My goal with my computers is never necessarily to have the highest numbers, because you very quickly get to a point where you're spending hundreds, perhaps thousands of dollars for a couple of percentage points of performance. I do, however, like to have a competent machine that while not necessarily having its capabilities used in the present, can be utilized as my needs and wants change. 1440p gaming now and even some light 4K down the road are no problem for my Nano. (before you reply with brand-spankin' new AAA titles that will choke the Nano at 4K - I haven't played a AAA title in a long time and I don't see myself starting anytime soon)
Other needs include:
at least 1 SSD, at least for the OS and primary storage.
a CPU that will hold its weight in games for a good long while. The 2600K is legendary in this regard.
Lots of I/O on the rear I/O, specifically lots of USBs and one PS/2 connector.
PCI Express connectors all down the board
that certain X-factor of having a PC that is yours and yours alone - I built my own case out of cardboard.
I can go with an even older one... Phenom 945... It still runs everything you throw at it. Yes, 2600K is way more powerful, but 945 is just like the HD7850. 7850 is like trillion years old and is still amazing performer. It slaps RX460 and GTX950 every day of the week...
ATM? a raspberry pi3 would suffice i belive... Even too lazy to game. What i want a new platform cuz still stuck on lynnfield. But ofc AMD fuc**d up those IOMMU groupings so we are waiting for intel i guess. So angry even thinking about this.
You can get pre-modded (771 to 775) Xeon E5450 for even less money from China. TDP is 15-40W lower than the Phenoms, clock is the same, has the OC capability too. And good 775 mobos with supported chipsets for the Xeons are everywhere.
As for the topic at hand, I don't need much. But no less than 4GB RAM because I (unfortunately) need Windows as a main OS. And I need a comfortable keyboard. Getting a second monitor has improved my work speed, but I don't necessarily need it.
N o not really I was thinking about if Ihadn't really gone into pc stuff I'd still have my nw8000 after my lenovo b575 doed and how not awful that would be.
Need in a PC, hmm, well to be honest probably nothing, but if I have one it had better be fast, a good monitor (like my 34" predator) and enough gpu/cpu to push things beyond 60fps. I know that my be extreme but I get an irrational tick when I get on a hunk of junk and it fails to do what I want when I want.
For me I use computers for a wide range of things. Gaming, Word Processing, Watching Video, VM, Ripping and Encoding Bluray, Voip, web design, running game servers, and more. So 6 or more cores, 16gb or more of ram, 1tb ssd storage, 3tb or more of hdd, a bluray drive, fan controller, good video card.
Honestly, if I stopped playing FFXIV, all I would need is my android phone(Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 so the screen is quite large) and a keyboard which would act as my phone and a laptop. But I'm not that minimalistic as I have a T420 and a desktop with an A10-5800K and r9 270x.
Home server? I virtualize on top of esxi as of this week so I run a 4 core Xeon with 64 gigs of ram and a few 250 gig ssds for servers and a few 1tb rusts for storage.