Category: Games

How to find a cheap graphics card to hold you over until you can get that high end GPU.

Paul
Picture by Ödeldödel

Graphics cards are expensive

Well with everything going on from bitcoin miners trying to make money and buying all the GPU’s lately, you’re probably like the rest of us and can’t find that really high end graphics card to play games with.   You could also just be wanting a better graphics for your graphical editing or even for programs like autocad that can be used for business.   Either way, you’re still waiting for the Low Hash Rates to come out or start being sold but until then you are probably like everyone else trying to get the cheapest graphics card you can for the price and buying those can seem very hard to get even if you do try to do the Newegg Shuffle.  Even then there is not much you can do for that system that needs that graphics card to run the programs or even just because the CPU doesn’t support any Graphical hardware on the motherboard.  What’s a person to do?

Buy a used low end GPU

The first way you can do this is to go searching for low end used graphics card.  I am going to talk about where you should look to buy that low end card and what you should look for when you finally find that card that will keep you going until the prices drop to where you can afford to buy the card.   This isn’t going to be a big list but it will be a list that I’ve used in the past and seems to work really well.

  • Buy it off of Facebook – Although you can find some really good cards that seem like they are good.  You still have to do your research and make sure the buyer has either some good ratings or maybe even has some good used GPU.
  • Mercari –  Is another site I like to watch and have notifications for products that either go on sale or even products that reduces their prices.   They have a great way to watch products that will allow you to watch for that GPU that might work for you.
  • Google Shop – You can look for that cheap GPU or find a really good used GPU that you can use until the price of the High end GPUs start to come down.   Either way you can get notified when there are new products that are for sale and or get notified when there is products in your area that is for sale.
  • Ebay – Although this is one that I don’t support anymore because of how much people have increased the price on GPU and made it extremely hard to buy good GPU’s.   I am just throwing this out for those who might want to check it out.  You might be able to find a low end GPU that will work for you until you can afford to get a good GPU.

Buy a High end GPU

So you’ve decided to buy a higher end GPU and you don’t want to pay the ridiculous prices that you are seeing from Amazon, or even other sites like that.   You want to get it for as cheap as possible but you don’t know how or where to look.  I’ve going to give you a few options that I know of but that will likely only be good for a small chance of getting a high end graphics card for cheaper than most.

  • NewEgg Shuffle – This is one those that I might get you a decent chance of getting a GPU that is closer to the MSRP or even at MSRP rates.   I just don’t like it when they bundle GPU’s with something that won’t work or you don’t need.   It sometimes does have the GPU’s that are sold by themselves and thus can be good sometimes.
  • Google Shop — Another good one because you can get notified when you find a cheap High end GPU that might work for your needs.  It however isn’t always accurate and thus you will need to keep that in mind when it comes to finding that high end GPU.
  • Shop Local Computer Repair Shops –  If you’re local shop has a website that will notify you when they have GPUs this would be a good time to keep watch on when they have a GPU.  You might even be able to find it closer to the MSRP.

Well these are just a few recommendations on how to either find a cheap Graphics card or if you are looking to try to find a high end gaming card for as cheaply as you can.  If you are really going to try to find a cheap Gaming Graphics card, this would be the ways I would do it.   Either way, you will most likely just always be looking until you find one that will work for you.

What’s some ways you have found a GPU that can work for your needs?  Why not leave a comment and tell people how you did it yourself.   I know these aren’t the only way to buy cards that are closer to the MSRP.  Like what you read, why not subscribe and find out more stuff that might help you with your computer parts.

How to build a Gaming Computer Cheaply!

Paul

Building that Cheap Desktop

Even now people are still trying to build cheap gaming desktops because it is fun to build it yourself.   You can however order a gaming desktop from either your local computer store or even online such as Origin but then you will be paying more.  Either way, you will probably be paying more for the labor and maybe even the price of some of the computer parts.   This is why I like to build my own desktop and customize it to my liking.   Each time I make a desktop for clients or even me, I ask myself what do I want to have in my system.   I’m an INTEL person myself and will always go with Intel due to the fact that it works really well with Windows and other programs natively.  I also ask myself some common questions before I begin my build.

  • Will it Be Intel or AMD?  (To each their own preference)
  • How much speed do I want to have?
  • What type of HD will I most likely install it it?  (examples: NVME, SSD or HDD)
  • What type of Graphic card do I plan to have in it if Any?  (Nvidia, AMD or no Graphics card at all)
  • Will I want to have max memory or just the standard 8Gb or 16Gb of memory?
  • Will it be for Gaming or Work, or Both?
  • Will I need a lot of power to run this PC?
  • Will it be Watercooled or Air Cooled?
  • Will it have RGB on it or will it be non RGB?  (This too is a good question because RGB will take additional power but it isn’t going to be a lot)
  • What Games if any will I most likely be playing on this desktop?  (Each Game has minimum requirements that need to be met, so look carefully at the games)

Time to do research

This is where it starts to get interesting because most of the time, I will start with Motherboard and CPU.   This is the first place I start looking for the right motherboard and cpu for my needs or at least to start off with.   You can always buy a slower CPU and gradually upgrade it as you get more money.   So you don’t have to always have the fastest CPU to start off with.   It does help but it will also help with keeping it cheap.  This is the time you decide if it will be AMD or INTEL and then look for the board that will work with the CPU.   Also you will need to pay extra attention to the socket types and how many PCI Slots.   If you are going to install a Graphics Card, you will need to have the right PCI slot and also if you intend to install any other peripherals which might need a pci slot.

Buy RAM

Once you’ve bought the CPU and Motherboard, you’ll know which type of RAM you will need to buy to install onto the Motherboard. This is what I usually do anyways and I start looking for RAM being sold on Facebook or other sites that sell used RAM.   You’ll just want to make sure the seller is reliable and has some good ratings before buying the ram.  The max speed I usually get for any system nothing more the 4000 Ghz,  I usually try to limit it to 3200 Ghz because you really don’t find any more speed coming from the memory at higher rates.   I think it is due to the limitations of the motherboards but that might just be something else.

Power Supply

EVGA SuperNOVA 850 Ga, 80 Plus Gold 850W, Fully Modular, ECO Mode with Dbb Fan, 10 Year Warranty, Compact 150mm Size, Power Supply 220-GA-0850-X1

Now is the time to buy the power supply,  This can seem easy but really it is harder than most will admit to.  You’ll want to buy a power supply that can be used with your system and then add a cushion of 30% or more to the power supply needs.   So if you need a 500 watt power supply, I’d buy a 900 watt power supply just to be safe.   If you can find one that is modular, that is even because then you won’t have cables that you aren’t using.   That’s the only thing good with Power supply.   Something like the one you are seeing on the left will work just fine.   Most of the time it will work even better than you can imagine.

 

Video Card

This is essential the most expensive part of the build right now.   Depending on where or who you talk to.   It can be anywhere from a few 100 dollars to even a 1 thousand dollars to buy the video card new.  The trick here is to find a video that will work for you right now and then upgrade it as you need to in the future or as you get the money in the future.   So I always tell people to go with the Minimum requirements of games and then work your way up to recommended requirements because that way you can save up for the GPU that is recommended and still be able to play the game you are wanting to play.  Just remember don’t bottleneck your CPU with getting a better GPU and not upgrading your CPU in the same the process.  Look for people who are selling their GPU’s and or places that might sell you a cheap GPU that still will do what you are looking to play or do with it.  Even with Nvidia announcing the Low Hash rates GPU’s, You can expect the price of them to be more expensive than what you normally will see for quite some time.

After That you should really be set to put you system and install what operating system you might want into the new desktop.   Once that done you are set to start playing your games.

 

My Review of Subnautica : Below Zero and the Story Line

Paul
SubNautica: Below Zero

It’s not for the faint of heart

Subnautica even the original isn’t what you would want to give someone who hasn’t ever played the game because there are scare sequences that might not make for the best impression to people who has never played the game.  I’ve played both Subnautica and Below Zero through the whole game and come to realize that that there is something off on the game.   I wanted to talk about it and tell you my thoughts on the whole idea.

The story line

Now Let’s face it if you haven’t played subnautica original or this one and don’t want spoilers, please be warned this is going to have spoilers in it about the story line.

You’ve Been Warned!

The original subnautica, You crash land on the planet in an escape pod.  Then you have to gather resources and get yourself up and about to survive the environment.   Of course you need food and water and even a nice bed to sleep to make it look real and feel like you are actually living it.  The storyline in the game on the original was just really well done and you had to explore and find out how to save yourself from getting even more sick and that didn’t come all at once, you found out over time that you were sick.

Finally once you figured out how to get yourself well you had to help a giant leviathan who was trapped and dying due to be locked up and all she wanted you to do is let her babies go free who will help stop the virus in every plant and fish.   They seem to leak the antidote and it helps to cure  plants and fish.     Finally you do that and the next thing you have to do is create a rocket to launch yourself up and away to go home.     This was the storyline for the original subnautica and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I loved the exploration of it all and being able to go really down deep and to find the resources that I might need to survive.   The Base building was always the fun part, you could make big or small bases when you needed it and also make them however you liked and customized them your way.

Subnautica Below Zero

We find Robin getting off the ship with a drop pod and she wants to find out what happened to her sister(Sam).   The opening sequence was well done but the voice actors were changed, I am not sure why they changed but I was playing this game in beta and I don’t know why they wanted to change the actors but it was really well done.   So we find Robin trying to gather resources first like usual and building a base is something that needs to be done.   You’ll come to a point in the game where you will find a distress call(in morse code)   and find out there is an living entity in a cave who takes over your brain because it needed help to survive.   We’ll come back to him in a second.   You do the things you need to find out what happens to Sam and why she dead.   You explore and find out that Sam has an antidote for the big frozen leviathan and you are to find it and administer it to prevent Alterra from using the Kharaa Bacterium for research or who knows even a weapon.  Along the way you find out what happens to your sister and even some pictures and stuff that helps bond the player to want to know more and more.  Anyway once that storyline is done you have another storyline to complete.

The Talking Entity

So Now you have Alan(or Allen) in your head and there are occasional times where you two are talking to each other.   Either way you develop a need to get him out of your head and put him into a body or container.  He tells you what you might and even shows you where there might be some at.  You’ll definitely need to go deep like the last one.   I figured that I’d need to go deep again, it seems to be a constant with the architects.   They really do love to go deep don’t they.

You’ll get him a body but first you need to build the resources to build be able to build his body.   You’ll want to bring those resources that you gathered with you to the places far down below when you’re ready to make his container or body.   You make his body and he tells you the story of how he got into this predicament.  He tells you he’ll go back to his home world and ask for forgiveness and try to make right what he did wrong.   He offers you to join him and you do since you have no other way off the planet.   I really liked the ending sequence to this because you saw the space outside and it looked really nicely made.

Ending it

I really didn’t like the fact that there were two storylines in the game and the game just felt a little bit off but it might just of been me.   I do hope what we see in the ending sequence is a precursor to another part of Robin’s journey we will get to play.  After all, I am really curious as to what happened to the architects.  Does Robin get to help them or are they dead?  I really think Unknown Worlds is going to continue this game in the coming months.  We’ll probably see another game about the architects and it will hopefully be the one where we are still playing Robin and she has to help this being out to figure out what happened to his people.

Do you think they will create another game to continue off where they left or is this just the end of the game series?  Let me know what you think?  I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

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