new computers

[Talvarien]

Ok, since its popular to post about wanting new systems, I'll throw my thread up.

I am going to be purchasing a new system in the next few months so that I'll be better equipped for the next generation of games coming out soon. I am NOT a PC master by any stretch, and so I will not be building my own system.

I am looking for suggestions on which way to go for a great gaming system from a company that will offer decent customer support and good value for the product. I am not interested in the cheapest UBER system I can find. I would rather have a lesser system that is backed by a good company.

What are the things you feel I should look for? Most everyone I've talked to here in Orlando has suggested one company over all others, but I am curious to see what our resident experts think as well. I won't mention what I've been told, because I'd rather get untainted responses.

Besides a good company, what are the "must haves" for a new system? What processor speed? What video card? What RAM total? What hard-drive size?

Any and all advice would be appreciated from our resident guru's.

Thanks in advance, oh uber ones :~)

talv
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PH@T L3WTS

[Shiloch Veneficus]

If money is not an issue, go with Alienware. That's the best way to be sure you'll get what you want along with a world-class company that will stand behind it. Link: http://www.alienware.com

If you're looking for a good system at a decent price, I still say go with Dell or Gateway. Dell's price is going to be tough to beat for making sure you have a company to stand behind it. Gateway will be right there with them, but while they do support what you have, they can be... unfriendly about it at times. My favorite reason to go with Dell is because you're going to great deal from a multibillion-dollar company that will ship the entire fucking thing to your doorstep for free. For me, it doesn't get any better than that. Links: http://www.dell.com http://www.gateway.com

One of the companies I deal with for business (as in, buying computers & parts for business use), is Systemax. Its actually a much larger company that makes you go through a retailer. I use Global Computer Systems to buy them. They offer really good deals and they stand behind them very well, but if you're buying a PC from them for gaming, you need to make sure you pick the right hardware -- they cut corners for business to bring down price, several that you don't want to make with a gaming system. I'll describe that below. Link: http://www.globalcomputer.com

There's got to be several different places you can buy from. Others will make good suggestions also.

Before I go on about specs you're going to want to try for, I want to say something about motherboard chipsets. Whoever you buy from, you're going to want to make sure you don't get something that has a cheap motherboard chipset. Global likes to ship computers with VIA chipsets. Its a cheap way out -- their systems work great for Office, database applications, maybe even some Photopshop stuff. Load something like AutoCAD, MovieMaker, Solidworks, EverQuest... Neverwinter Nights... you're asking for problems. Don't get a VIA chipset. In fact, try to stay away from anything that sounds generic. VIA, SiS, Winbond, Realtek, etc. Even if you eventually plan to use an AMD processor, try and get a motherboard that has an Intel chipset. That's the safest, surest bet to make. This is one of the reasons I like Abit motherboards, even though they're Taiwanese, they use (for the most part) Intel chipsets. Asus is another good manufacturer, if you can't get an actual Intel motherboard itself.

Everyone's going to say they've had problem such and such motherboard, even good ones. You have to take it all with a grain of salt, because motherboards take a beating. You can take the highest-price motherboard in the world, push a 5-lb. video card onto it and snap off some of the capacitors.

Here's the specs you'll want to shoot for (minimum you want to walk away with):

Processor: Pentium 4 2.8 GHz (533MHz FSB)
RAM: 512 MB (400MHz DDR)
Hard Drive: 40 GB (7200 RPM, ATA/100)
Video: nVidia GeForce FX 5200 128MB
Power Supply: 400-watt

If getting the cheapest thing is not your concern, shoot for this:

Processor Pentium 4 3.0+ GHz (800Mhz FSB)
RAM: 1+ GB (400MHz DDR)
Hard Drive: 80+ GB (7200 RPM, Serial ATA w/ 4MB cache minimum)
Video: nVidia GeForce FX 5950+ 256MB
Power Supply: 400-watt+

There are a lot of things I left out that you're going to need. Sound, network, etc. I don't care much about them because they're not going to mean nearly as much in your overall speed and performance. You can go relatively inexpensive on your sound with a Creative Soundblaster Audigy or high-end with 7.1 digital surround and front-panel audio jacks.

If you buy this from a manufacturer, you won't have to worry about it so much, but if you do decide to build this yourself (its fun!), make sure its properly cooled. That's ultimately what will ensure the life of all the components... keeping it cool and mostly free of dust. I recommend at least one case fan, a video processor fan, and obviously heatsink+fan on the motherboard processor. I've done watercooling... its quieter and more efficient, although... a leak has the potential of ruining everything. (I've actually had leaks that didn't do any damage.)

There is always the ATI/nVidia debate. I can't speak for everyone's nVidia problems, but ATI has been the culprit of too many of mine for them to make me a good choice. EQ's engine is specifically written for nVidia chipsets anyway, so that basically locked me on.
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Sage Shiloch Venzolmes - Arch Convoker - Walkers
QUALITY, not quantity.

[Elnrik Talshiar]

Ebil ebil man!!! ATI > Nvidia.


Seriously though... IMO, Shi's given some great advice. One thing I'd like to reiterate is hard drive speed. 7200 RPM drives with 8mb cache is practically standard now adays, but you'll generally not find them on lower end systems. The hard drive is the slowest part of the entire system. Considering the OS and all programs must be loaded into system memory from the hard drive, it makes sense to get one that will perform well.

Without going with a SCSI drive, the fastest drives on the market are the Western Digital Raptor drives. They spin at 10k rpm and come in 36 or 74 gig capactities. Well worth the money IMO.

The catch: They use a Serial ATA connector. Probably won't be a problem if you're ordering a system from Alienware, as they'll ensure the system board has SATA on it. If you go with someone else, make sure the motherboard has SATA on it if you plan on ordering / upgrading to these drives. You won't want to use an add on board to control the drives.

So... Click here.

Cost effective: 7200 RPM w/ 8mb cache.
Performance: WD Raptors.
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(AKA - Brent)

[Shiloch Veneficus]

Elrnik, I'm bringing my graveyard of ATI cards to your house and I'm going to make you inject each one of them one by one until you see each of their faults.

Good deal on the WD Raptors, I love Western Digital.

That's right-on about HD speed. Hell, with virtual memory, system services, indexing, and various other things that are performing reads/writes to your hard drive, the actual amount of bus bandwidth you get can, at times, be slower than network throughput (gotta love when your network is coliding because you're copying some monstrous file that your hard drive can't write fast enough).

It usually isn't a problem anymore unless you're just hard as hell on writing big files, but I do remember the days when this happened.... 3GB was about the max hard drive around on ATA/66, and 100Mbit networks could transfer faster than they could write... those were good times.

SCSI is more often than not too expensive for most people's tastes. In fact, its not uncommon to see folks in the business world using SATA instead of SCSI just because its more cost-effective. With Windows doing software buffering, and the actual drives having their own buffers, the speed limitations on the IDE bus almost seem nonexistent. SCSI is still capable of much more hardcore quicker transfers than SATA, but you really need to be running a massive database that's being mirrored to see the difference in performance.
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Sage Shiloch Venzolmes - Arch Convoker - Walkers
QUALITY, not quantity.

[Elnrik Talshiar]

I'd be happy to see your graveyard of cards! Come on over!! What did you do to them to make them blow up?

One more bit of advice about buying computers... wether you go with Nvidia or ATI, 256 MB of ram on the cards is a huge selling point. BUT... a middle of the line card can have all the memory in the world and still not perform as well as a card with a faster graphical processing unit.
IE: nVidia Geforce FX 5900 w/ 128 MB Ram is much better than a nVidia 5200 w/ 256 MB Ram.

The lowest end video card I'd go with in a system is the nVidia 5600 series, or the ATI 9600 series. Less than that, and you're going to have performance or compatability problems w/ EQ2, WoW, etc... type games using programable shaders and / or Direct X9.

And... ATI RADEON 9800XT > nVidia GeForce FX 5950 ULTRA. I have proof! It's all in the benchmarks my friend. Speed is everything. Besides, ATI warrantees their products, and they never need to know you overclocked it.
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(AKA - Brent)

[Talvarien]

Thanks for all the advice guys.

And overclocking is um, /boggle. I don't have any idea how.

talv
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PH@T L3WTS

[Shiloch Veneficus]

[ZigonZagoff]

I beg to differ on the sound board. I had the majority of my problems with the older system I have because of the sound driver not performing properly. The funny thing is I replaced it with a very cheap $20 board (no name brand) and there generic driver and EQ operated fine.

So you may or may not have issues with Sound.

I would make sure any system you get has 1gig of RAM. It is the cheaper thing to upgrade and makes a huge difference on the performance of the system.

[Talvarien]

Well, its a moot point for me, since the Dell systems seem to only come with ATI, and the Gateway seems to only come with Nvidia.

I've been told by virtually every IT person I know that DELL is the way to go, given my lack of overall knowledge on the PC side of computers. I can't/won't build my own system, and I don't want the SUPER UBER MEGA CHEAP that you can get in the back of computer magazines. I want reliability, and a good company backing my purchase. Oh yeah, and customer support that is willing and able to help a poor schlep like me in the face of frustrating difficulty.

/mourn Dell not using Nvidia.

talv

[Shiloch Veneficus]

Good choice. Computers suck, I know. There's nothing in this world that depreciates faster than computers.
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Sage Shiloch Venzolmes - Arch Convoker - Walkers
QUALITY, not quantity.

[FeneHo]

Dell doesn't use high-end Nvidia, but they still use them. I just ordered my mom a P4 3.0HT 800mhz fsb with a 5200. If she wanted a better video card I think they had a step up to 2 different ATI cards, with were like $199 -$299 more.

Another company to look out for if you want to splurge and soend the money is Voodoo. They are a competitor to Alienware in the high-end market, and also get better ratings in customer satisfaction. We are talking about $3k + systems, but they are top notch, and are a sight to see. Other then that I think everything mentioned above is $$ advice.

PS. I am running Raid 0 with duel Raptors and I love it =P (Thank you Atlantic City winnings~)
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Feneban Cookies 65 Monky
Banzi Cookies 43 Mage

[Jiminie]

Heya Talv,

Something I ran into at my old IT job (Quit on the cheap bastids last week heheh) with some Dell computers we had purchased and wanted to upgrade...


Dell sells full sized computers (like your probably used to seeing) and these newer narrow type tower/desktops which are roughly half as wide...

Do yourself a favor and avoid the narrow type, IF you ever wanna upgrade the system without having to buy special short cards for the narrow box.

While these may become the new standard some day; as they are all nice and small, many card makers haven't switched to selling the smaller stuff affordably if at all yet. ie video, sound, NIC, cigarette lighter etc etc...

Long story short,,
We wanted to add new video cards to a couple of machines and went through a rather amazing amount of crap to finally find out we couldn't get the cards we wanted fer that model Dell computer. This due only to the reduced size of the case. Sigh...

Not a big deal really, but perhaps worth thinking about for you when picking out yer Dell. A bigger box is currently still better IMO.

Dell is indeed a very good company tho =); they spent hours on the phone with me while I explained again and again that the part was too big to fit in there and I needed a "shorter/thinner/smaller/not as wide/etc etc" card. They finally realized their computer had the wrong info and let me keep the wrong parts and credited my ex-company for their cost...

Anyhow avoid the sleek small box says I,
Jiminie


PS - Nvidia Chipsets on crappy cheap cards haunt my darkest nightmare filled slumbers. You get what you pay for when it comes to video cards...

I have found it was not Nvidia chipsets per say that sucked; it was just their willingness to allow some very substandard cards to be made by another company with their chips on the board and their name on the box. ATI is indeed guilty of this as well.

Some of us experienced this with Nvidia chipsets first, some ATI... IMO The video cards they were on sucked. Not the chipset makers directly, if that makes any sense to yas. Think of a fancy brand name engine in a crappy car, or fake tits on a bull, or something. It's late... must sleep now...
J
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If I had a SIG it would be here.

[Elnrik Talshiar]

Excellent point Jimi.

I've had both ATI and nVidia cards, and they've always been the cards that each company made. 3rd party cards using thier chipsets are usually teh suck, but they are cheaper.

[Elyhim]

just finished setting up new pc! i did go with the 5900 , could someone please explain anistropic to me?

[Mildane]

xbox uses a nvidia chip
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