Last weekend, I picked up Age of Conan. Unfortunately, I liked it- I say “unfortunately” because my current computer just can’t play it at more than slideshow speeds.
So… I need a new computer.
In the past, I’ve always just built my computers… but I’ve been so out of the loop these last couple of years that I can’t keep track of processor and video card speeds. It’s time to buy a prebuilt system.
Any suggestions? I’d like to keep the price below, say, $1400 if possible.
I much prefer NVidia cards- probably the 8800GTS or similar, with 512 meg. As for system memory, I’d prefer 3-4 gig. I’m kind of leaning towards Vista.
I happen to like tigerdirect dot com, for both prebuilts and kits, or you could look at any one of the big makers [hp/compaq, dell, acer] and see what they have on sale - desktops are significantly cheaper than laptops and IIRC they have some decent systems available for under 1500. Cheaper from the manufacturers if you dont want a printer or monitor.
NewEgg is a decent place to shop for prebuilt systems (or anything computer related), although I don’t think they’ll let you tweak specs like the manufacturers will.
In any case, there’s plenty of <$1000 gaming desktops available. Not top of the line, but they’ll play games well.
I actually began putting together a shopping list for a new computer last night after determining that there’s something minorly but fundamentally wrong with my current one. Dual-core CPU, 4 GB RAM, 320 GB in hard disk space, and a Geforce 8 series card, along with the other necessaries, will run me about $750 to build it myself. It’s more than enough to run any game except the really retardedly overdone ones. This is all stuff that was top of the line 6 months ago, but has now fallen comfortably into solid midrange. (Granted, I could probably drop the price by $100 if I shopped around; this was just looking on NewEgg.)
Although I’m not including an OS in my calculations and prebuilts will, prebuilts will usually be cheaper per component, so it balances out.
Why? The process of putting the components together hasn’t really changed much in the past 10 years. Look for motherboard combo deals that include the CPU and RAM, buy the GeForce card you mentioned (I have the 8800GT, and it rocks), and a new SATA Hard Drive, and you are set. You might need a new power supply, depending on your current unit, and you might want a new case, if you want a new stylish look. Save some dough and reuse your sound card, optical drive, and other components you might have.
If you buy one component at a time, probebly. But in my experience, NewEgg has the lowest total for the various components I want.
Buy a case, a motherboard, 8800s, a dual or quad core processor, and still be under your target cost. Using newegg you can build a decent gaming rig for around a grand. (1400 will get ya a awesome one if you take advantage of the deals)
Well, I’m still not completely decided on whether I want to build or not. I’ve actually got a decent case just sitting around gathering dust… but I’ll need a new power supply for it, and mobo, and memory, and processor, and hard drive… and then I’ll need a new OS as well .
Part of the problem is that I just don’t know what’s fast anymore- I stopped paying attention. It’d be much more convenient if the manufacturers would just decide on a standard unit of measurement. Video cards are a good example- some of the GeForce 7 series are actually *better *than the 8 series, which makes it very difficult to buy a video card without doing a ton of research beforehand.
Yeah, if you’ve built systems before save yourself some money and do so again. You should have absolutely no problems as the basics of putting together a system haven’t changed much at all.
With a $1,400 budget you can build a nice high end system.
I’m actually planning to get mine prebuilt this time around. I don’t have a very good environment for building a computer, and I’m reasonably sure that the problems with mine stem from improper care in handling the components. Even then, PCUSA is quoting $755 for the following:
Case: Thermaltake M9 case
PSU: Generic 500W power supply
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 (2.33GHz)
Motherboard: Asus P5K SE EPU
RAM: 4GB DDR2 800
Video: GeForce 8600GT 512MB
Hard drive: 250GB SATA-II
DVD: 20x Dual-Format/Dual-Layer DVD/RW
12-in-1 media reader
Onboard sound
Onboard wired LAN
I have a monitor and wireless adapter already, which cuts down on the price, but I expect that to be a pretty solid midrange computer that could run just about any PC game on the market today (if I wanted to run Windows on it, anyway). PCUSA also offers a 3-year limited warranty, which is something you just don’t get with home-built systems.
If you’ve got $1000 to play with, you can easily get more power. For a gaming rig, SLI is desirable, and you can never go wrong with bumping CPU up, maybe to quadcore. Hard drives are remarkably cheap these days, too; that 250GB drive is only about $60.
Of course, using PCUSA means you need to know what components you want, so research is still necessary. If you really don’t want to think about it, I’d just stick with NewEgg and find a machine with a Quad CPU, SLI video, and 4 GB of RAM, and the rest should fall into place. You’ll only be looking at $1000-1200 there.
Don’t go for an 8600-series card. I’ve got one (8600 GTS) and they’re slow for modern games. Get yourself a 9600 or a 8800 GT - they should be about the same price. If you’re going for 4 GB memory, you’ll want Vista 64, and I suggest you choose a motherboard capable of taking more than 4 GB - memory is cheap.
Honestly, the most cost effective and easiest way to go is to keep an eye on slickdeals for a Dell deal, get something pretty beefy for $700 or $800 with a piece of crap graphics card, and then switch in an 8800GT from Newegg. Voila, 80th percentile or better gaming PC for under a grand.
This is going to be a Linux machine, with some gaming capability. I can’t walk too far out on the cutting edge, or stability falters. Nvidia’s only just now getting things worked out for the 8 series and is starting to look at 9 for Linux.
But for a dedicated gaming computer, where you want to run the latest and greatest, I agree with what you say.
That isn’t true at all. Maybe the highest-end 7000 series can beat out the very low end integrated budget solutions of the 8000 series, but an 8800 GT for around $160 will stomp the hell out of anything from the 7 series.
I’ll also echo the sentiment not to get an 8600 GT. Crappy card that compromised too much in the name of value. The 9600 GT is a much better value card, and is great at around $140.
FWIW, I’m in the middle of building one, and I do a ton of research, tweaking, etc. so my choices are solid.
Antec 900 case - nice deal at Fry’s for $70) - awesome airflow.
Corsair hx520 PSU - wattage rating is overvalued in PSUs, people think they need 750+ watt monsters when most systems don’t exceed 350w at load. However, quality is undervalued by people. The corsair units (made by seasonic) are some of the best on the market. Also paid $70 for that one.
E8400 Pennryn/Wolfdale C2D CPU. Easiest decision of the bunch even though I haven’t bought an Intel chip since a P166. It’s simply the best value out there even at stock speeds, but even better, it easily overclocks by at least 1 ghz with any decent system - $195
Ram - undecided.
MB - undecided, but most likely P35… probably between abit IP-35 pro, gigabyte ga-p35-ds3l or ds3r, or DFI bloodiron or DFI DP lanparty. Range from $90 to $180.
GPU - XFX 8800 GTS-512 (g92) - performs pretty much the same as a 9800 GTX for significantly less cost - around $230. Came with CoD 4 too which is like a $40 instant rebate since I was probably going to buy the game anyway. The GT is a better value in raw terms of price and performance - you can get a decent GT for $60 less that’s only 10-20% slower, but you get a much nicer cooling system on the GTS-512, better hardware, and better clocks. Important to distinguish the GTS-512/G92 from the previous GTS cards with 640 or 320mb - the former are much better.
You may want to wait here - Nvidia and ATI are set to release a new batch of products in about a month. But it make take another month+ after that for the mid-range products to make it to market. BFG (I think) and EVGA have “step up” programs that let you send in your old model and get a new model for the price difference for 100 and 90 days respectively after purchase.
WD6400AAKS 640gb HD… $100 currently on special at newegg. Awesome price per gig, and also impressively fast (although my 4.5 year old raptor is still going to be my primary speed drive)
Thermalright ultra 120 extreme heatsink. It’s simply the best there is. If you aren’t interested in tweaking and overclocking at all you could get by without it, but it’s just a beast - it can be a full 30-35c cooler than the intel stock hsf at load.
To follow that up, I ended up going with a DFI DK T2RS LanParty board ($147ish) and G.Skill 2x2gb PC1000 ram ($84… ram is crazy cheap)
The DFI is a rather extreme… power user I guess… board. It probably has 50 bios settings you’ve never heard of before. They’re the most tweakable and well made boards… even if you don’t overclock, they’ll still provide solid performance. Plus it’s pretty.
The G.Skill ram has a pretty good rep - there are a few options you have in the sub-$100 4gb range, but that’s the only stuff guaranteed to clock at 500 mhz. I don’t want my ram holding back my overclocks so I went with that.
If you have any questions, ask me now - I’m very well researched and up to date on the topics. I go overboard making sure I get the best of everything when building a PC. But the knowledge gets outdated quickly.
Oh and I skipped the Thermalright and went with a Xigmatek S1983. Much cheaper for similar and sometimes better prformance. Smaller, too, although that term is relative when it comes to high end heat sinks.
Comes in at just under $1000 ($1025 with shipping included), and I may drop the floppy drive (weep), but I think this is still a fairly high end machine that doesn’t go overboard. The case, the Antec III Sonata was strongly recommended if you are looking to buy a case with a PSU attached.
Your choices are solid… no heatsink though. Are you going with the retail?
I have a Sonata (I?) and they’re nice cases. Not great for airflow, but they’re ergonomically good and are pretty quiet. Strange to go with MX2 but the stock cooler. The Xigmatek S1283 is a great value.
The 640AAKS shot up $30 from when I bought it last week. Newegg apparently dynamically adjusts price based on supply/demand from what I hear. Edit: It’s priced identically to the 750GB model now, oddly enough.
The 640 is probably faster (320x2 vs 250x3), though.
As for the floppy… I haven’t run one in years. I bought a usb flash drive that I’m hoping I’ll be able to boot from and use like a floppy.
I’d be cautious with buying Vista. Read up and decide you’re confident you want it.
Vista as a gaming platform is perfectly fine. Not only that, it’s the only way you’re going to get Direct X games. Most of the valid reasons why not to get Vista no longer applied after 6-8 months post release anyway.
I always have a floppy drive handy though if only to hook up to my PC for the first bootup. I strongly recommend you download the latest BIOS from your mobo’s manufacturer, put it on a floppy (or CD if the BIOS can update through one) and get that out of the way first, even before installing the OS.
The biggest issue for my gamer friends isn’t Vista/XP it’s 32bit/64bit since the TWL matches my friends play in has anti-cheat systems not compatible with 64bit in either version.
Those heatsinks just make me shake my head. It baffles me that the thing doesn’t just rip the CPU socket out of the mainboard when the tower is upright.
Right, that;s definitely a concern. Not only that but driver updates usually come out slower for the 64 bit platform. Personally I wouldn’t run a 64 bit OS for another year or so.
