... thanks everyone, seriously...
One more thing before I go—I swear the audio sounds three times better on these same speakers. Is that actually possible, or am I just tripping?

It's totally possible your old PC had a worn-out port that wasn't transferring audio properly, or maybe it was just the sound card. Honestly, at the end of the day, all that matters is that you're happy with how it sounds. Why it happened doesn't really change anything now.
Have you jumped into any games yet? Let us know how it handles and what kind of settings you're running.

Sean Garcia3 said:It’s possible the old PC had a worn-out jack, so the audio wasn't hitting its peak, or maybe it was just the sound card itself. Honestly, as long as it sounds good to you now, why bother digging into the "why"? It doesn't matter.
Have you actually tried running a game yet? Let us know how it holds up and what settings you used.

🤦
What does a worn-out port have to do with actual sound quality?

I'm not going to sit here and nitpick speakers five hundred thousand times.😂

The real difference would be the sound card in the old rig versus the new one.

Robert Rodriguez2 said:🤦
what does a worn-out input have to do with sound quality?

man, you can't just repeat "the speakers are fine" five hundred thousand times and expect it to work.😂

The actual difference is going to be the sound card in an old PC versus a new one.

I only mentioned that as one possible cause; stop acting like a clown by nitpicking over nothing.

Sean Garcia3 said:Have you actually tried any games yet? Let us know how they run and what settings you used!

Yo, please check out this thread and my Post.

I know, I know—it probably sounds hilarious that I’m trying to game with a wireless mouse, but hey... it is what it is... and I really need some help here...