Is getting a 4060 prebuilt in 2026 a bad idea?
Is getting a 4060 prebuilt in 2026 a bad idea?
Can you build it yourself for cheaper?
Also, IMO 16GB is bare minimum in 2026 if you are using Windows. I’d really go to 32GB.
It’s 2026. If you are on windows you should be planning your switch to Linux.
Microsoft has no interest in you owning a computer. You can buy access to stream game rentals from their data centers while AI inserts ads and micro transactions into all the games.
I do intend on installing Linux on this computer.
In that case I strongly suggest you look at an AMD GPU. Nvidia is usable on Linux, but not pleasant.
Go with AMD for the GPU, life will be easier. I regret not doing this.
Also, go with AMD for the processor. The 7800X3D is stupidly good for gaming and not THAT much more than the i5-14400F (well, okay, it’s like $150ish more, but so much better). You can also find other AMD CPUs closer in price to that one which will outperform it. Intel’s kinda gone to shit.
Yes; however, I’m getting the personal vibe that gaming hardware progress is massively plateauing. Still, I may hold off. Tbh, I’ve kind of been waffling on buying a new PC since 2017. My 1070 is juuuust old enough now that I’m starting to see some games I straight up can’t run at 30 fps.
This whole manufacturing crisis in the USA (that’s where I live) coupled with depressed wages and aaa games not interesting me… It’s all kind of discouraging. I’m tempted to just buy something good enough and sit for another 10 years. Perhaps I’m just being reactionary to the increasing prices and looking for a ‘deal.’
10 cores, 16 threads. How does that work out, is it some bigLittle system?
Just curious, last intel I used was like gen 8.
Yes. Intel now splits their CPU’s with “P” cores (performance) that function like normal x86 processors with hyperthreading, and “E” cores (efficiency) that are lower clocked, less feature rich cores without HT.
Most OS and background tasks can be loaded on E cores while P cores work strictly on high performance programs. Its not bad, except for the fact that its Intel building them.
I feel like this is not a great deal. Keep in mind that ore-builts are in general a gamble. They often advertise the parts that people might now (CPU/GPU) but fill the other parts (PSU, MoBo, RAM, computer case, fans, CPU cooler) with cheap garbage.
Now this PC is $250 short of $1000 (before tax and shipping) and you are getting a low end CPU from an old Intel generation, a mid/low end GPU from a prior generation (only +50% performance compared to the 1070), half the ram capacity you’d want, and absolutely terrible hard drive space at only 512 gb.
half the ram capacity you’d want
You don’t need more than 16GB of RAM.
The only games that list that much in their requirements 1: don’t actually need it and 2: are unoptimized slop you shouldn’t be buying anyways
I have actually crashed my computer from running out of RAM before, and I had 16GB. Wanna know what I had open? 2 games, a dozen windows of Chrome (one of which was running a Zoom call), plus several other smaller applications. Nobody in their right mind is doing that, nor should they be mad or surprised if their computer crashes when they try.
The biggest non-gaming hit to RAM is going to be Chrome, which runs up to about 1GB of RAM per window. Not per tab, per window. And if you have dozens of windows each with dozens of tabs, Windows starts to move the oldest ones from RAM to storage to avoid using too much RAM. With that, good luck forcing Chrome to go much past 4GB total, even if all those tabs have Youtube videos loaded…
Unless you and your friends are doing a lot of screensharing, you’re probably not getting Discord much past 0.5GB, same with Spotify. Let’s be real generous and give it 2GB total between the 2.
That means there’s 16-6=10GB left for Windows and a game, if you’re doing all of these bad habits outlined above. Even then, not a lot of games use that much RAM. I actually do all of the bad habits I’ve outlined above regularly, and I very rarely go past 16GB on my system (I have 32GB total).
I repeat, nobody in their right mind needs more than 16GB of RAM.
Saying you get “only +50% performance” from a 4060 over a 1070 is disingenuous at best, a complete lie at worst.
You seem to have just done a quick google and taken the first number that came up in the summary while neglecting to read the rest. Many games will give you well over 100% performance increase, as well as having access to raytracing and other new features, including DLSS.
I don’t understand how providing the average performance gain over the 1070 is disingenuous/lying. In fact it would be more disingenuous to cherry pick certain games where the performance gains are highest.
The 4060 is not a ray tracing card. Don’t sip the Nvidia koolaid, you gonna need a vram buffer greater than 8 gb to run ray tracing at a frame rate that doesn’t feel bad. Also ray tracing is a gimmick imo. I don’t really think the visual enhancement is worth the performance hit in almost all games I’ve tried ray tracing. I’d rather play a game at 144 fps at native resolution than at 60 fps with ray tracing on and DLSS on.
DLSS is a fair point imo, but personally, it would feel bad upgrading a decade old card with a 3 year old card; while getting the same vram capacity, an average +50% raster performance, and DLSS.
Either way, this person’s needs are different from mine, so may be that feels okay for them.
Why don’t you get some Intel Arc GPU, I think at the moment they are the best bang for your buck.
I would say this PC isn’t great on paper. The PSU is too weak and if you decide to upgrade in the future you would most likely need to change it. The 8Gb VRAM is also suboptimal, as well as the SSD size.
Not to mention that most of the pre-built PCs are cutting corners and probably this PSU would be no-name and I wouldn’t trust it.