What do YOU need in a PC?

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I have very very low standarns for what I need in a PC. I have a relative level of specs, apps that I need, and dimensions I would like to have. Par example:

I need a laptop, any will do. 8-12 inches screen, a processor of some sort that is capable of loading abiword and in doing the AAAAAAA test can not lag after 3 - 5 seconds, 256MB ram, linux, terminator, and bash / dash. If it has to be a stupid web browser, not like firefox or something webkit based, at least give me OWB. Let me have that at least. I also need, at least, one USB port, one audio port, and a 1024X768 screen at minimum.

So what fits that..... A lot of things actually.

ibook G4, ibook G3 (G3 snow 650mhz or clamshell 350), powerbook G4, Acer KAV10, Toshiba Portege 3500 (and 7200), Macbook 2,1 / 1,1, and anything similar. IBM 600X even.

I'm very loose on my PC specs because I don't need the best.

What about for a daily? I actually have specific hardware that I want for a daily, and by daily I mean writing shit, playing at least Privateer Gemini Gold and Runescape, youtube on some dimension, linux, and a music player.

so.... HP NW8000, ibook G4, Powerbook G4, Macbook 1,1/2,1/3,2, Lenovo B575, Lenovo Y40-70, Thinkpad T60.... Working laptops.

Notice I don't mention desktop stuff? Generally stuff that I need done gets done on the road a lot. Bouncing between farms, going somewhere, just not home, but have a laptop. Honestly if my desktop can play TF2 and CSS I'm happy with that.

So what do you need as a PC?

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I honestly wished I had a pc that could play games at 4K at 60 FPS with everything maxed. That is what I want. That is what I need.

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Motherboard, CPU, RAM, power supply, storage of some sort. Input devices would be nice too...

On a more serious note, it depends? I do some CAD as a hobby at home, so that requires a little bit of horsepower, but I also need something small and light for university.

So at home it's a 4c/8t Xeon with applicable workstation stuff (gaming GPU for now because they're cheaper), but on the go it's a 2-in-1 with a M-5Y10c and 4 GB of RAM because it's small and the battery lasts just long enough for a typical day.

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No you really don't but ok.

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Yes I really do as I have a 4K display now and all I do with my pc is game so I want what I want. I need what I need.

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Need? I don't technically "need" a PC in general. But I'll leave the definition debate at the door.

I like to stream on Twitch occasionally, and I have a gigantic 4k TV that I use as a monitor. So preferably, I'd like to play 4k games at 60fps while down sampling to 1080p at 30fps to Twitch, while having a dozen tabs open, and Spotify running in the background.

So preferably 8 core with hyperthreading or SMT with something like a 1070, or 1080. Or whatever the Vega equivalent will be (if there is an equivalent, fingers crossed.)

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None of you fucks can run on minimal anything can you :T thats depressing

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Not really, no.

I need Excel and CAD, among other programs, which means I need Windows which means I need something with more computing power than an empty tissue box.

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Then your minimum is higher. You don't need 8 cores though, which is a little stupid.

"I need a cluster" .....pfffneed

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Get me a 15" monitor, a shell and an internet connections. That's bare minimum - No shit I can work with that just fine.

I'd prefer my shell to be Bash on a minimal Fedora or
CentOS Linux install (backup Debian or Ubuntu minimal, last resort FreeBSD with Shell).

Anything else is just nice to have.

Add Ethernet port. F Linux wifi.

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I wanted to use just one computer. I had two laptops and one desktop before, but syncinc files and things between those started to get annoying.

I wanted a very portable machine with good keyboard, great screen and enough performance for photo editing. One retailer was selling Surface pro 3 i5 4gb demo unit for 400e so I sold all my other computer stuff and bought that with Surface Pro 4 keyboard. I don't play games anymore so this thing is great for me.

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Meh, I've used the same programs on an old dual core when I was first learning them. It worked, but it was slower than a dead cat walking through molasses uphill in the middle of an Arctic winter. Even you'd find it slow.

(Props for running your stuff on tissue boxes though)

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(thanks dad I want to find stuff to learn about not just BUY 8 CORES AND FUCK AROUND >:U)

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For me bare minimum is a pc that can connect to the internet. But as a video editor and a gamer i need a pc that would let me do my job and game at the same time. Nothing too fancy. 4K for me isn't really that wanted as there isn't much 4k content atm.

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Most of us have been using computers since the 90's, so we can fully appreciate the convenience of having recent hardware to make our daily/professional/hobbyist lives accelerated.

Current hardware allows us much more time to do other things rather than waiting for minutes/hours for a process to finish. Kudos for using older hardware on your self-learning journey - There are lots of amateur tinkerers your age who need a history lesson.

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Yikes, you started this thread

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The bare minimum for me is a snappy CPU like a 4 threads i5, 256GB SSD, 8GB of RAM and a 15" 1080p IPS screen. That's because I usually have VMs, many Chrome tabs open, I read many PDFs off of it for study and I use it to watch videos. All of this in a notebook.
But, since I like to treat myself, I'm rocking an i7 3630QM, 12GB of RAM and 500GB SSD lol

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The really sad thing is, once you turn off pointless effects, like bloom, motion blur, lower AA to 8X from 16X and AF to lower number you have no visible loss of quality, on the contrary, motion blur and bloom makes things look awful, but this makes framerates get higher.
You don't need to max out... At 4K you don't really need high numbers AA...
Anyways, my hobby is YouTube, so I just need slightly more powerful cpu... I am currently recording, editing and rendering videos on a quad core Athlon 760K - entry level cpu from 3-4 years ago. So if I have slightly more powerful cpu, so I don't have to render 15min video for an hour, I will be happy...
Mid range gpu is fine for me... If I get 480 I wouldn't know what to do with all that graphics power. I am running 270X and I haven't really been needing much more.

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I need one computer to edit photos. So it has to have a decent CPU, 8+ gigs of memory, a color accurate screen and an OS that can run at least Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. For now that system is a 15" retina Macbook Pro 2015 with 16GB RAM. Other than that I need a secure storage setup at home and an off-site backup.

Everything else is nice to have but not "needed".

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If I was so poor that I couldn't afford a rig, it's hard to imagine using my computer for much considering I wouldn't be able to afford data either.

"need" is a ridiculous standard. So I'll talk about what I wouldn't go without. I'm not ready to retire tomorrow, and unless you are IMO you don't really have disposable income. Which is presumably your point OP

I wouldn't go without the ability to play any AAA title that i fancy on the market with down scaled super high res textures and fancy shaders and lighting effects at 1080p 60fps.

The only games I ever play at downgraded settings are competitive ones