#Barebones PC

[jacksondom]

Top Barebone PC Kits of 2025: Build Smarter, Game Harder

Building your own PC is an exciting way to get a machine that perfectly suits your needs. Whether you’re a gamer, content creator, or someone who simply needs a powerful work computer, barebone PC kits are a great way to get started. These kits include the basic parts of a computer, like the case, motherboard, and power supply, but leave the rest—such as the processor, memory, storage, and graphics card—up to you. This gives you the freedom to customize your build to fit your preferences.

As we enter 2025, the world of barebone kits has become more advanced and accessible, with options for every type of user. In this blog, we will look at some of the best barebone PC kits of 2025, exploring their features, benefits, and who they are best suited for. We’ll also discuss the Lenovo ThinkCentre M710e, which provides an alternative to building your own PC with customizable features for office and business use. Whether you’re looking to build a smart system or enhance your gaming experience, there’s something for everyone this year.

What Is a Barebone PC Kit?

Before diving into the kits themselves, let’s quickly explain what a barebone PC kit is. A barebone kit is a computer that comes with the essential parts to get you started. It usually includes:

The Case: The outer shell that holds all the parts together.

The Motherboard: The main circuit board where all the parts connect.

The Power Supply: The component that powers the entire system.

Everything else, such as the processor (CPU), memory (RAM), storage (HDD or SSD), and graphics card (GPU), is left for you to choose and install. This makes barebone kits perfect for people who want a customized system but don’t want to start from scratch.

Now, let’s look at some of the best barebone PC kits in 2025.

1. ASUS ROG Strix Z590-I Gaming Barebone Kit

Best for: Hardcore Gamers, Streamers, Content Creators

The ASUS ROG Strix Z590-I is a fantastic choice for those who want a compact but powerful PC build. It’s made for gamers and creators who need high performance in a smaller form factor. The mini-ITX design allows it to fit into tight spaces, while still offering the power to handle the latest games and software.

Features:

Intel 11th Gen Processor Support: It works with Intel Core i9 processors, providing top-tier performance for gaming and streaming.

Compact Design: The small form factor is perfect for users who need a powerful PC but have limited space.

Great Connectivity: Features Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, and plenty of USB ports for your devices.

Cooling Options: Includes a cooling system to keep everything running smoothly during long gaming sessions.

This kit is a great choice for gamers who want high performance in a small but mighty package.

2. Intel NUC 12 Extreme Kit

Best for: Compact Power Users

If you’re looking for a PC that packs a punch in a tiny package, the Intel NUC 12 Extreme Kit is a solid option. The NUC series has long been known for its compact size, and the 12th-gen model offers impressive performance for its size.

Features:

Intel Core i9 Processor: Supports the latest 12th Gen Intel Core i9 processors, ensuring excellent performance for all types of tasks.

Small Form Factor: Perfect for users who need something portable or just don’t have a lot of space.

Expandable: You can add more RAM and storage, giving you flexibility as your needs grow.

Efficient Cooling: Despite its small size, the NUC includes a powerful cooling system to keep everything cool.

The Intel NUC 12 Extreme Kit is perfect for users who need a high-performance PC but prefer something that doesn’t take up much space.

3. MSI MAG Aegis ZS 11th Gen Barebone Kit

Best for: Serious Gamers and Power Users

The MSI MAG Aegis ZS is built for those who need serious performance for gaming or other intensive tasks. This kit supports Intel 11th Gen Core processors and allows you to add a powerful NVIDIA RTX 30 Series GPU, making it an excellent choice for gamers who want to push their graphics to the limit.

Features:

Support for High-End Processors and GPUs: Works with Intel’s Core i9 processors and RTX 30 Series GPUs for unbeatable performance.

Cooling Solutions: MSI’s Silent Storm Cooling technology ensures that your system stays cool during intense gaming sessions.

Upgradeable: The system allows you to add extra RAM, storage, and graphics, so you can upgrade as needed.

For gamers who demand the best in performance, the MSI MAG Aegis ZS is a top choice.

4. Lenovo ThinkCentre M710e (Used or Refurbished)

Best for: Budget-Friendly Office and Business Use

While not technically a barebone kit, the Lenovo ThinkCentre M710e offers a great option for businesses or home offices that want a customizable, affordable PC. Often available as a used or refurbished option, the M710e can be a cost-effective starting point for people who want to upgrade parts like memory and storage.

Features:

Intel Core i5/i3 Processor: Offers solid performance for office tasks like word processing, emails, and light multitasking.

Compact Design: The ThinkCentre M710e is small and doesn’t take up much space, making it perfect for smaller office setups.

Energy-Efficient: The system uses less power, helping you save on energy costs in the long run.

Upgradeable: You can swap out the RAM and storage for better performance, making it a good long-term option.

For those on a budget, the ThinkCentre M710e offers great flexibility without breaking the bank.

5. SilverStone SUGO 14 Barebone Kit

Best for: Compact Gaming PCs

If you want to build a small gaming PC, the SilverStone SUGO 14 is a great option. This barebone kit is perfect for users who want powerful gaming performance in a compact design. It’s designed to support high-performance graphics cards and other powerful components, all while staying small and manageable.

Features:

Compact Design: The SUGO 14 is small, but it still offers room for a full-sized graphics card (up to 330mm in length).

Excellent Cooling: The kit provides good airflow to keep your system cool, even during extended gaming sessions.

Upgradeable: It’s easy to add extra storage and memory as you need it, making it a flexible choice.

For gamers who want to build a small but powerful system, the SilverStone SUGO 14 is an excellent choice.

6. Corsair Vengeance i7300 Barebone Kit

Best for: Extreme Gamers and High-Performance Users

For users who want the absolute best in gaming and performance, the Corsair Vengeance i7300 is an outstanding choice. This barebone kit supports the Intel Core i9 processor and the NVIDIA RTX 30 Series GPUs, providing the raw power needed for serious gaming, video editing, and content creation.

Features:

Intel Core i9 Processor: The i7300 supports Intel’s latest Core i9 processors, offering extreme performance.

NVIDIA RTX 30 Series Support: It can accommodate the latest RTX 30 Series GPUs for amazing graphics and performance.

Efficient Cooling: The kit includes a powerful cooling system to keep things cool during heavy use.

Upgradeable: You can easily upgrade the RAM and storage, ensuring your system stays up to date.

For users who want the best performance available, the Corsair Vengeance i7300 is a top-tier option.

Conclusion: Build Smarter, Game Harder

In conclusion, there are plenty of great barebone PC kits to choose from in 2025, whether you’re looking to build a powerful gaming machine, a compact system for work, or a budget-friendly option for everyday tasks. The Lenovo ThinkCentre M710e, while not a traditional barebone kit, offers an affordable and customizable solution for office and business users.

When choosing a barebone PC kit, think about what you need from your system. Do you need raw gaming power? Look at options like the MSI MAG Aegis ZS or Corsair Vengeance i7300. Need something compact? The Intel NUC 12 Extreme Kit or SilverStone SUGO 14 might be perfect. Whatever your needs, 2025 offers a variety of options to help you build smarter and game harder.

For more details on barebone PC kits and other custom build solutions, check out Rackfinity.

[slabmaxxing]

i wish they had pc procreate

[computer8920]

Choosing the Right Barebone PC for Your Needs: A Step-by-Step Guide

Barebone PCs are an excellent option for those looking for customization, cost-effectiveness, and flexibility when building a computer. With so many choices available, making the right decision can seem overwhelming. This short guide will help you navigate the process and select the best barebone PC for your needs.

1. Define Your Purpose

The first step in choosing a barebone PC is understanding its primary use. Are you a gamer, content creator, or a professional needing a reliable workstation? Identifying your specific needs will guide your choice of components, such as the graphics card, processor, and storage.

2. Set Your Budget

Barebone systems are generally more affordable than pre-built PCs, but it’s essential to set a budget. Factor in the price of additional components like RAM, storage, and a GPU. A clear budget will help you avoid overspending while still meeting your performance goals.

3. Plan for Upgradability

Barebone PCs are great for future upgrades. Consider whether you might want to swap out components such as the CPU, RAM, or GPU in the future. Choose a system that allows for easy upgrades to extend the life of your PC.

4. Check Performance Needs

Different tasks require different levels of performance. Gamers need a powerful GPU, while content creators might prioritize a fast processor and large storage. Make sure the barebone system you choose aligns with your performance requirements.

5. Choose the Right Form Factor

Barebone PCs come in various sizes, such as mini-ITX, micro-ATX, and ATX. Choose a form factor based on available space and your need for expansion.

Conclusion

You can select a barebone PC that fits your requirements by identifying your needs, setting a budget, and considering future upgrades. With thoughtful planning, you’ll be ready to build a system that suits your computing needs.

Want to buy Barebone Pc in Bulk at Affordable Prices from Vstl?

VSTL offers competitive pricing for bulk purchases, making it a great option for businesses or individuals who need multiple systems without breaking the budget. With a variety of barebone models to choose from, VSTL ensures you can find the perfect solution to meet your needs while benefiting from cost savings. Whether for office setups, gaming stations, or custom builds, buying in bulk from VSTL gives you quality systems at budget-friendly prices.

[lorddeathofmurdermountain]

Bitches be like "Of course they're remastering Horizon before Bloodborne, it sold three times as many copies!"

Oh word? The game that ALREADY has a PC port sold MORE than the game that's a PS4 EXCLUSIVE? I FUCKING WONDER WHY. WHAT A MYSTERY.

CURRRSE YOUUUUUU, SONYYYYYYY

[omarvektrapc12]

Get robust performance thanks to an 11th Gen Intel Core i9-11900KB 8-core processor. Plus, integrated Intel UHD Graphics provide convenient onboard graphics and support for up to three monitors.

[alpine-forget-me-nots]

Mobile users can’t have gif pfps :/

I’ve spent like 20+ mins converting a gif to APNG so I could use it only to have it not move

Cool I thought I’ll just go through the browser.

Nope!

That also doesn’t work. The gif actually moves this time but whenever I refresh my blog it reverts back to a default pfp and my banner too…for some reason?

What’s the point of all these updates if part of your user base is constantly going to be denied the ability to use it? I can’t even edit tags for fucks sake.

[starry-sophrosyne]

ayeee more duality! mine are more confusing bc they’re both called starry and it’s somewhat difficult to format with the approximates colors on mobile but yea :_)

neat to know! we got mezzo starry and eldette so far XD

since the rpf angel picrew and therefore clique himself was meant to be a representation of this blog, i fear i might pull an el & em and make an oc that represents myself more

[onthegreatsea]

i figured when they went after switch emu it was because it was gunna make switch 2 back compat look shit and i remember what they did with the wii>wii u upgrades. and lo and behold it supports only "compatible" switch games and they're charging real money for the most barebones of patches if you put an xbone game in a series x they all just run better by default. better frame rates, no screen tearing, better AF. a big portion will jump from 1080p to 4k. some go from 30 to 60. sometimes there are improvements to lighting and textures and other stuff. this back compat includes games all the way back to the original XBOX too. even putting an xbox 360 game in an xbox one would result in some major improvements to IQ and performance. and they dont charge shit for the patches. sony is basically the same. but not nintendo tho! also.. fucking GC emulation. it could've worked on the switch 1, we know this cuz they did it in china. it just would've involved effort. so they're limiting it to the switch 2. also no AA, low AF, looks like 1080p and they're all 4:3 because nintendo are lazy fucks. you dont own any of these games btw. so just pirate them. just get a pc made in the past 10 years for a fraction of a switch 2 and use dolphin.

[imsobadatnicknames2]

What's OSR? I've seen you mention it several times in your RPG posts. Is it like a genre of rpg or...?

Hey, sorry I took so long to reply to this lol you probably already just googled it by now.

But like. Anyway.

OSR (Old-School Revival, Old-School Renaissance, and more uncommonly Old-School Rules or Old-School Revolution, no one can really agree on what the R means) is less like a genre and more like a movement or a loosely connected community that seeks to capture the tone, feel and/or playstyle of 70's and 80's fantasy roleplaying games (with a particular emphasis on old-school editions of Dungeons and Dragons, particularly the Basic D&D line but pretty much anything before 3e falls under this umbrella), or at least an idealized version of what people remember those games felt like to play.

There isn't exactly a consensus on what makes a game OSR but here's my personal list of things that I find to be common motifs in OSR game design and GM philosophy. Not every game in the movement features all of these things, but must certainly feature a few of them.

Rulings over rules: most OSR games lack mechanically codified rules for a lot of the actions that in modern D&D (and games influenced by it) would be covered by a skill system. Rather that try to have rules applicable for every situation, these games often have somewhat barebones rules, with the expectation that when a player tries to do something not covered by them the GM will have to make a ruling about it or negotiate a dice roll that feels fair (a common resolution system for this type of situation is d20 roll-under vs a stat that feels relevant, a d6 roll with x-in-6 chance to succeed, or just adjudicating the outcome based on how the player describes their actions)

"The solution is not on your character sheet": Related to the point above, the lack of character skills means that very few problems can be solved by saying "I roll [skill]". E.g. Looking for traps in an OSR game will look less like "I rolled 18 on my perception check" and more like "I poke the flagstones ahead with a stick to check if they're pressure plates" with maybe the GM asking for a roll or a saving throw if you do end up triggering a trap.

High lethality: Characters are squishy, and generally die much more easily. But conversely, character creation is often very quick, so if your character dies you can usually be playing again in minutes as long as there's a decent chance to integrate your new PC into the game.

Lack of emphasis on encounter balance: It's not uncommon for the PCs to find themselves way out of their depth, with encounters where they're almost guaranteed to lose unless they run away or find a creative way to stack the deck in their favor.

Combat as a failure state: Due to the two points above, not every encounter is meant to be fought, as doing so is generally not worth the risk and likely to end up badly. Players a generally better off finding ways to circumvent encounters through sneaking around them, outsmarting them, or out-maneauvering them, fighting only when there's no other option or when they've taken steps to make sure the battle is fought on their terms (e.g. luring enemies into traps or environmental hazards, stuff like that)

Emphasis on inventory and items: As skills, class features and character builds are less significant than in modern D&D (or sometimes outright nonexistent), a large part of the way the players engage with the world instead revolves around what they carry and how they use it. A lot of these games have you randomly roll your starting inventory, and often this will become as much a significant part of your character as your class is, even with seemingly useless clutter items. E.g. a hand mirror can become an invaluable tool for peeping around corners and doorways. This kind of gameplay techncially possible on modern D&D but in OSR games it's often vital.

Gold for XP: somewhat related to the above, in many of these games your XP will be determined by how much treasure you gather, casting players in the role and mindset of trasure hutners, grave robbers, etc.

Situations, not plots: This is more of a GM culture thing than an intrinsic feature of the games, but OSR campaigns will often eschew the long-form GM-authored Epic narrative that has become the norm since the late AD&D 2e era, in favor of a more sandbox-y "here's an initial situation, it's up to you what you do with it" style. This means that you probably won't be getting elaborate scenes plotted out sessions in advance to tie into your backstory and character arc, but it also means increased player agency, casting the GM in the role of less of a plot writer or narrator and more of a referee.

Like I said, these are not universal, and a lot of games that fall under the OSR umbrella will eschew some or most of these (it's very common for a lot of games to drop the gold-for-xp thing in favor of a different reawrd structure), but IMO they're a good baseline for understanding common features of the movement as a whole.

Of course, the OSR movement covers A LOT of different games, which I'd classify in the following categories by how much they deviate from their source of inspiration:

Retroclones are basically recreations of the ruleset of older D&D editions but without the D&D trademark, sometimes with a new coat of paint. E.g. OSRIC and For Gold and Glory are clones of AD&D (1e and 2e respectively); Whitebox and Fantastic Medieval Campaigns are recreations of the original 1974 white box D&D release; Old School Essentials, Basic Fantasy and Labyrinth Lord are clones of the 1981 B/X D&D set. Some of these recreate the original rules as-is, editing the text or reorganizing the information to be clearer but otherwise leaving the meachnics unchanged, while others will make slight rules changes to remove quirks that have come to be considered annoying in hindsight, some of them might mix and match features from different editions, but otherwise they're mostly straight up recreations of old-school D&D releases.

There are games that I would call "old-school compatible", that feature significant enough mechanical changes from old-school D&D to be considered a different game, but try to maintain mechanical compatibility with materials made for it. Games like The Black Hack, Knave, Macchiato Monsters, Dungeon Reavers, Whitehack, etc. play very differently from old-school D&D, and from each other, but you generally can grab any module made for any pre-3e D&D edition and run it with any of them with very little to no effort needed in conversion.

There's a third category that I wouldn't know how to call. Some people call then Nu-OSR or NSR (short for New School revolution) while a small minority of people argue that they aren't really part of the OSR movement but instead their own thing. I've personally taken to calling them "Old School Baroque". These are games that try to replicate different aspects of the tone and feel of old-school fantasy roleplaying games while borrowing few to none mechanics from them and not making any particular attempts to be mechanically compatible. Games like Into the Odd, Mörk Borg, Troika!, a dungeon game, FLEE, DURF, Songbirds, Mausritter, bastards, Cairn, Sledgehammer, and too many more to name. In my opinion this subsection of the OSR space is where it gets interesting, as there's so many different ways people try to recreate that old-school flavor with different mechanics.

(Of course, not everything fits neatly into these, e.g. I would consider stuff like Dungeon Crawl Classics to be somewhere inbetween category 1 and 2, and stuff like GloG or RELIC to be somewhere imbetween categories 2 and 3)

The OSR movement does have its ugly side, as it's to be expected by the fact that a huge part of the driving force behind it is nostalgia. Some people might be in it because it harkens back to a spirit of DIY and player agency that has been lost in traditional fantasy roleplaying games, but it's udneniable that some people are also in it because for them it harkens back to a time before "D&D went woke" when tabletop roleplaying was considered a hobby primarily for and by white men. That being said... generally those types of guys keep to themselves in their own little circlejerk, and it's pretty easy to find OSR spaces that are progressive and have a sinificant number of queer, POC, and marginalized creators.

[rollforthings]

I’ve come across confusion with how Fabula Ultima’s character creation works, especially in people coming to it from DnD5e, so here’s a post to break it down and show how awesomely customizable FabUlt PCs are straight from the hop.

In 5e, pretty much everything about your class is decided immediately. Take it at level 1, it drip-feeds you the same features in the same order. At 1st - 3rd level, you pick a subclass from a short list, and this sprinkles in a few more set-in-stone upgrades. A Level 10 Champion Fighter will have all the same class features as every other Level 10 Champion Fighter. If you multiclass, you get to add in some other features, but always the same features in the same order for every class you do this with.

In Fabula Ultima, each Class is a bundle of features called Class Skills, and in most cases these Skills can be taken in any order and as much or as little as you like. Each level your character has represents such an investment in a chosen Skill in a Class that you have. (There’s an example of all this later that makes it clearer.) Some Class Skills are one-and-done -- spend a level on it and it’s yours. Others Skills have multiple tiers to them, allowing you invest multiple character levels into them to make them more powerful. (Each class also has couple of Free Benefits, little boosts you get for having at least one level in a class.) You can also skip a class skill altogether, if it isn’t something you want for your character build.

Looking at each class, they seem a little barebones. Only five Class Skills, not a lot, and each class is kind of niche. The Rogue doesn’t get martial ranged weapons, and the Entropist's only damage spells deal Dark damage. But you see, in Fabula Ultima, multiclassing is mandatory. At character creation, you get 5 levels and you must invest them in two to three different classes, in any of the skills available from those classes. This does two very important things. One, it ensures a character is good in at least two ways straight out of character creation. Two, when combined with the previous point -- that class features can be taken in any order and arrangement -- it creates this unprecedented level of variety, including with starting-level characters.

Like okay, as an example of all this, I’m going to make two builds for starting characters. They’ll have the same number of levels in the same two classes (Guardian 2 / Weaponmaster 3), and not only will they not step on each other’s toes, they’ll play completely differently.

Our first character is going to be a teamwork-oriented tank, focusing defensive support and enemy debuff. The combined Free Benefits of Guardian and Weaponmaster grant +10 max HP, plus martial armor, shields and melee weapons. From Guardian, we’ll take Protect so we can jump in the way of attacks and spells aimed at our allies. We’ll also take Dual Shieldbearer, to give us some insane Defense scores and let us dual-wield those shields as brawling weapons. Now for Weaponmaster. First we’ll grab Counterattack. This grants us a 50% chance to hit back at enemies when they attack us with melee, including the attacks we block with Protect. And we’ll invest our last two levels in Bonecrusher, so we can choose to swap out damage with status effects and MP drain (lots of it because we invested 2 levels) when we hit. Guardian 2 / Weaponmaster 3 who’s tanky as hell, can intercept and punish enemy attacks, and debuffs enemies with shield bashes.

Okay, same Guardian 2 / Weaponmaster 3 spread, same Free Benefits. However, instead of a tank this character is a simple but reliable damage-dealer. From Guardian, we’ll take one level in Defensive Mastery and one level in Fortress. These skills give us a bit of damage reduction and a bit of extra max HP, respectively, and we’ll probably level these up over taking new Guardian skills in the future. As cool as it is, Dual Shieldbearer won’t work for this build since we’ll use a two-handed weapon like a Katana or a Waraxe for bigger damage. From Weaponmaster, we’ll invest in Bladestorm and two levels in Melee Weapon Mastery. Bladestorm lets us spend MP to hit multiple targets when we attack, and the two levels of MWM give us a +2 on our melee attack checks. Guardian 2 / Weaponmaster 3 who’s got a little padding as protection while they focus on accuracy, damage, and hitting multiple targets at once.

So there you go. Same classes, same number of levels in each, completely different playstyles. And these are just starting characters. PCs gain a level every session or two, and they can invest in up to three classes at once (and 5-6 classes over a level 5-50 career). On leveling up, the tank could double down on Guardian to get even tankier, or level into Orator or Spiritist for more support options. The damage dealer could lean into Fury for increased crit chance and bonus damage, or into a magic-hybrid spellblade build via Elementalist. Or either of them could take on Wayfarer for an animal companion and increased travel/exploration aptitude. The possibilites are truly amazing, and you can get super creative with them as you find synergies and build up team combos. And I didn’t even get into Quirks, custom weapons or Heroic Skills.

So yeah, if you haven’t yet, check out Fabula Ultima. Character building is insanely fun and it’s honestly spoiled the 5e equivalent for me.

[virtues-end]

Bit of a technical question— please feel free to ignore of course— but I really admire your project here, and adore your writing. I’m very slowly using Twine to write my own interactive story and wanted to know your opinion, do you think it’s better to put the story on Dashingdon or Itch.io?

Thank you for sharing Virtue’s End with us. It’s my favorite IF story <3 :)

Thank you! 💜

I started out using choicescript, because that seemed the easiest to me at the time. But I feel as though both Twine and CS have their pros & cons.

Choicescript is pretty straightforward and simple to learn, and being able to write/code/test your game via CSide is a huge boon. It's also very easy for people to play your game on both their PC and phone, and it's fairly screen reader friendly (or so I've heard). You're pretty constricted in its design, however, as well in its use; you can only publish through the Choice of Games/Hostedgames brand.

Twine allows you to do all sorts of cool things design-wise, but it looks pretty barebones if you don't (not saying it's necessary to make something fancy, of course). You'll have to do a lot of the heavy lifting regarding making it screen reader/mobile friendly, however. And I'm not too familiar with the coding language but I've heard it's pretty simple as well, once you get the hang of it. Big draw of publishing on itch, of course, is that the rights of the game and its sales will solely belong to you.

Whichever you end up going with, I do recommend to not switch midway. Will really suck the joy out of it, lol.

Let me know once you do post it, though, I'd love to read it!

[boimann]

i need this program to work, so far i still had my free uni license but it'll end in a week and there is absolutely no way i'm paying that much. the essential version is way too barebones for what i need it and i'd have to pay 65+ euros a month just to work. no <3

does anyone know how to get a carcked version that won't destroy my pc??

[would-holden-caulfield-like-nge]

A few days ago, I had the sudden urge to learn the basics of RenPy and I made a quick (like, REALLY quick, you could click through the whole thing in fifteen seconds) Bully experience.

Check it out! It's really barebones, but I'm proud of it.

A quick guide on how to open Itch.io games under the cut.

On the page I linked, there will be these two download buttons. If you have a Mac, download the Mac version. If you have a PC, download the PC version.

When you first download the file, it will be zipped.

So you have to right-click on it and select "Extract all" (or whatever it is in your language).

It will take you to a window, where you can choose where to put the unzipped files

So choose a location, wait for a bit and then...

...the files will be right when you told them to be!

Open the unzipped folder (the one without a zipper on it haha) and... there it is! Now, you can just click on the file with the RenPy icon (or whatever individual icon the developer put in) and play.

[computer8920]

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[sleepyserena]

demos i've finally gotten around to playing recently

steel judgment: what if ultrakill was a roguelite? you've got your dash and your parry and your style meter and weapons with cool alt-fires, but also a hub where you can buy new upgrades and unlock items after each run! the main mechanic is taunting enemies, which when killed, will give you health, and taunting augments your basic movement abilities if you time them after a taunt. really cool stuff! i am quite bad at it! game does not have a release date

metal eden: majoring in doom 2016/eternal, minoring in ghostrunner, this game struggles to run on my aging PC but it's still pretty cool. weapons feel fantastic and are appropriately punchy, but combat flow is a little weird in that i'm just running around waiting for my core cooldown so i can get my super punch back to strip armor, when i think i should just be shooting? i don't know, when a game introduces a mechanic to me, i want to use that mechanic as much as possible, sometimes to my own detriment. game comes out in Q3 2025

reignbreaker: isometric action roguelite, if you like hades, you'll like this. spray paint artstyle is really sweet, characters are... okay i suppose, not really compelled by any of them from the demo, and the main gameplay loop of keeping your combo up and balancing your fists and javelin is engaging and fun. and the full game is available now for only 10 bucks!

unbeatable: ohhhhhhhhhhh i have a bias because i backed this game on kickstarter in 2021, however i played the new demo (not white label) and it's soooo cool. each character has a distinct personality, presentation and cinematography is striking and evocative, there's side quests and minigames and optional dialogue everywhere. and that's just the story mode! there's also, ya know, the traditional arcade rhythm game mode, which is excellent. the only bug that bothers me is that the controller just... stops working in the arcade menu? other than that, pretty much flawless two button rhythm game, backed by an incredible soundtrack. game comes out sometime in 2025

haste: i think if i were to describe this game in one word, it's "joy". like woody from toy story said, it's not flying, it's falling with style! one of those games where it's easy to learn, hard to master. you run fast and you control your falls so that you hit the slopes of hills just right so you can gain even more speed! the levels are just challenging enough to make you think about your trajectory, but not to break your momentum. character art and colour palette is wonderful, dialogue is pretty charming, soundtrack is banging. bonus points for having unique dialogue specifically for the demo. genuinely a really good time! game is out now for about 20 bucks

peripeteia: immersive sim very much inspired by ye olde deus ex (no clear objective markers, complex mechanics, multiple ways of interacting with the world and accomplishing tasks, interesting worldbuilding and characters), you play as a cyborg woman waking up in a scrap pile in poland and scrape together whatever you can to survive. game is in early access, so it's a little barebones, costs about 30 bucks, but it was rejuvenating to play this kind of game again

--

playing through these demos today brought me back to when i was younger and i was browsing the PS3 store and downloading whatever demos were available, and my dad subsequently yelling at me for exceeding the data cap

i'm glad i got around to these, and i hope you check out some of them too

[jenroses]

When i built my first PC, I'd done a few upgrades, but Youtube did not exist yet so there were not endless videos of "This is how you build a PC". It was fiddly and fussy and i barked my knuckles and I did something temporarily terrifying but it worked out okay and I built my PC. Then prices on bare bones dropped precipitously so for a while I was just buying barebones and upgrading them. It was cheaper that way.

Last year, a couple of games came out that I really wanted to play but my 8 year old laptop, which was making a yeomanlike effort with most games, was just flat out not in spec anymore. So I started to research. Looked at Linus Tech Tips, then JaysTwoCents, then Gamer's Nexus, Paul's hardware, Hardware unboxed... LTT had a great "this is how you do it and this is what each part is supposed to sound like going in, yes the crunching noise here is okay, no your board won't die if you get a little regular thermal paste on it, very reassuring. I watched a lot of build videos, and finally, after a couple of months, I ordered parts.

Infodump under the cut

Now, picking parts is COMPLEX and HARD and FINICKY and it changes all the time. You can be an expert builder, take a couple years off and ignore buiding for a while, and come back and like, all the parts are different! Which parts are good deals has changed! But the fundamentals haven't really changed all THAT much, even since my first build. It's still motherboard, processor, cooler, RAM, storage, power supply, internet device, basically... but gone are IDE and even SATA is now pretty archaic. In 2024, your RAM will look pretty similar but the hard drive is a dinosaur and your storage is now basically a high tech stick of gum. Prices are wild, too. You can build a passable computer which can play most games for about $600 with new parts, or you can spent $4000 to get get the absolute tippy toppy "best" parts, and the parts being actively used and recommend and sold right now cover about FOUR YEARS of product development. This is NUTS. Most of the systems I've built fall in the cheap-to-middling range.

They're all competent at most games, though my mother is annoyed that she's having trouble getting Civ2 up and running on Windows 11 in 2024. I do fine with Alpha Centuari from GOG, but no, that's not good enough. (I like Alpha Centauri about 1000% better than Civ2, but when you've got a game, you've got a game, I guess.)

So where to start?

Look at the Youtubes of the folks I mentioned up top, and look for their "Top X of ___" videos. Most of them will ALSO include still-on-the-market for previous year stuff! This is great!

Think about what you need and what you're doing on your system. Unless you are doing competitive gaming and are made of money, you do not need the top of the line anything. It's not necessary and most people can't make use of it unless they're doing high powered stuff for money. In which case you probably know what you need already. Most people will be fine gaming at 1440p (2k monitor) or 1080p. Unless you have a giant fancy monitor already, the pricing sweet spot is probably expecting to spend about $140-150 for a 2k, 27 inch monitor. If your monitor is at normal monitor distance from your face, larger than that is not going to be easy to adapt to. You can get 1080p monitors for cheaper, but any larger than 24-27 inches, 1080p starts to look weird, so really 1440 is kind of ideal for the kind of computer you plan on using for the next 5-10 years. I don't go for refresh rates lower than 120hz at this point, but higher than 180 is not going to be noticeable for MOST people. The monitor i recently bought for $140-ish was a 180hz refresh rate 2k curved monitor (1440p.)

Once you know what kind of monitor you're aiming for, you can get a sense from those review videos of which cards will get you to the frame rate you want. Look for the games you want to play, and people comparing them at high/ultra settings, and look at the FPS that various cards offer. Keep in mind that there's a huge amount of technology aimed at boosting fps, and the upsampling is pretty good now. Nvidea cards are stupid expensive and have the majority of market share. I don't bother with them. The cards I've bought in the past 2 years include (all AMD): (Upgrading a very old system, AMD RX 6400, 4gb graphics card.) AMD RX 6650XT for two people on very tight budgets. AMD RX 6750XT for a mid-range system. RX6800 for two pretty good systems last year. RX7600XT for a casual gamer on a newer system. RX 7800XT for the fanciest system for the most avid gamer in the family. In 2024, I strongly advise going for a card which is at least 12 gb but preferably 16gb of VRAM. More than that is not yet really necessary for most systems at 1440p. The video card is the single most expensive component in most systems. I tend to build to the graphics card, but it is reasonable to set a budget, get the most reasonable parts you can afford for the rest of the computer and spend as much as you have left on the video card. 8gb cards are not likely to give optimal results long term, and since I build computers for people who hate changing computers, the only reason I would go with a smaller-than 12gb card is for someone who just doesn't game much and is unlikely to start playing the kinds of games that need it.

Then there's the processor side of things. Until Intel screwed the pooch this year, most of what we were putting together, parts-list-wise in my family were systems which had intel processors and AMD graphics cards, because that was the sweet spot for us price-to-performance wise. But if you have an Intel 13th or 14th gen processor, you need to update your bios, and we're still not 100% confident in them, as a community. There were a LOT of bad processors the past two years. Also, AMD came out with a bunch of reasonably priced kickass gaming processors, and those will be best for people whose primary purpose is gaming. The processors we've leaned on the most heavily include: Intel 12400 and 12600 processors and Intel 13600 processors. But recently, knowing I was about to build a FAST gaming PC, I knew I needed to get an AMD X3d processor, and my purchasing timing happened to correlate with the 9800X3d dropping, and I managed to order one... but the ship date was in JANUARY. And it's a Christmas present. And Trump is talking about tariffs, which WILL send prices through the roof. So I decided to build another computer, and ordered parts for it. So in order to get onto the platform that 9800x3d processor will need, I picked another processor which uses the same motherboard and got that, too. And then ordered inexpensive versions of that motherboard and other parts, and whatdyaknow, I'm building two computers. But the principal is pretty sound: If you need to build cost effectively, get a lower end processor for the motherboard of the processor you ultimately want, and upgrade later when prices drop. So all those Intel 12600 systems could, later, upgrade to a 14900k and get a huge performance boost if needed. On AMD, they tend to stick with a given motherboard ecosystem for a VERY long time, so people who bought AMD years ago can now upgrade to a perfectly capable 5800x3d and be fine, but AMD is now in the 9000s, and getting a 7000 series processor is on the same board as a 9000 series, so most of the time that's the best deal, EXCEPT for a 7800x3d which is almost as expensive as the 9800x3d for reasons.

Other parts are simpler. RAM: 32 gb is the sweet spot, DDR5 prices have come down okay. Most games can't and won't use more than 20 or so gb, but many will use over the 16gb that used to be the standard rec. You can, however, get 16gb and upgrade RAM in a few years.

Storage: Optimum for gaming is probably your operating system on a 500 gb C drive ssd, your games on a 1, 2 or 4 terabyte SSD. New builds will use a M.2 2280 ssd, and they fluctuate somewhat in price, but the performance boost of ANY NVME drive is going to be worth it over SATA or a hard disk. If you are just wanting to upgrade, upgrading to a SSD and increasing your ram will give a new lease on life to old computers and make them feel a whole lot more functional. If you have an open PCIE slot, you can get an adaptor board to allow you to install an M.2 drive even on an older system.

pcpartpicker.com will let you make build lists and tell you if there are incompatibilities but it isn't perfect at sourcing RAM for the correct processor family. It will also help you find best current pricing, but isn't always accurate.

newegg has a pc builder function which is helpful but only if you buy all your stuff there. If you live close to a microcenter, you'll want to go there and shop their combo deals.

All the builder tools will give you a rough estimate of how much power you'll need. I go a bit over, but unless you're doing a stupid expensive build, you will be unlikely to need more than 850w for a gaming system and 600w for a "regular" system for someone who doesn't do much gaming. That allows a fair amount of headroom for upgrades, since power supplies often last the longest.

Cases are very subjective, but I've done a lot of building in Fractal G Focus cases, which are cheap, big enough for most parts and not the most convenient to build in. I dearly love the Lian Li Lancool 216 which I just built in for the first time, but it's big. REALLY nice cable routing though. Worth it just for the complete lack of barked knuckles, and the fact that you don't need to install like any extra fans beyond whatever your cooling solution is, and it's under $100. Which case you get might depend a lot on aesthetics or space considerations. Like, I paid extra NOT to have a glass side because I don't want extra lights around me, at all. My kid's has a lot of rainbow RBG. Hubby's has a glass side but minimal to no lighting.

Cooling solutions... for any higher end systems for heavy duty users (i.e. gaming a LOT with newer games, doing a lot of computationally heavy 3d modeling or whatever) I like using an aio watercooler. These can be easier to install even than air coolers now, as long as you do a little homework, and the ones I've bought were all under $100. Most users will do fine air cooling, and Gamer's Nexus has some dandy charts on gamersnexus.net that will help you figure out which coolers to use. (Hint, most of them are pretty good!) And for case fans, if you need extra, Arctic has 3-5 packs for super cheap.

But ultimately, if your computer is functioning okay for you, or just needs some upgrades and maintenance, you probably don't need to upgrade. Laptops are a whole 'nother ballgame completely. And you know how I built this system to play a couple of new games?

I ended up mostly playing my old favorites with better graphic settings. LOL.

No regrets, the system is SUPER functional and will last me years and if anything breaks I can fix it. And since then, I've helped two people buy parts, upgraded two computers and built systems for four other people and helped others put together parts list or figure out which laptop would be right for them. And the old computers? Are not ewaste yet, because the build process will allow a lot of moving around of parts to improve the old systems which can then be handed down to other family members. Even my old laptop went on to find use with another family member.