Growing up, the only PC I had access to was an old Dell my dad used for work and planning softball games, which really (barely) couldn’t run The Sims 2My parents were sports fans and couldn’t understand how anyone could pay thousands of dollars for a computer, so it wasn’t until I started my career in games journalism that I got to test a powerful, impressive, shiny gaming PC – and even then, I only had it in my possession for a few months at most. PC gaming is growing faster than console gamingSo I became somewhat determined to evolve into a PC gamer (who will probably still use a controller because my small hands struggle with mouse and keyboard inputs), and my journey has been an arduous one.
There are two main types of gaming PCs: pre-built and custom built. Pre-builts are what the label says: they’re fully-built PC towers with all the features you need to enjoy gaming and can be plugged in and played right away. Custom builds require you to source the major internal components yourself, from the graphics card to the processors to the cooling systems. They allow for much more precise tweaking and customization than a pre-built, but they inherently require a level of technical prowess that can be quite intimidating.
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During my stay in GamesRadarI had a iBUYPOWER Loan PC which served me well. It was a pre-build that I used to play War zone And Monitoring and I occasionally stream on Twitch, which doesn’t require much in the way of setup other than removing some padding and plugging in the tower. It’s been almost two years since I last had a gaming PC, and my attempts to get back into it have been extremely frustrating.
The Trials and Tribulations of PC Gaming
Few months ago, iBUYPOWER sent me a pre-built PC to test/review, which required me to install the graphics card in it (a (GeForce RTX 4070). I followed the instructions, lying on the floor of my apartment as I unscrewed the brackets that would hold it in place, desperately trying to keep my cat away from all the tiny screws and delicate parts. I watched YouTube tutorials before even attempting the process, worried that my clumsy fingers would break a delicate (and crucial) plastic tab. As I placed the graphics card into the tower, I heard the telltale click of it sliding into the Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) port, connected the internal power cables, closed everything up, plugged in all the peripherals and the HDMI cable, and lifted the beast out from under my desk.
However, when I turned it on, my monitor said there was no signal. I tried other cables. I uninstalled and reinstalled the GPU. Nothing. I figured the monitor, which had been idle for almost a year, might be the culprit, so I dragged it into my living room to see if it would display my Xbox Series S. It did, so I took it back to my bedroom and tried again. No luck.
To their credit, the iBUYPOWER rep was friendly and responsive, and did their best to help me ship back the old PC and ship out a new one, though it took a few months to sort it all out, during which time the space I had cleared for the gaming PC gathered dust. I assumed the problem was user error, a reminder that I am woefully incompetent in the world of PC gaming, until the second PC had the same problem. Determined to fix the problem, I put out a call for help on social media, and dozens of knowledgeable PC gamers came to my rescue. One person walked me through every step of installing the card, and I sent them videos and pictures to make sure I had indeed done it correctly.
Then after that always That didn’t work, the person helping me noted that this specific rig had a Hyte riser cable connector, which is just for aesthetics as it allows you to mount your graphics card vertically. They suggested I unplug the Hyte riser cable and insert the GPU sideways into a different PCie port to see if the cable was the problem, not my GPU setup. So I opened the damn thing up again and got to it, my hands shaking as I tried to make sure nothing broke in the process. After successfully unplugging the riser cable, I discovered that the “low profile” layout of the case meant that the graphics card couldn’t fit into any other slot. Discouraged, defeated, and covered in sweat, I packed up the PC and prepared to send it back, thanking iBUYPOWER for their time and energy and giving up on my PC gaming dream.
A breakthrough in PC gaming
A generous friend who lives near me on the Internet saw me tweeting about my PC problems and offered to lend him his old tower, telling me that when I picked it up, I could just download Windows onto it. I stood there, sweating on the sidewalk, realizing the new problem I had just created: Downloading Windows onto a wiped-out PC required me to download a version of the operating system onto a USB stick, which I could then plug into the tower—and the only working computer I have at home is a MacBook Air with no USB port.
I still took the tower back to my apartment, where I sat on the floor for about half an hour, dissociating, until I had a eureka moment: the display port on the iBUYPOWER motherboard would at least let me use the PC to download Windows to the USB stick. So I unpacked the damn thing again, scolded my cat for immediately jumping into the box, and set it up in my living room. A few hours and several questions to my PC builder friend later (where to download Windows, what is Rufus, what boot device to select), I had Windows running on my friend’s PC.
Then, after all that work, after all that sweat and frustration, NZXT sent me their own pre-built PC, with their graphics card already installed (I had told them about my installation issues and my reluctance to try any kind of custom work). In an almost hilarious way, the absolute beauty (the player: Three Primewhich will set you back a whopping $3,700 and looks like a beautiful techno fishbowl when turned on) started up without any problems.
It took me less than 20 minutes to unpack the behemoth from its shipping box and set everything up, after which I collapsed on my bed and let out the kind of maniacal laugh you’d expect to hear from a horror movie villain. Hours and hours of struggle, months of waiting, and this beautiful thing just flicked on like a light switch. I think it’s pre-assembly or nothing for me, guys.
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