Yakoob on 6/12/2011 at 14:32
So my 5 year old HP laptop, while a formidable machine for its time, is chugging along slowly and occasionally bursting into laughter when I mention the likes of "Skyrim" or "Battlefield 3" to him. With that being said, it is time for a new computer! But because I haven't bought a new computer in 5 years, I am finding myself a bit lost with specs AND purchasing outlets, and seek your wise advice on both.
Location: California, US
Type: Desktop. While I would love the portability of a laptop, it looks like I can save a good $500 on same-specs if I go with a tower. And I still have the old laptop if I'm on the go.
Budget: $800-1200
Purpose: Primarily gaming (wanna get Skyrim, Battlefield 3, Witcher 2, etc), video-game related programming, and occasional video/photo editing as well (Adobe Suite)
State: Prebuilt or Barebones preferable. I could get parts and build it myself, but frankly, I'm not up for the hassle, unless the savings are considerable ($150 or more)
Basing off of my research and (
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227382) this as a role model, here's what I am kinda looking at right now:
$319.99 - Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 3000 BX80623I72600K$219.99 Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 3000 BX80623I52500K
$269.99 - MSI N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II 2GD5/OC GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card$299.99 ZOTAC ZT-50313-10M GeForce GTX 560 Ti - 448 Cores (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card + FREE BATTLEFIELD 3
OR: $299.99 EVGA 012-P3-2068-KR GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 448 Cores Classified 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
OR: $309.99 MSI N560GTX-Ti 448 Twin Frozr III PE/OC GeForce GTX 560 Ti - 448 Cores (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
$169.99 - ASUS Maximus IV Gene-Z LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
OR: Something ~$100, lots of choices, not sure what is good. Any thoughts on $104.99 GIGABYTE GA-P67A-D3-B3 LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard? Should I stick to P67 or go for Z68?
$46.99 - CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9R
$59.99 - Rosewill GEAR X3 Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case,Support up to 15.36" Video Card,come with Three Fans-1x Front Blue LED 140mm Fan,1x Top 120mm Fan,1x Rear 120mm Fan,Option Fan-1x Top 120mm Fan,2x Side 120mm Fan
OR: $55.49 Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
$59.99 - Rosewill RV2-700 700W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V SLI Ready
$139.99 - Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
$18.99 - ASUS 24X DVD Burner - Bulk 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS - OEM
$99.99 - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit
$12.98 - Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
$25.99 - COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1
Which comes up to $1154.88. The prebuilt I linked has i7-2600k, 8GB more memory, 500GB bigger HDD and costs about the same. So there's another reason for prebuilts. And I'm not even sure if all the parts would work together (this is just a rough estimate above). Anyone had any luck with (
www.ibuypower.com) or (
http://www.originpc.com) ? They let you customize a system and I was able to get the specs I mentioned at like ~$1100 with a few extra addons, so might as well get the prebuilt then and save myself the hassle.
TL;DR: Want a new gaming desktop for christmas, preferably prebuilt, need recommendations for full-system setups or reliable sites that list such setups, and places I can buy either a good prebuilt/barebone system or customize one myselfRenault on 6/12/2011 at 15:17
There's seems to be a disturbing trend lately of TTLGers treating and referring to their computers as people. Oh well.
Anyway, I have no advise, except to recommend that you PM Bikerdude - he helped me (and countless others here) with system setups. I bought a desktop pretty much verbatim the way he laid it out for me about 3 years ago, and it's still running strong, and running anything released these days extremely well.
Thirith on 6/12/2011 at 16:11
What sort of screen/resolution will you be using? I'm not terribly informed re: GPUs, but from what I've heard and read I imagine it depends on whether you're talking about very high resolutions with high AA settings, possibly even on multiple screens.
Yakoob on 6/12/2011 at 16:18
Hmm Im not picky, I've been running at 1280x800 right now for most games and that's good enough for me, don't really need 1080p. I am also used to no AA cause my laptop cant handle it, but wouldn't mind getting some of it in.
Thirith on 6/12/2011 at 16:42
Unless I'm mistaken, if you're really happy with resolutions that low you don't need to go higher with your GPU than 560. (Probably a previous-gen card would actually do the trick.) Especially if you're also thinking of using the machine for video/photo editing, I would seriously consider getting a larger, higher res screen as well. I don't know how much they cost in your part of the world, but you can get very decent screens at pretty low prices, and the additional pixel real estate does make a difference IMO.
Then again, I'm probably not telling you anything you haven't heard a dozen times before... ;)
Volitions Advocate on 6/12/2011 at 17:55
I would always suggest building your own over a pre-built 10 times out of 10. It's not really a hassle once you understand the steps, which aren't difficult, and you're not stuck with proprietary hardware from a specific vendor.
I had a compaq back int he day that used an Asus board, but it was a revision with a compaq bios chip on it and was impossible to deal with for drivers and the like. Same with the gateway I got afterwards, which was even worse because it wasn't a revision of a mobo from a regular vendor. It was 100% gateway. All of these vendors are difficult to deal with. I upgraded my gateway to sell to a friend when i bought a new computer, and when I called gateway to ask them for a layout of the case pins on the mobo for the power switch and everything. they told me that I should'nt be opening the case for any reason and basically told me to stuff it. When you get individual components, you get a manual and driver disc for each piece, and never run into these problems.
As for the proc. I'd go with a sandybridge processor. the 2nd gen i5/7 are a significant improvement over the first generation, not that an i7-960 is a slouch. but the 2500K is indeed a great processor. more than enough power to play BF3 and Skyrim. the older i* chips use socket 1156 which is being phased out, but if you get a computer that uses the sandybridge chip (1155) you'll have upgrade potential in the future. Whether or not you get a prebuilt, I would go with an 1155 chip. whether its an i5 or an i7 will have less impact on your gaming than your choice of video card. As far as ram goes. You probably wouldn't need more than 8 gb, since most games woudln't really use it. You might get more gaming performance getting a 2gb video card over a 1 gb video card, rather than getting an extra 8 gb of ram.
Still, I'd get 2 4gb dimms, whch gives you the option of upgrading to 16 gb of ram later without having to buy all new ram.
those are my thoughts.
lost_soul on 6/12/2011 at 18:18
I recommend building it yourself because you can hunt for and get the very best deals on parts. Just a week ago, I got 16 GB of DDR1600/CL9 memory for $60. I also got a cheap 32 GB SSD for about $40 a wile ago. It isn't high end, but when I boot my machine it takes off like a rocket. I just place all user data on a different partition on my physical HDD.
Ulukai on 6/12/2011 at 19:28
Random thoughts:
* Build it yourself, but don't talk about it in public.
* It's not a fucking
rig, it's a PC. For the same reason a car is a car, not a
ride.
* If you must call it a rig or put lights on it, don't mention it in casual conversation or come near me, ever
Some more helpful thoughts:
* Tom's (
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-cpu-overclocking,review-32328-5.html) CPU Hierarchy chart is well worth consulting
* Get a SSD to install your OS on, even if you install everything else on an HDD
Renault on 6/12/2011 at 20:04
Quote Posted by Ulukai
* If you must call it a rig or put lights on it
Ha, I've never understood the lights/neon thing. Lame.
That's a great guide, I spotted an equally helpful (
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/fastest-graphics-card-radeon-geforce,review-32316-7.html) video card guide too:
Both charts say not to bother upgrading to anything less than 3 levels above your current spec - a nice way to gauge where you're at.
