New desktop

[Acetoolguy]

I'm getting a new desk top soon, still in the hated shopping and comparing mode. Is there an easy way to transfer my +/- 175 Skyrim mods or will I have to redownload and install each one?

While I'm here.....

If you have $1500 to spend on a desk top what would you buy?

don't need monitor, keyboard etc.

[LeddBate]

$1,500 will get you a nice gaming (and general purpose) rig. See my post here for advice on a rig. Such a rig (with a GTX 980 as your GPU) will run you about $1,200 -so you've got a bit left over for further upgrades/extras.

[Griede]

i can advise shopping on newegg.com

many of their computer products come with a video shot by the newegg employees that explain details of the product in question. i bought everything for my $1,800 build their, though some people do not like newegg for w/e reason.

as for your mods. they all download as compressed files, most will be zip files, you can transfer (copy paste) those just fine. also, if you have multiple sata ports on your new MB, just get an extra sata cord and connect your old hardrive to your computer after you install your OS. it will load up as a separate hardrive, makeing it a lot easier to transfer the files. this will work with both laptop and desktop hardrives.

id recommend useing NMM or MO though, to download as a download manager is always preferable to browser. for instalation and or mod/ order handleing, use 1 or the other, and not both, they do the same thing completely different ways. NMM installs directly to the games data directory, and MO dose not, it creates a separate folder for the installed mods, then uses a text file to tell it which mods to load.

 

also, generally, i start with a processor, i find the one i want, with the specs i want, within a price range i can afford, and then find my MB. i ussually go with a 3.0 CPU

and a 6gs MB as a baseline. for the mother board, most ram you generally need is between 8g and 24g thats a min and a max, you dont often need more than 12g.

once you find a nice mother board, this will determine what size case you can support, and what size graphics card you can use. i dont mean what port it fits, i mean its length. you have to have a big enough case for the graphics card, recommend starting int he mid towers and go up. other specs on a graphics card are virtual ram, a lot of newer games require more and more Vram. you will want 2 - 3g min, more if you can afford it. for RAM- DDR3 1600 is more than sufficent for what i do.

 

once you have CPU, MB, GPU and case picked, then look for PSU - power supply. as you need the wattage values from the graphics card and the CPU to determine the minimum size PSU you need. prolly gonna start at 500w as you want to have power for the biggest components in your machine +20ish% for the smaller components as-well as breathing room., i also wouldn't use anything under bronze cert. another issue with graphics card is if it requires extra power cords, my MSI R9 comes with a 6pin and 8pin power ports, they both have to be plugged to the PSU or the card will not work. the PSU should have 6 and 8pin cords, but you will want to check to see if their are enough.

 

small recommendation, keep your OS and related mic files on a separate hard-drive, usually smaller, then your game(s) on a separate hardrive. prolly a 100g - 200g for OS, and a 500g - 1t for games/ movies. 6gbs. i usually go with WD - western digital, they have a long solid history of good drives, but thats my preference.

 

in general, design within budget, there are lot of good builds, but you usually want something slightly 'better' than what you need. you dont really want all your components to run at 100% capacity all the time. so you really want the breathing room at the CPU and the PSU.

also essential for a gameing build is cooling. you can use the case fans that come with the case, or shop for your own, just make sure they have the same connector, or if not, get an adapter. other cooling options are a larger heat-sink/ CPU cooler. you want to minimize as much heat on the CPU as possible as too much heat will make your new system run like your old system, with the exception that it looks prettier and will cost more to replace when it dies.

 

my Buildhttp://pastebin.com/YUNGE4F1

Edited September 15, 2015 by Griede

[Acetoolguy]

Thanks to both, I have found the hardware search to be daunting. Some are suggesting I wait for the new Skylake CPU's coming out in a couple weeks. I guess I will, gives me two more weeks to get info.

Who knew there are like 10,000 video cards out there, each better than all the others...

[obobski]

On the Skyrim question - yes you can transfer the whole thing over. For extra fun: you can actually transfer EVERYTHING in Steam over. Just pick up your entire Steam folder and drop it down on the new machine, install Steam on the new machine, and point it at the "old" Steam folder. It can take time to transfer everything, but even if you only have 100Mbit networking at home, it will probably be faster than re-downloading and re-installing everything. Especially modded games. OFC keep back-ups on your existing machine in the event something goes wrong.

 

On the new machine, you've gotten great advice from Griede and LeddBate, the only bits I'd add:

 

- Give a look at the Radeon R9 290/390 cards. They're great performers and cost somewhat less (at least last I looked they did) than the GTX 980. Either is a good choice. I have a 290X in my new main system (its almost a year old now, how time flies! :ohmy:), and have had no complaints; I had a GTX 660 (older nVidia card) before that, and also had no complaints. Basically I'd just get whatever represents a better deal in terms of price<->performance.

 

- I can't overstate how important a quality PSU is. Don't mess around with this - get something high quality and it will last for a long time. JonnyGuru is a great place to find reviews of PSUs, and if you're even lazier than that ( :yes:), just go with a top-tier brand like PC Power & Cooling ( :thumbsup:), Corsair (their higher end models), Seasonic, etc. :dance:

 

- On Skylake, I wouldn't get horribly fired up. I'm not saying "don't do it" but more "it doesn't make a huge difference" - you can find benchmarks from Anand, TPU, TR, etc if you like. Generally CPU performance hasn't improved much in terms of gaming in the last few iterations, especially for single-thread heavy games like Skyrim, so anything from the last 3 generations (Haswell, Broadwell, or Skylake) will be perfectly competent. If you need killer IGP performance ( :teehee:) go with Broadwell.