How much money do I need to aquire a Desktop WIndows 7 PC capable of playing Crysis 3 at maximum settings, because if it can play Crysis 3, it can play Battlefield 3, Far Cry 3, The Witcher 2, Arma 3, and possibly games that uses Unreal Engine 4.


(I am planning on getting my own desktop for next year)

Need?

There is 0% "need" to do that. Questioned answered definitively!

LOL

But seriously, just straight up tell me how much would it cost, no details and stuff just give me a number please.

If you're building it yourself, I'd say between 1500 and 2000 bucks.

And buying the thing already made, straight out of the package?

No idea. Building yourself is (most of the time) the cheaper option.

To max Crysis 3 at 60fps from the sounds of it might take a couple grand right now, but the point of the game's settings is future-proofing. No need to play on max day one, just like the first game.

In any event wait for the next consoles to arrive before doing anything, they should let you know how powerful a PC you need to last a while. That's my plan, my PC is about 3 years old now and I will upgrade in another year or so when I know the specs of the next Xbox.

My stack of Maximum PC mags can help with this one, but if I knew what kind of clock speeds to look for, memory total, stuff like that.

What I -can- tell you is that a Windows 7 SP1 64-bit system builder DVD-ROM will run you about $90 on Amazon at the moment.

I'll second that estimation. If you're buying it you can probably get it to fall within this range as well, depending on where you get it from and how much they let you customize the build. Also, the kinds of peripherals you want/need can cause the price to vary quite a bit, most notably with regards to a monitor, as it can be easy to drop anywhere from $200-400 on a nice one.

If their previous games are anything to go by the hardware probably doesn't exist yet.

$2000 is usually a good mark for a high-end PC that doesn't involve ridiculous setups with water cooling and heavy overclocking. However, as term of value for your money I wouldn't buy a computer for more than $1000-1500 at a time and then wait until next time you buy and then catch up on what you missed.

As for the term maximum settings it's a loosely accepted term. For example, do you only mean eye candy? Otherwise playing at 2560x1600 or 3800x1200 (multiple monitors) at 32xAA could be struggling even in a couple of years with the best hardware available.

I forgot to mention. Please don't take offense at this but of what I've seen you are not particular used to a PC, right? I remember you saying something you didn't know how to manually patch a game. If so, then I strongly suggest you build the computer yourself or find someone who can help you as you will learn valuable information that will be useful for future upgrades, you can help others in turn and you'll save money.

Are you guys serious with those numbers?.

When you guys mention 2 grand for a PC, my feeble mind just can't parse that. I don't think i have spent more than 1000 dollars in a new PC in years, and i can run pretty much everything maxed out.

I might be out of touch but just how demanding is Crysis 3 anyway? System specs?

At some point future proofing proves to be a suckers bet. I'm not sure what that point is precisely, but if you're spending $2k on a rig, you may very well be better off slashing the price down to $1k and just buying a new rig sooner. As you'd probably be getting more than half the performance and likely enough performance to play for a couple years anyways.

Traditionally, that last bit of performance is a huge portion of the cost of the machine.

Obviously though, if the OP is dead set on maxing things out, that's not going to be a consideration. I've personally never understood the need to max things out. Well, at least since the late '90s when that would be the difference between playable and borderline playable. Unreal, I'm looking at you.

LOL, my last desktop cost me $450 and the current laptop I use was $600. With both, from the type of games I play, I've never found one that wouldn't play on it.

I been spoiled by the simplicity of Consoles and its, "Put form of media Cartridges, Disc, etc. and turn on console and it works".

My brother can help, but he is too stubborn to teach me :(