When Can a PC Be Considered Budget/Mid-Range/Enthusiast?

[stealth80]

13 hours ago, Noctus said:

Well tbh, it should just mean base level of the PC for it to function. If you've clearly got like 5 SSDs and 1500 quids worth of watercooling it's clearly more than the "average" for the levels he's suggested. Tho i do think the price point he's put for Workstation/Enthusiast level is waaay under. If i was to build my "Enthusiast" rig i'd happily blitz past 5k and beyond. 

Its by opinion I did state that and everyone will differ slightly. $2500 - $3000 should buy the majority of people a decent workstation PC. I guess there is another tier of blow the budget I didn't factor 

[Ashiella]

18 hours ago, stealth80 said:

I think its subjective and personal opinion, but in my eyes

 

Budget - Pentium CPU, 1050/1050ti/570, 8gb ram, HDD - less than $500

Low end - i3/Ryzen 2200/2400g/Ryzen 1300 - 1400, SSD, 1050ti/1060/580 - Around $800 ish

Mid range - i5/1600/2600X, 1070/vega 56, SSD, HDD, 16gb ram - Around $1100 ish

High End - i7/1700/2700x, 1080/vega 64, SSD, HDD, 16gb ram - around $1500 ish

Enthusiast - i7/2700X, 1080ti, SSD, HDD, 16/32gb ram - around $2000

Work Station/blow the budget - i9/Threadripper, Titan/1080ti (possible SLI), Raid SSD, HDD storage, 32/64gb ram - $2500 - $3000

 

Anymore just aint required

 

You telling me that my 32core epyc chip and Titan v with 128gb of ram with raid m.2 970 pros and 50TB of iron wolf pros isnt required!?

[stealth80]

2 minutes ago, Ashiella said:

You telling me that my 32core epyc chip and Titan v with 128gb of ram with raid m.2 970 pros and 50TB of iron wolf pros isnt required!?

no not at all, you go for it =p 

[Christophe Corazza]

23 hours ago, seoz said:

In a full PC system, what parts can give one's custom PC the titles of enthusiast?

 

Just the use of top-notch hardware to support whatever it is you are 'enthusiastic' about.

Some examples...

A gamer would have a high end GPU, and a precision keyboard and mouse.
A musician would have a high end sound card and maybe an external sequencer and DAC for headphones.
An artist would have a high end CPU and maybe a drawing tablet and large format color calibrated printer or plotter.
A movie buff would have a large high end display, amplifier and room calibrated 5.1 or 7.1 surround.

[jiyeon]

7 minutes ago, Christophe Corazza said:

Just the use of top-notch hardware to support whatever it is you are 'enthusiastic' about.

Some examples...

A gamer would have a high end GPU, and a precision keyboard and mouse.
A musician would have a high end sound card and maybe an external sequencer and DAC for headphones.
An artist would have a high end CPU and maybe a drawing tablet and large format color calibrated printer or plotter.
A movie buff would have a large high end display, amplifier and room calibrated 5.1 or 7.1 surround.

That's a nice way to put it, well-summarised.

[UnwantedLinks]

ah,

[Mooshi]

On 7/4/2018 at 3:25 PM, Imbellis said:

I don't think that you can really put general-pc-building into such a simple spectrum. There are too many subcategories - A Enthusiast Gaming PC can be a Budget workstation. In addition, time also effects those categories - an enthusiast rig from '10 would be budget now.

However, in the vein of gaming, I'd think that $200-$699 is budget, $700-$1599 is mid-range, and $1600+ is enthusiast.

Price isn't a good indicator. I see people make bad pairings like an i5 with an overpriced AIO vs an i7 with an air cooler or blow their load on RGB fans all the time.

[GDRRiley]

I would say an enthusinst would be using a top end GPU with high end desktop or a mid to high level workstation platform CPU.

Midrange being i5s r5s maybe locked i7s and --60 or --70 or 580/480 and r9 280X-R9 390

[Christophe Corazza]

9 hours ago, seoz said:

That's a nice way to put it, well-summarised.

 

An enthusiast PC is not for everyone the same. It depends on its purpoise.

[AskTJ]

i3 = R3

i5 = R5

i7 = R7

 

1050Ti = RX 570

1060 = RX 580

1070 = Best AMD card

 

 

[veli2501]

On 7/5/2018 at 11:57 AM, 6thOntheLeft said:

budg·et

ˈbəjət/

noun

 

1. 1.

   an estimate of income and expenditure for a set period of time.

 

When you are talking about a budget PC you are describing the PC, therefore:

 

adjective

 

1. 1.

   inexpensive.

    

    

[D13H4RD]

Here's what I equate each category. 

 

Low-end: PCs featuring a Core i3/Ryzen 3 or lower with a GTX x50/RX x60 class GPU or lower with 4-8GB of RAM and will usually have a single HDD or a single SSD. 

 

Midrange: PCs with a Core i5/Ryzen 5 with a GTX x50 Ti/x60/RX x70/x80 class GPU with 8GB of RAM and usually feature a small SSD as a boot drive combined with a large HDD. 

 

High-end: PCs with a Core i7/Ryzen 7 with a GTX x70/RX Vega class GPU or higher with 16GB of RAM and feature a relatively large SSD combined with a larger HDD. 

 

Super high-end/workstation: PCs that feature the beefiest of beefy, which usually feature a Core i9/ThreadRipper CPU with a GTX x80 Ti/Titan/Quadro/Vega FE class GPU with 32GB of RAM and features a very large storage combo of SSDs laid out in RAID, although HDDs may also be used 

[Guest]

Budget: Mac Mini

Mid-Range: iMac

Enthusiast: Mac Pro 

[O9B0666]

1 hour ago, RorzNZ said:

Budget: Mac Mini

Mid-Range: iMac

Enthusiast: Mac Pro 

Over priced last gen stuff at very best. 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, O9B0666 said:

Over priced last gen stuff at very best. 

Must have had to wait for Windows Update to post that comment.

[O9B0666]

1 minute ago, RorzNZ said:

Must have had to wait for Windows Update to post that comment.

Using a phone. Don't be mad this fall you can get that 8700k after Intel launched 9th gen lol. Don't get me wrong macs are nice laptop but price the component's out in one your paying for the name. 

[potoooooooo]

If you build it yourself for yourself, it's enthusiast. If you build it with a specific budget in mind, it's budget.

[Lathlaer]

To people who take literal meaning of the word "budget" as a noun - do you also interpret the phrase "warm welcome" as a greeting during high temperature?

[DimasRMDO]

The problem here is that budget, mid-range, and high-end are relative....

 

Price will come later on, I usually differentiate them based on the purpose.

Like budget is usually for basic office work, YouTube, listening to music, nothing intense.

Mid-range for those who wants to do office work but still want to do gaming (no high expectation though, at least it runs)

High-end is for those who just want fast, 60+ FPS gaming, ultra graphics, no tolerance over slow performance. Those who say it's for "office" work are usually a liar (at least here ).

 

If you know what you're going to do with your PC later, you might then have some pictures about the price.

[Lathlaer]

My subjective ranking:

 

Budget (entry level PC which purpose is to browse web, watch YT videos and movies, maybe play some online games or non demanding games on "low" in max 1080p resolution)

Example: Something like GT1030 or integrated graphics or AMD equivalent with an i3 or lower end i5 CPU or AMD equivalent

 

Budget gaming (a slightly stronger PC that will allow entry gaming - non demanding games on medium, more demanding games on low

Example: GTX 1050 or maybe 1050ti with lower end i5 or AMD equivalents

 

Mid Range (allows for comfortable gaming in most titles achieving 60fps - depending on the title can be a bit more or a bit less. Settings can be cranked between medium and high allowing to even venture to 1440p though heavily depending on the title and settings.

Example: GTX 1060-1070 paired with a current i5 or even i7 CPU or AMD equivalent

 

High-end (allows for maxing or near maxing the settings in 1440p while achieving high fps count. Possible ventures into 4k territory though depending on the title settings need to be lowered from ultra to high in order to maintain 60fps).

Example: GTX 1080 and higher paired with a good i5 or i7 CPU or AMD equivalent. High core count CPU's may appear.

 

Enthusiast-level (allows for all settings to be set to max, high resolution texture mods, DSR resolution gameplay, high fps count. Usually consists of elements generally considered as "not needed" by the majority but they are there "because we can".)

Examples: Top level single GPU (1080ti+) or multi-GPU builds (1080+ in SLI), top level gaming CPUs or AMD equivalents. Elements that may have the "because we can" factor: high core count CPU's (x99/x299 or AMD equivalent), custom water loops, extensive modifications to the chassis.

 

This ranking by no means exhausts all possibilities. In those examples I listed the most commonly encountered combinations which I personally rank the way my gut tells me to. Someone may have different opinion and ofc. there are highly specialized instances where giving a rank is very difficult (like how do we rank someone building a custom hardline loop for a GTX 1060 build?).

 

Also the ranking is made generally with gaming in mind - for productivity it may look a bit different when someone prioritizes CPU computing over GPU for instance.

[jiyeon]

28 minutes ago, Lathlaer said:

Budget (entry level PC which purpose is to browse web, watch YT videos and movies, maybe play some online games or non demanding games on "low" in max 1080p resolution)

Example: Something like GT1030 or integrated graphics or AMD equivalent with an i3 or lower end i5 CPU or AMD equivalent

 

Budget gaming (a slightly stronger PC that will allow entry gaming - non demanding games on medium, more demanding games on low

Example: GTX 1050 or maybe 1050ti with lower end i5 or AMD equivalents

 

Mid Range (allows for comfortable gaming in most titles achieving 60fps - depending on the title can be a bit more or a bit less. Settings can be cranked between medium and high allowing to even venture to 1440p though heavily depending on the title and settings.

Example: GTX 1060-1070 paired with a current i5 or even i7 CPU or AMD equivalent

 

High-end (allows for maxing or near maxing the settings in 1440p while achieving high fps count. Possible ventures into 4k territory though depending on the title settings need to be lowered from ultra to high in order to maintain 60fps).

Example: GTX 1080 and higher paired with a good i5 or i7 CPU or AMD equivalent. High core count CPU's may appear.

 

Enthusiast-level (allows for all settings to be set to max, high resolution texture mods, DSR resolution gameplay, high fps count. Usually consists of elements generally considered as "not needed" by the majority but they are there "because we can".)

Examples: Top level single GPU (1080ti+) or multi-GPU builds (1080+ in SLI), top level gaming CPUs or AMD equivalents. Elements that may have the "because we can" factor: high core count CPU's (x99/x299 or AMD equivalent), custom water loops, extensive modifications to the chassis.

 

This ranking by no means exhausts all possibilities. In those examples I listed the most commonly encountered combinations which I personally rank the way my gut tells me to.

I agree with every single categorisation you've done here, it's pretty much how I pictured gaming PC categorisation.

 

32 minutes ago, Lathlaer said:

Someone may have different opinion and ofc. there are highly specialized instances where giving a rank is very difficult (like how do we rank someone building a custom hardline loop for a GTX 1060 build?

Yeah, the rare areas can be hard to rank. To me, custom loop builds are almost always enthusiast since no regular consumer would run a custom watercooled loop for their PC.

[Guest]

9 hours ago, O9B0666 said:

Using a phone. Don't be mad this fall you can get that 8700k after Intel launched 9th gen lol. Don't get me wrong macs are nice laptop but price the component's out in one your paying for the name. 

I'm not sure you can get a 8700k in a Mac I think it was replaced by a Xeon in the iMac Pro. 

[MilitantCro]

When you start paying more for components because of looks/quality/futureproofing over just performance is enthusiast.

[jtmoseley]

On 7/4/2018 at 5:17 PM, seoz said:

So I've had a sort of conundrum on my mind, and that is when can a custom PC be considered for the different categories such as budget, mid-range, and enthusiast.

 

I was discussing my PC specs with a friend and he was asking why I went for an i5 versus an i7, and I referred to the i7 as an enthusiast CPU and the i5 as a generally mid-range one. Then it came to my graphics card and I called my 3GB GTX 1060 a budget card.

 

In a full PC system, what parts can give one's custom PC the titles of budget, mid-range, or enthusiast?

 

For me at least, I feel my PC is a mid-range due to the i5-8600K, 8GB of RAM, but also gives it a budget title thanks to the 3GB GTX 1060 and literal budget CPU cooler.

I mean it really doesn't matter, but I would call anything below 800 budget, 800-1500 mid range, 1500+ is enthusiast or high end.