Advice needed

Computer Forum New Build / Upgrade Advice
1

Hey,

I have a budget of around £2,000 and am looking for a good PC for gaming - i’m an avid player.

I decided that building my own is not an option although I could quite easily find a computer shop and have them make it to my specs… anyway, I found this;

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/topics/reftopic.aspx/gen/client/xps?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs

(Dimension XPS) Is this PC good enough? It would be customised to include increased memory, better video card, graphics etc… I would hope to be playing some huge games over the internet and need a PC that can support that. Would it be better on my budget to build my own?

2

[QUOTE=JayGlobin]
Hey,

I have a budget of around £2,000 and am looking for a good PC for gaming - i’m an avid player.

I decided that building my own is not an option although I could quite easily find a computer shop and have them make it to my specs… anyway, I found this;

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/topics/reftopic.aspx/gen/client/xps?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs

(Dimension XPS) Is this PC good enough? It would be customised to include increased memory, better video card, graphics etc… I would hope to be playing some huge games over the internet and need a PC that can support that. Would it be better on my budget to build my own?
[/QUOTE]

First off don’t go with Dell, i appreciate that you want to get an awesome gaming pc, however with that sort of cash you should go for a company that purely specialises in making the best gaming machines.

Also on a second note i appreciate that you want a really good computer for £2,000 but, don’t spend all of it if u don’t have to!

check out this link:
http://www.alienware.co.uk/product_detail_pages/Area-51/area-51_specs.aspx?SysCode=PC-EU-AREA51&SubCode=SKU-PERFORMANCE

this is what you get for £1,200:

Processor
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor
640 with HT Technology

Operating System
Microsoft Windows XP
Home Edition

Memory
1GB Dual Channel DDR2
at 667MHz

Hard Drive
160GB Seagate
Serial ATA 8MB Cache

Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce™
6600 GT 256MB

Sound Card
Creative Sound Blaster®
Audigy 2 ZS

just change it so you’ve got 2x 6800GT in SLI and get another 1GB so you have 2GB of memory. :smiley:

Alienware is amazing for gaming pc’s.

3

AW is overpriced.

4

[QUOTE=Ste]
AW is overpriced.
[/QUOTE]

If you’re not going to make a helpful post, please don’t. I don’t mean to be a jerk about it, but I am going to start coming down on this stuff across the board.

Anyway,
If I were going to buy a pre-built rig, the case design of the XPS would be a factor for me. The XPS case is really well designed and I wish we’d see commercial cases like it.

As far as building it yourself, if you can and have the time to do it, that would be adviseable. I know it’s back to school time, so from that point, it might make it easier to buy a pre-built system. On the flip side, you can pick the specific components you want, and you have the choice of AMD CPU’s that you don’t with Dell. I’ve heard the on-line horror stories, but the experiences I’ve seen have netted solid performance and reliability.

With your budget, you could really net a nice system either way, but you might end up with a little bit more left over. I’d also consider how often you upgrade. If you’re going to be upgrading in another year or so, I wouldn’t blow my cash on the absolute best thing you could buy. However, if you don’t want to upgrade for another 2-3 years, then, yeah, it’s not a silly idea to pump that system up as much as you can.

5

ya, ok AW is overpriced but considering other prebuilts and thier relation to gaming go AW but still why won’t you build your own its not hard, and you could make a killer gaming machine for that.

And I think it was a helpful post, I was pointing out that hed be wasting his money but w/e..

6

It would save you a ton of money building your own gaming pc but it does take some time to do it. If you really dont want to build it yourself and your willing to buy a gaming system maybe you should buy all the parts and have someone else build it for you or… you could pick out what you want in your pc and have a company build it for you thats going to cost some cash though, heres a place that does it ( http://www.sysbuilder.com ) i have no idea how good they are.

 I think if you can build your own pc or have a friend do it you should go with that. That would save you a load of money and then maybe you could make your pc even better or get a awesome case. If you go with building it I recommend  http://www.newegg.com  they have been awesome to me over the past 3 years ive had them. They have cheap shipping that is really fast. And if something goes wrong with something they sold you they will work it out with you in a heart beat. Well Good Luck.
7

I would also highly recommend building it on your own. I took me maybe 2hrs to build my first computer and that was before I joined the forums so my knowlegde was not as broad then, though I’m still just above the n00b level. You get major statasfaction, more choice in components, and extra features like lights and what not, it’s cheaper. And you can only blame yourself if you scew it up.
Newegg is definately the way to go. But check price grabber first to make sure you get the best deal.

8

Building it yourself is good if you’re confident and you know what you’re doing. But it takes more work to build a quiet and high performance PC rather than just throwing components together.

9

yea considering your budget you might make it through with an FX processor and 7800GTX card which is amazing

10

ya really, if youve found these forums, you can build your own computer if you need any help just ask here, itll be a hot topic, many replies fast.

11

Thanks very much everyone - even you Ste :stuck_out_tongue:

Obviously it seems better to build it myself but I really wouldn’t know where to start and I really need it quick - like by next week. My options are that I found some friend who knows what hes doing, someone here runs through the minute by minute of it or I find a site like newegg.com etc and have them or someone customise and build it for me.

What to do…

Actually, what would be helpful; would be for someone to list the best possible computer/components on the market at the moment… the largest memory capacity, video cards, sound cards etc etc and then i’d have some idea of what to do.

12

If you need it that quick I guess buying it is the most reasonable choice, at least you can pretty much assume nothing will be all screwy so long as you get it from a good online gaming computer site perhaps. They’re usually expensive but Falcon Northwest, Voodoo PC, even ABS has some quality stuff, though the first two are way expensive:(

Here are some things to really concider: (anyone chime right in if you know of anything better).
CPU
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800
Video Card
nVidia GeForce 7800GTX, possible 2 in SLI if your budget allows for it.
HardDrive
2 Western Digital Raptors in a Raid 1 configuration perhaps.
Optical Drive
Doesn’t matter too much, anything that burns DVD DL’s at 8x will be really nice, I’d go with something from Sony, NEC, or LiteOn but it doesn’t really matter.
Motherboard
ABIT AN8-SLI ATX It’s rock solid and perform very well. ASUS is another manufacturer to certainly concider.
PowerSupply
At least 500wt’s or power, look for a minimum of 22amps on the 12v rail but you can do a lot better. 35 isn’t that hard to come by but stay away from more generic brands like Rosewill for instance. Seasonic, Thermaltake, OCz make good psu’s in general though Thermaltake is a little shoddy on the amperage.
CPU Cooler
I always suggest Arctic Cooling so I’ll say the Arctic Freezer 64, Zalman makes some nice ones as well.
Ram
Possibly two gigs but if you can’t squeeze that in for some reason a gig will be just fine. OCz is my top pick as they make great overclocking ram. Their Gold Series is
incredable stuff. Patriot and Corsair are also good pics.
The case is up to you, just get what looks cooler and has nice features, maybe a digiatal temp display, great airflow (pretty much mandatory), fits your mobo or course, and has great cooling, 120mm fans are a good way to go but often times the ones they throw in are noisey so you can just buy quiet ones online. It’s possible to get 22decible 120mm fans off newegg that still give out plenty of airflow.

13

I pretty much agree with Exfoliate’s post, but I’ve got a few suggestions to add to them.

Hard Drive: if you do the Raptors in RAID, consider adding a slower, but larger capacity drive to the mix.

Power supply: I’d consider 600W units from Enermax and PC Power & Cooling if you’re considering running an SLI setup. PC Power & Cooling has it’s own site, but they’re considered to be the Rolls Royce of power supplies. I hear they’re a little on the loud side, but that’s their only drawback.

RAM: I don’t know if I can say get 2GB. While it might look good for bragging rights, you’re probably going to have gone into diminishing returns. I would go with 1GB to start off. If you find that you do need extra RAM, go for it. Corsair is a good choice, and I’ve found Patriot’s +XBL stuff to be excellent. Most OCZ RAM is supposed to be pretty solid. Unless you get the DFI nForce 4 Ultra or SLI motherboard, DO NOT get the VX stuff. That’s designed specifically for the high voltage that that motherboard can give to the RAM (up to 4V!). I’m not sure if Abit or Epox motherboards (Epox is not recommended) have enough RAM voltage or not.

Cooling: You might want to consider Thermalright’s coolers. The XP-90 or XP-120 (check their site for compatible motherboards with the 120) are some nice, high performance coolers. You will have to purchase a fan separately, but this gives you the option to grab something like a Vantec Stealth if you’re into quiet computing.