A powerful new PC - is it worth it?

[MasterOFDeath]

Bucket said:

Not in my experience. The speed boost can be anywhere from around 175% to absolutely nothing, depending on what game you're playing. I suppose that covers larger resolutions-- but really, I've discovered that dual GeForce 8600s don't even perform as well as a single 8800 in most cases.

Thats because you're running 8600's.

[Bucket]

OK, so what cards can I run in SLI that will perform better than a higher-end card?

[Bloodshedder]

Two high-end cards.

[AirRaid]

It's been fairly well documented that 2 8800GTs running in SLI easily outstripped a single 8800GTX or Ultra. And the price difference between those was a good couple of hundred dollars.

[kc32]

If you go to Newegg and know what you're doing, you can get a decent gaming machine for around $400, $750 if you include a copy of XP Pro and a good monitor, and mouse/kb/speakers/etc.

Although it will require buying AMD and ATI parts.

[Sharessa]

Two cards? Don't you need your monitor plugged into a video card for it to work properly? Granted, I know very little about them, having never owned one.

[Khorus]

Danarchy said:

Two cards? Don't you need your monitor plugged into a video card for it to work properly? Granted, I know very little about them, having never owned one.

Never owned a graphics card? So how do you play WoW again? :P

[exp(x)]

Danarchy said:

Two cards? Don't you need your monitor plugged into a video card for it to work properly? Granted, I know very little about them, having never owned one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Link_Interface

[Sharessa]

Khorus said:

Never owned a graphics card? So how do you play WoW again? :P

It's called integrated graphics. Hooray for all your stuff being built into the motherboard. :/

[LexiMax]

If you're trying to figure out the best combination of parts for a particular price point, I've found that Tech Report's System Guides are usually spot on. They can give you great parts with a budget of $500, $1,000, $1,500 and their high end $3,000+ 'double-stuff awesome-box without irrational exuberance' boxes are fun to drool at.

However, that guide is two months old and since then the Radeon HD 4850 has been making waves at the $200 graphics card price point, so you might want to swap out the current recommendation for that or maybe waiting for the next guide to come out (the one before the April edition came out in February, so it might be forthcoming) before making your decision.

pritch said:

And I don't mean cheap OEM rubbish that is being sold off by some insurance company employee - there seem to be a lot of people out there who are building good PCs in thermaltake psus/cases and with branded hardware for a reasonable price, perhaps for the love of building systems. They buy bulk, so that's where your saving goes.

Know any reputable ebay builders off the top of your head? My half-assed initial searches were all Dell resellers.

[kristus]

Danarchy said:

It's called integrated graphics. Hooray for all your stuff being built into the motherboard. :/

Integrated graphics... you know, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled, was convincing the world that he didn't exist. :o

[Ralphis]

Don't bother buying a new PC. Seriously.

And if you're gonna spring for a console, the 360 arguably has the better value of the two.

[LexiMax]

Ralphis said:

Don't bother buying a new PC. Seriously.

Don't listen to Ralphis, he's bad for you. Make sure your PC is up to date before you even consider springing for a 360.

[Ralphis]

He said he doesn't play any new games. Why would you waste your time buying a new PC for nearly five times the price of what you can get a 360 for especially when the games he likes to play (EA Sports, etc) all come out on the 360 anyway?

[VileSlay]

I already have a wii and no desire for a ps3 or 360. the only gaming platform I would want to get now is a DS. that said, and since my pc is about 10 years old, I would spend the money on building a new rig. personally I wouldn't go crazy on the gaming aspect since all I play on here is doom and some emulator games, but I would want a nice speedy rig with lots of storage and some choice apps for art.

[Sharessa]

Only reason I want a new PC is because the makers of the Civ and Total War games keep updating their graphics engines. :( Also, Fallout 3.

[alexz721]

If you're buying a new PC and don't want to build it yourself but still want a good deal, I recommend cyberpowerpc.com . It's got some of the best prices I've seen for pre-built computers. You can make a middle-to-upper range PC for $800 easy. I've been very unimpressed with most sites of this nature, but as I said, this is the best I've seen.

[Nuxius]

Oh fuck no, stay the hell away from cyberpowerpc (and their sister site, ibuypower). You'd be better off with Dell than with that shit.

I could go on and on about their poorly built, untested, and usually DOA systems, but these people have that pretty much covered.

[alexz721]

Damn, I had a good experience with them. Weird.

[SYS]

kristus said:

Integrated graphics... you know, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled, was convincing the world that he didn't exist. :o

The new mobo's that feature onboard Nvidia chipsets are much better than that junk. Still only good for a budget rig till you can get a nice video card to grace that empty PCI-E slot.

[pritch]

AlexMax said:

Know any reputable ebay builders off the top of your head? My half-assed initial searches were all Dell resellers.

Well ebay UK is going to be different from ebay US.

But reputable? Heh, well I dunno. Most have decent enough feedback, not amazing, but then ebay did something weird to feedback because they feel they must fuck around with everything every 3 months to justify having staff and now I don't entirely trust the percentages.

At least they are using quality components, unless they are knock-offs, but I doubt it.

Almost all of them are built with the Q6600 cpu which are a dime a dozen, and many seem to feature 2 8600GT's in SLI, so they are cheap to put together especially if bought in bulk, but hey systems like that are going to perform just fine for a good price.

But I feel I might as well put a good system together myself from a local store for a slightly better price and then be able to go back to a shop face-to-face if I have any hardware issues.

[pritch]

Coincidentally, here is a working spec and price list (price on right includes sales tax which I have to pay) I have put together from novatech, who are a national supplier with a retail outlet close to home, which I like for reasons as stated above.

Novatech NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB SLI PCI Express Graphics Card - Retail 1 £91.00 £106.93

Thermaltake Soprano Black Middle Tower Case With Window with 700 Watt PSU W0106-RB 1 £93.95 £110.39

Samsung Spin Point F1 SATAII NCQ 500GB 16Mb Cache Hard Drive <9.0ms 7200rpm - OEM 1 £39.95 £46.94

Corsair XMS6400 4GB DDR2 (2x2GB) 800Mhz Non-ECC 1 £51.00 £59.93

Intel Quad Core Q9300 4 x 2.50Ghz 6Mb Cache 1333 FSB Quad Core Processor 1 £148.00 £173.90

Asus P5N-E SLI 650I Motherboard DDR2 PCI-E Gigabit LAN 1 £53.06 £62.35

Samsung Lightscribe S203P - 20x DVD+/-/RW - 8x Dual Layer - SATA - With Nero - Black - OEM 1 £17.02 £20.00

TOTAL £493.98 £580.43

Feel free to comment/suggest alternative parts. AirRaid has already warned me about quite a high no. of issues reported with that board, so..

I'm particularly interested in monitor suggestions to go with this. I currently have a 19" CRT and can go up to 2048x1536 but God you wouldn't want to

[pilottobombadier]

If you're not too much into gaming, why drop money down on a gaming computer? I mean, really? I'd buy a computer with the specs to match your daily computer needs and buy a gaming console - casual gamer or not.

The one thing you can say about console games is that hardware standardisation makes your life much, much easier. No dicking around with videocards, audio cards and ram; you know that, glitches aside, it's going to work.

[spank]

On second thought, fuck all that, go buy a guitar.

[fodders]

Pritch I remember you buying it, from Aldi :) go get their latest one

[Kira]

[Sharessa]

spank said:

On second thought, fuck all that, go buy a guitar.

Fucking word. That's what I did with my tax return. Best purchase I ever made. :)

[pritch]

fodders said:

Pritch I remember you buying it, from Aldi :) go get their latest one

My god it's you old man! Not an option this time - it was a good deal and a good machine but the cases aren't the best.

K!r4 said:

img-gamer

I laughed.

[Use]

That looks like a pretty slick rig Pritch, much more bang for your buck compared to the consoles.

[Bucket]

pritch said:

Feel free to comment/suggest alternative parts. AirRaid has already warned me about quite a high no. of issues reported with that board, so..

I'm particularly interested in monitor suggestions to go with this. I currently have a 19" CRT and can go up to 2048x1536 but God you wouldn't want to

Rig looks good. Keep in mind you'd want to have a 64-bit OS or else that last gig of RAM will go to waste. Naturally, you have to double-check that your hardware (particularly your mobo) has 64-bit drivers. Those aren't as much of an issue as they used to be-- most name-brand devices will have them.

For a monitor, I will always recommend a WUXGA (1920x1200) 24" LCD. Samsung or Acer are good brands. Quality keeps going up while price goes down-- plus they're plain awesome. That's just my opinion, though.