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new machine advice
hi,
I've decided to buy a new desktop, to try out AOC, then Cataclysm, then SWTOR.
I'm not a builder so I'd like some advice on what gaming machine is a worthy buy, I want to spend about a grand, is the lower end alienware stuff any good? what about the dell studio xps machines? Or is building a pc the only way to ensure value for money?
thanks
Comments
Building a PC is the best bet if you can find someone to do it for you, or even pay someone you know. The trouble with pre-built machines is that they sell it one the core and how much memory it has, then chuck in a crappy video card.
For £1000 you can get a pretty decent machine. Depends if you need everything including monitor, mouse, keyboard, printer ect. or if you just need the desktop. Also if you need finance, or you are paying for it now.
buy an amd/ati system built by asus!
Here, read this thread of the new PC upgrades I made this past week. Everything listed in there would cost you around $753, course if you're building from scratch you'd still need a video card, case, dvd rom, mouse and KB...and maybe a monitor, but if you already have those parts from a current PC, then you'd have one very nice AMD PC for a good price.
FYI, never buy a pre-built PC...they're mostly junk and way over-priced....you can get a far better deal building it yourself and just asking others for help.
Building a PC is simpler then you may believe and usually 20-30% cheaper tha pre-built ones. Alienware are for rich and lazy people, if that applies to you, go right ahead
For $1000 you won't get anything ultimate, but a high midrange. A mid highrange would set you back $1500 and highrange is at least $2000+. If you don't want to assemble yourself, but would like to get a bit more bang for your buck, you can configure you own here. Their CS isn't the best, but afaik it's the cheapest assembler.
prebuilt always comes with lots of crap softwares that you are never gonna use. because those softwares tend to get outdated and will never work anymore. anyways if you are not going to build your own. at least get a prebuilt made by ASUS. you can never go wrong with ASUS. They are really reliable.
thanks for your replies,
I am considering having a go at a build,
out of interest, a local e-bayer is selling the following build for a grand, can you tell me if it's a decent set-up?
Processor - Intel core 2 duo 3,16 GHZ
8 GB DDR3 RAM
LG DVD RW
1 TB Western Digital hard drive
Audio - 7.1 channel surround
Motherboard - ASUS P5E3 PRO with 2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots
ATI Saphire Radeon HD 5770 1 GB GDDR5 Graphics
The Sapphire Radeon HD 5750 is compatible with DirectX 11 to fully immerse you in your favourite video games.
It boasts ATI Eyefinity technology, meaning you can use up to 3 screens at the same time. Plus, the Radeon HD 5750 includes 40nm process technology to reduce power consumption.
It's also designed to bring out the best in Windows 7, guaranteeing an unforgettable viewing experience!
550W Power supply
Mouse and keyboard
Windows 7 Ultimate.
I think that's a pretty fair deal. The PSU might be a a bit on the low side, but if he's managing to use I don't see why you shouldn't be able to. You will also have to get a mintor (if you don't have one already). I suggest going for a 24", they are pretty good now and have a decent price.
*edit* Im gonna go back on what I said earlier. Ya, for a grand thats pushing it..even if its brand new. The hardware isnt that bad, but I thought about some of the current builds im doing that cost about $500 more then that build and its top of the line stuff.
You could easily build a i5 750 or an AMD x4 965 build with a better GPU for around a grand which would destroy that ebay build. Hell, you can find pre-builts from iBuypower and cyberpower on newegg right now cheaper then that.
Check the link here
I mean I hate to push pre-builts, but compare that ebay build to this intel build
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883113122
or this AMD build
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229137
and you can get an idea of how over priced that PC is. On top of that, I dont think that ebayer is going to give you a 1 year warranty like this.
sounds like that ebayer is trying to get way too much for that build.
8GB or RAM is overkill, 4GB is plenty for current generation games and 6GB will cover you for quite a while. I would go with a 650watt power supply if you can, so you can get 2 cards in SLI or Xfire, possibly upgrade your GPU at a later date safely.
For a grand you should be able to get all that as well as an ATI HD5850, quite alot more powerful than the 5770, and it will allow you to play most games at high resolutions with decent FPS(1920x1200+).
That system for $1000 is actually not a rip off, it's the cost of Windows 7 Ultimate that's driving up the price so dramatically. For 1 grand you'd like to see as close to this setup as you can get:
4GB DDR3 Ram $120
Radeon 5850 $300
Mobo $120
i5-750 $200
Case $50
~600W PSU $80
Windows 7 Home $100
DVD-Drive $30
Keyboard/mouse $50
This comes out to about $1050 if you built it yourself and didn't hunt around for good deals so if you can find a prebuilt close to that setup then it's a great deal. I put together the above system for $1130 on ibuypower.com just to check it out. Since there's a bit of a markup for prebuilt the part you should downgrade on is the CPU, but below the i5-750 I'd switch to AMD.
A not-terrible option would be to buy a Dell Studio XPS 8100, step up the CPU to i5-750 and RAM to 4GB and leave everything else default including the basic video card ($750 total), then buy an aftermarket Radeon 5850 ($300). If you did this you should make sure to find out what the PSU it comes with is though.
I thought I'd chime in here despite some of the fairly good advice given by others.
When you're talking about a gaming machine, it's really just about one thing: GPUs. The video card setup is going to be the single biggest thing that dictates how well a game is going to run (unless you get an incredibly underpowered CPU that bottlenecks the system).
With that in mind, you basically have three options: Buy expensive, buy cheap and get a PSU and GPU upgrade, or build.
Buying a gaming PC has all sorts of drawbacks. First, you have to pay for labor, not just parts, and you never really know about the workmanship. What's worse, it's my experience that a lot of pre-built gaming desktops come with relatively shoddy PSUs (as do all puchased machines, but it doesn't matter as much when not gaming). In terms of what you can get, you might find varying CPU setups, but you'll never do better than a single Radeon HD 5770.
A hybrid option to building and buying is just buying a cheap home PC with a decent CPU and enough RAM (Something like a Dell Inspiron 580 for $529, which comes with a Core I3 and 4GB or ram). Then, with the remaining $470, buy a Radeon HD 5850, spend $90 or so on a good PSU, and most of the rest should get gobbed up in shipping. The major drawback is that the cases in machines like this aren't really build for good cooling (and moving it to another case would be the same as building).
Then, of course, there's building a computer. This option gives the most flexibility in what parts you get, so you can focus your limited funds where they need to go most, you have a guarantee of workmanship, and you aren't paying for any labor, just parts (which makes it a better deal). Best of all, you learn your machine, and that has a value all its own. Whether it's cars, computers, or anything in between, learning to do things yourself isn't just a great way to save money up front, but to save money down the road, because you'll be more prepared to deal with future expenses. The only downside is that there's a few hassles universally involved (getting RAM down to advertised timings, drivers, etc), but it's a small price to pay.
With that in mind, if I were building a PC for $1000 (which I'd break down into $900 and then $100 set aside for an OEM Windows Copy), I'd shoot for a pair of Radeon HD 5750s or 5770s in Crossfire, which give much better bang for your buck than ANYTHING else in the $300 range (including the simlarly priced Radeon HD 5850, which is noteably slower). Because of the Crossfire preference on my part at this price point, and the limited funds, I'd probably go with an AMD system due to the better prices on motherboards (getting a full LGA1156 ATX board with two PCIE slots that run faster than 4x will cost you at least $150 on Newegg, vs only about $100 (or a hair more) for an AM3 board, so the money stretches farther). Also, Intel doesn't have a quad-core Core i5 for less than $199, while a Phenom II X4 955 can be had for $150 (a little slower, but at least you're not stepping down to a dual core). That $100 saved will keep you in budget.
So, here's what I was able to toss together for $1000 (note that you'll go over budget some because of shipping, but it should be manageable):
-Asus Crossfire compatible ATX motherboard (PCIE 16x slots run at 8x/8x but it makes no tangible difference here)
-Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition (MAKE SURE TO GET THE C3 STEPPING! (HDZ955FBGMBOX))
-750W PSU
-4GB G.SKILL RIPJAW DDR3 1600RAM (7-8-7-24)
-500GB Seagate HDD
-2x HIS Radeon HD 5770 1GB
-Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM
-random case and DVD drive
The wish list is here: http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=12870032 (I've had trouble linking from newegg on these forums, so there's the URL). Since I just KNOW someone is going to give me flack for the PSU, let me just say I've used those units for several years now without issue, and it's VERY well reviewed, so don't knock it just because the brand has problems at lower price points
Now, there are probably a thousand different ways to spend your thousand dollars, OP, so take this for what it is: the opinion of one experienced system build and overclocker out of many. That said, you aren't going to beat the GPU setup within your price range; I don't care how hard you try
Just to give an idea, a Radeon HD 5850 will score about 13k for GPU score in 3dmark Vantage (Performance preset), while two Radeon HD 5770s will score 15k (those numbers based on Guru3d reviews)
EDIT: It looks like the reviews for the PSU I gave have gone downhill massively in the past few months for some odd reason, so perhaps another unit would be advisable afterall. I changed the one in the wist list to a 700W OCZ PSU.