Computer Spec Help

Ok,
I've finally decided to break down and get a nice hefty desktop for game playing and making.

I've been using my laptop (Dell Inspiron 1100) - which surprisingly does ok with some smaller code samples.

I'm either going to buy a machine already decked out (www.alienware.com) - or take one of the ones in my office here and beef it up with a good video card, more memory etc.

Would you all have suggestions in terms of which is best? Also, what types or cards, processors, etc. would be best for this?

Thanks!

laptop... dell xps gen2.

It'll do you good for mobile AND desktop... they are that powerful now.

Mine benchmarks 69000 aquamarks and they've got one now with a BIT faster processor and a 7800GTX video card (as opposed to my 2.13Ghz Pent M and 6800Ultra video)...

Price is a bit steep but cheaper than an alienware.

I'd build one from the ground up as opposed to beefing up an old office machine. You can't polish a turd! :)

As for specific components, I don't know - I've been out of the loop for too long. :(

If you've got the money you can't beat an alienware simply because it removes all the hassle of building it yourself and you KNOW it will fly.

Everyone here is a nerd, they'll tell you to build it... but if you can afford alienware, go for it...

I'd never go with alienware or falcon northwest... just because they overprice their stuff waaaaay beyond reason.

If I was a gajillionaire maybe. But they just aren't worth it otherwise. And alienware's warranty is...... flakey. Sometimes it's solid gold and sometimes they fall flat on their faces.

What Kanati has in his sig is pretty nice... actually it's more or less the same combo I have at work now, except that I have 7800GT (or was it GTX... can't remember).

Whatever you get, base it around an Athlon64 3700 or 3800. Two of AMD's most overclockable chips.

With stock cooling and voltage you can get FX55 speeds and with some tweaking (still with stock cooler) you can get FX57 speeds, with the right RAM (Mushkin high-end RAM is generally the best).

For a gfx card, the 7800GT represents fantastic performance for a reasonable price. A 6800 Ultra is also a hot pick, for slightly less £££.

If Alienware can provide a system based on those components, and you feel it's a good deal then go for it. At least purchasing a whole system, if it screws up you can just phone 'em and get 'em to sort it out. If you build your own, you fix your own.

Since you're in the US, this is where I got my PC: http://visionman.com/

Pretty good deal, just make sure you buy specific components elsewhere if you find a better deal. You can get them to fit a motherboard and power supply and what-not and then you can add on from there. When I ordered from them I just had them throw in a hard drive, a PCI USB thinger, 1gb of RAM, and a floppy drive (I have old games I like to play.. WHAT?! Stop staring at me!). I salvaged a 100gb drive from my previous desktop, CD drive, and bought an X800 XT seperately, so it came to about $1400 total for the entire setup.

Great - thanks for all the info.

Now, when I say 'Alienware' - I don't mean one of those ultra-tricked out units (though, that'd be great) - my budget is more like $900 -

Would this: http://visionman.com/AMD-Athlon-Gamer/VCPREGS640.htm?PHPSESSID=5d69d678bcad59c0dd5c09f19aaf44d1

or one of these: http://www.alienware.com/Product_Pages/desktop_all_gaming.aspx

make good machines? Both seem similar - not sure of which video card is better.

On both (or on any machine) - I'd slowly build up to about 2gig of memory - seems like that's really what it's going to take.

Forget the Visionman at least - 512mb is to little and FX5500... well:

http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/fx5500/index6.php

I'd stay away from any card starting with FX...

Yea - I was going to upgrade the memory (1-2 gig) - but now - what's a good video card? I know there are tons out there...

http://www.allstarshop.com/shop/simprod.asp?pid=10965

There's a decent deal in my opinion. I've ordered from the folks before (where I got my X800), they're nice.

http://www.graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050705/vga-charts-pcie-02.html#3d_mark_2005

^It's missing the latest and the greatest 3D-cards, but to me it seems that for example GeForce 7-series is too pricey for you budget anyway. Think how much you are willing to pay for a 3D-card and then check the table above how good (fast) they are.

you aren't going to see much from alienware for 900 dollars that's going to really push the gaming envelope... Their 859 dollar aurora system has a DECENT athlon 64 3000+ chip... but they skimp a LOT on memory (256 meg) and video card (6200). That's downright horrid.

You could build that exact system minus the nifty alienware case for about 450 dollars.

If you insist on getting a prebuilt take a look at the Dell XPS 400... It's not THAT great but comes with a 3.2Ghz P4, 512 meg memory (twice the alienware) and an X300 video card (not great but at least as good or better than the 6200)... And it's only $950. And it comes with a Dell 17" LCD monitor for free right now.

You could build that one for about 550 or so, but you'd also have to pay about 200 for the monitor, so it's a decent deal. Plus you get the dell support/warranty which has always been great.

Go for on eof the EXTREME gamer PC's from MESH: 3 years on site warranty lovely!

http://www.meshplc.co.uk/Default.aspx?PAGE=PRODUCTVIEWPAGE&USG=PRODUCT&ENT=PRODUCT&KEY=53891

2 * nVidia sli cards...mmmm FAST!

or just browse here...
http://www.meshplc.co.uk


IPete2.

X300 is quite sucky too (like 6200):

http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/x300/index4.php

DOOM3 frames per second: *1*

http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/x300/index6.php

You'd really need to spend 200-300$ for 3D-card if you want to play games that were done 2004-2005. Sad but true.

Yea- seems like my thoughts of getting through this easily are going out the window.

I really don't care what the box looks like - I just though it'd be easy to get a ready-made unit.

I would recommend MESH, too, but seeing as you're in the USA, there's not much point. :)

Ouch. Yeah it's SLI, but they are using the 6800LE. That's a horrid choice.



Can't argue there... 900 for a complete system just isn't going to get you much unless you build it yourself.

You can't really beat the satisfaction of building your own system. Just keep all the boxes and receipts as you WILL have to send something back. :P

Ok - now - what if I try to polish this turd:

Dell Dimension Pentium 4 1.8 ghz / 512mb

I'd buy a s@#!* video card, extra memory - etc.

Is it worth it?

I just bought a system from www.cyberpowersystem.com

There was some initial hassle that was mostly cleared up by reinstalling Windows but now it's sailing. I got the LAN party special - including stuff like Athlon64, GeForce 6600, 19" LCD - for $1000. With free shipping!

I like AMDs, so I ended up picking up an HP 3700+ based system with a gig. Machine was about $700 at Fry's.

Tossed a 7800GT in it and I was good to go. To save a couple hundred bucks and get in roughly your cost range, HP also has a 3500+ based system, and get the 6800GT instead of the 7800.

AMD > Intel as far as price/performance goes. Intel does have the performance edge on things like rendering/sound compression/etc., but AMD *generally* has better game performance.

Thanks jhocking - Cyberpowersytems seems to have some good deals.

Ok - how does this one play out? Is that video card any good? There were quite a few other choices there.

This only came out to about $900

CPU : (Sckt775)Intel® Pentium® D 820 CPU @ 2.8GHz w/ 800FSB Dual-Core 2x1MB Cache, 64 Bit

MOTHERBOARD : Asus P5ND2-SLI nForce4 Chipset LGA775 DDR2/667 SATA RAID Dual PCIE w/7.1Audio, GbLAN, IEEE1394&USB2

MEMORY : 2GB (4x512MB) PC4200 DDR2 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair Value Select)

VIDEO CARD : NVIDIA Geforce 6200 Graphics with TurboCache supporting 256MB 16X PCI Express VIDEO CARD

HARD DRIVE : 200GB Hard Drive (SATA150 - Maxtor 200GB 7200RPM 8MB Cache Hard Drive)
Optical Drive : COMBO DRIVE (16X DVD-ROM & 52x32x52 CD-RW) (BEIGE COLOR)

SOUND : HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO

Are you sure that's the best you can do for $900? The system I got doesn't have as much RAM or as big a harddrive, but I got a better videocard and a big ole LCD monitor. That videocard isn't bad, but for brand new everything you probably want better than that. Bear in mind the various confingurators are not equal values.

Well 6200 is quite sucky too, not really suitable for gaming:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/191/10/

The thing is that videocards have these days the same fate as speakers in cheap stereo sets: they look really flashy from outside but are not worth the plastic they're made of. Videocard manufacturers have learned to fool ppl by using close to high-end range product names and other lies like LE/SE additions... all meaning that the product is crippled crap.

You may want to reconsider getting Pentium Dual core and get an AMD dual core instead: the AMD's give a lot more bang for your buck, run much cooler and use less power as well.

The current generation of dual core pentiums has clearly been rushed to market. The next generation will likely be better, but I would definitely hold off on the current crop.

Nope. We have P-duals at work and they need ENERMOUS coolers...

I think I may have phrased it a bit odd, but I meant that the AMD is cooler and uses less power than the intels do. Sampyxis's 'sample' system a couple of postings above was based around a dual core Pentium.

(Editing my previous post for clarity)

I'd stay away from dual cores entirely right now if you are making a gaming machine. So few games actually use the second core that it's relatively useless for gaming. And the single core chips are definitely more "bang for buck".

Sorry for bringing up this old post -

But, I think I'm ready to buy this machine:


But, for $65 - I can upgrade to this video card:


Is the 6800 that much better than the 6600?

Thanks!

It's better of course, but IMO not that much that it is worth it... if you can't afford 7800 then 6600 is just as good as 6800. They may be some memory bandwidht etc differences but do you really need it?