Avian Gamers Network

I'm thinking about buying a new desktop and I have 3 picked out with the amount that's in my budget. I would welcome y'alls opinons.

1.PROCESSORS Intel® Core™ i7-2600 processor(8MB Cache, 3.4GHz) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64Bit, English
MEMORY 8GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 4 DIMMs edit
HARD DRIVE 1TB - 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache edit
OPTICAL DRIVE Single Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability edit
VIDEO CARD AMD Radeon™ HD 6770 edit
SOUND CARD Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Titanium edit
USB 3.0 Standard USB 2.0 + 10/100/1000 Ethernet
It's an XPS 8300nwith wireless dell mouse and keyboard

2.PROCESSORS Intel® Core™i7-930 processor(8MB L2 Cache, 2.80GHz) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64Bit, English
MEMORY 8GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 4 DIMMs edit
HARD DRIVE 1TB - 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache edit
OPTICAL DRIVE Single Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability edit
VIDESOUND CARD Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Titanium edit
USB 3.0 Standard USB 2.0 + 10/100/1000 Ethernet
VIDEO CARD AMD Radeon™ HD 6450 1GB DDR3
iT'S AN xps 9100 WITH DELL WIRELES KB and mouse

3.PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ i5-2300 (6MB Cache) Overclocked Turbo Boost to 3.3GHz edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64Bit, English edit
CHASSIS COLOR Matte Stealth Black Chassis with 525W Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply edit
MEMORY 8GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz edit
VIDEO CARD Dual 1.5GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GTS 450 - SLI® Enabled edit
HARD DRIVE 1TB SATA 3Gb/s (7,200RPM) 32MB Cache edit
MEDIA READER Alienware® 19-in-1 Media Card Reader edit
MONITOR No Monitor edit
SOUND CARD Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio edit
OPTICAL DRIVE Single Drive: 24X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability
ALIENFX AlienFX Color, Mars Red edit
OS CUSTOMIZATION Alienhead 3D edit
KEYBOARD Alienware Multi-Media Keyboard edit
MOUSE Alienware Optical Mouse, MG100
Alienware Aurora-R3 Alienware Aurora Desktop
COOLING OPTION Alienware™ High-Performance Liquid Cooling
Adobe Reader Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader
AVATAR Alienhead 3D
AUTOMATIC UPDATES Automatic Updates: Enabled


Prices are 1.$1329.00 2. $1307.00 and 3. $1319.00

Those prices are really close… and good.

I think I like #1, the XPS 8300. I don’t know any particulars about the processors, but I find its 3.4GHz attractive. It also is paired with a strong graphics card. The ram is the same for all 3 options.

I would love to hear a better assessment of Dak’s 3 options from someone more knowledgeable.

I talked to my Brother and gave him the ones I had picked out and he said #1 also... lol I finally got in touch with him he works all the time. He's the number 2 network engineer at the Georgia Ports and they keep him hopping there... I think the Ports here is either the 2nd or 3rd largest shipping port on the east coast.

Have you given any thought to building your own system? I'm sure we could probably help you spec parts, and building is a great way to learn and get a great system, usually even cheaper (lots cheaper if you already have an OS license).

_________________
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!

As far as those builds go, I think I like #3 the best. The video card on #2 is a bit lower end, and the 6770 on #1 is basically a renamed/rebranded 5770 witth a firmware update, nothing more.

When I get on a pc, i'll see if I can put a build together with stuff from newegg at a similar price point and see what you think. I'll include the OS for price comparisons. It may not be until Tuesday before I can get that completed.

_________________
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!

I usually buy from Dell now since I have a preferred account and I get free financing.... Hard to come up with $1300 cash in a lump sum living off of disability. I could get the money from my brother nad pay him back but I prefer doin it on my own.

Then my recommendation would be to go with a Core i5 2400 or 2500 processor. They are the sweet spot right now for price and performance. You don't need an i7 at all, and won't be able to take as much advantage of it with the slower RAM anyway. The Core i5 2400 or 2500 are blazing, blazing fast, much faster than most people realize, and are still quad-core. They are effecient little processors, and it is what I would get if it were my money.

I think the 8GB of RAM at 1333 is good.

Make sure any hard drive you get is at least 7200 RPM. Sometimes they will give you a free "upgrade" to a bigger drive that spins slower, and it really handicaps your performance.

As far as video cards go, get the very best one you can. It is very difficult to do with Dell and HP pre-builts. The 6770 is probably your best bet there. The 6450 is too neutered a card. I'm not certain how well the SLI'd GT450 would perform, but I think they would be better than the 6450, so skip it. It should be the weakest card you've listed.

Hope that helps somewhat.

Here are some quick breakdowns if you are interested from Tom's Hardware:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/bes ... ,2951.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/bes ... ,2935.html

_________________
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!

For reference for anyone else who's thinking about building one for new games coming out, here's what I would do at this time:

CPU: i5 2500K - $224.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819115072
Alternate: i5 2400 - $189.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819115074

Motherboard: $169.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128493
Alternate: $119.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128501

RAM: 8GB 1333 Gskill - $99.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820231311

Video Card: ATI HD 6870 - $199.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814125357
Alternate: ATI HD 6850 - $169.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814125353

Hard Drive - Western Digital Caviar Black (any size) - 1 TB - $84.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136284
(best drives available, good warranty, good price point, excellent, top-notch reliability. I wouldn't recommend anything but a WD Caviar Black. Just pick how big you want.)

Cases (if needed): I love the Coolermaster HAF (High Air Flow) cases. They are unbelievably quiet, look awesome, and are solidly built. You can't go wrong with them. They are pricey, but well worth it in my opinion. Here are a few to choose from:
$179.99 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811119213
$154.48 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811119160
$99.98 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811119197

Power Supply - Depending on the components you've selected, you're going to need a lot of juice. I can only recommend Silverstone and PC Power and Cooling PSUs. You don't want to skimp on these components, as they directly affect the life and performance of everything else you've purchased. Get the 80+ rated ones, as they are more efficient (saves money), generally quieter, excellently built products.
950W - $149.99 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817703028
850W - $149.99 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817256058

OS - Windows 7 Ultimate (if needed) - $184.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6832116997


As far as everything else goes, I recommend Gigabyte products whenever possible as well. They do not use anything from China. All their transistors are 100% Japanese and they don't skimp on their copper. Your products will last a lot longer and you won't get the faulty or even knockoff Chinese crap.

Another company I recommend is EVGA. Their stuff is also excellent, although recently I've noticed a little bit of a fall-off from their quality control. Their tech support is flat out the very best in the business, they always have someone on staff who can help you on the phone, they staff 100% American English speaking personnel, and they are usually all enthusiasts who generally know the products inside and out. They are an nVidia only company, though, so while they make great motherboards that I would recommend, they don't do any ATI video cards, which generally have the best performance right now price wise.

Did I miss anything? Any questions?

_________________
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!

Cetera is dead on with the processors/hard drive comments.

With pre-built get the best card you can get, or make sure there is room for an upgrade. I don't know what the XPS towers are like, but with todays cards length and size - if the case is too small your airflow will suffer and you may not have room for an upgrade...

Audio card - most mobo's have a decent built in sound these days - but not sure what type of motherboard those are running. RAM - see if you can't get 2 x 4gb sticks - just in terms of future upgrades it will be better.

-----------

That said I am in the build your own bunker...

Here is what I have been running since Sept '09
Probably paid 1300-1500 at the end of the day:

Cooler Master 690 (Mid Tower)
Core i7 920 D0 Stepping
GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD4P LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard
CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W
OCZ Platinum 6GB
EVGA GTX 275
Western Digital Caviar Black
SAMSUNG DVD Burner Black
COOLER MASTER V8 Heatsink
ASUS VH226H Black 21.5" 2ms(GTG) HDMI Widescreen LCD Monitor
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit for System Builders +W7 Free Upgrade Coupon

++to Gigabyte and EVGA

_________________
Ryric Krael
Former Vice President AGN
Former Director, Section 6
Former Head of Department of the Treasury
-------
Ask not what your PA can do for you, but what you can do for your PA
"Gone Section Five"

I did forget an optical drive. Get the cheapest Dual Layer Samsung DVD burner available, and then get another one. Skip the Blu-ray at this point. The software to play blu-ray movies all suck, and are way, way too pricey. They also have things so crippled with DRM that you are better off just pirating the damn things and forgetting about it. They have made a decision to treat the customer like a pirate, and now the only way to get the content you pay for is to pirate it. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

_________________
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!

Well after seeing what Y'all said I went back to the dell site and played around with the build and came up with a new one where I basically just dropped down to a core i5 2400 and put the money from it into the best videocard and came up with...

PROCESSORS Intel® Core™ i5-2400 processor(6MB Cache, 3.1GHz)
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64Bit, English
MEMORY 8GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 4 DIMMs
HARD DRIVE 1TB - 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache
OPTICAL DRIVE Single Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability
VIDEO CARD Single AMD Radeon™ HD 6870
SOUND CARD Soundblaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio
USB 3.0 Standard USB 2.0 + 10/100/1000 Ethernet
An XPS 8300

I did the build your own like you had and came up with one for about $1100, but like I said it's hard to come up with that much at one time living off of $750 a month. lol it would be $780 a month but I have to pay the government back $30 a month for the next 142 YEARS.... I sure hope I live to pay it back.

Yes, that is a very good build. I think you'll be very happy with it. That 6870 is a very nice card. Here's a review of it if you are interested at all:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/rad ... 776-6.html

EDIT: Somehow posted the wrong link, fixed.

_________________
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!

Thanks guys, this is great info.

Please tell me more about why i5 is preferred over i7.

Would the i7 be more useful over the years, or not?

i5 processors are much more affordable than i7 processors even though they are both very similar. The primary difference between the two brands is the i7's have Hyper-threading enabled, effectively providing 8 "cores", whereas the i5's have hyper-threading but it is disabled, only providing the true 4 cores. Since even through most intense multi-processor applications either cannot address more than 4 threads at a time, or the benefit to cost ratio after the first 2 threads scales down exponentially, the i7's are not cost effective unless you have actual use for them. For a gaming rig it is an area too many people are sinking money into and don't realize they will not get any benefit out of.

A great example is the top of the line core i5 vs the entry level core i7.
i5: $216
i7: $294
------
i5: 3.3 GHz (boostable to 3.7 GHz)
i7: 3.4 GHz (boostable to 3.8 GHz)
------
i5: IGP 3000 (i5-2500K) - 50% increase in speed
i7: IGP 2000 - Standard
------
Other notes:
i5 and i7 are completely interchangeable currently. If you purchase an i5 PC, regardless of configuration, you can simply buy an i7 processor at a later date and swap them out. Regardless of Motherboard or Chipset.

_________________
"Loose with Dignity"
Robert
Second President, Avian Gamers

DDO - Cannith - AlistairItor - Rogue/Ranger (5/3) - Main
DDO - Cannith - Guijanitor - Paladin/Rogue (4/1)
DDO - Cannith - RicochetItor - Rogue (5)

Thanx guys for all the info I'll probably be ordering mine before the end of the week.. then off to update my system stats on TOR and say let me in the dang Beta.... lol not the reason why I'm upgrading though... who am I kidding if I knew it would get me in the beta I'd have done it long ago.

One last question, I'm getting ready o order the computer. I configured it with a soundblaster titanium sound card would it be better to go with onboard sound and put the $100 into upgrading the i5 from a 2400 to a 2500?

All I can say is I looooooooooooooooooooooooooooove my Alienware.... we call it "The Beast".

_________________
SW:TOR - Mantison Gunslinger, Ironmant Trooper, Manni Jedi Knight
WoW - Dalaran - Manni 85 Mage, Ironmant 83 Warrior, Mantison 80 Hunter
SWG - Chilastra Retired Mantison, Commando / TKA Master aka Trogdor !!!!

Do you have really nice audiophile grade speakers? Are you really, really picky about great sound? If the answer to those is "No," then you can use the onboard audio and never notice the difference. Sound generation takes so little memory and processor time compared to modern PC resources that onboard sound is really a very nice option these days. Most onboard audio these days will do a great job, and lots can even pump out 7.1 discrete audio signal, so an additional card isn't necessary.

If you are anal about audio and really want the very best, or if you plan on doing a lot of sound editing and need the different audio inputs, then an addon card is a good thing to get. I personally am still using an old SoundBlaster Audigy Gamer card that has to be at least 7 years old. I need the digital only out to the 3.5mm jack, though, as my speakers were specific to a similar card and won't generally work with onboard audio from today's motherboards.

If you have speakers purchased within the last couple of years, you shouldn't have that issue, especially if they are more budget-oriented speakers. If you are getting new speakers with your order, definitely only get the onboard audio.


To Sum Up (often needed on my posts): You should probably just get the onboard audio and up the processor. Or even get the onboard audio and save the money.

_________________
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!

Thanks Cetera I got my speakers last year actually I got the whole computer last year. I guess mom's solitaire is gonna get another boost, unless I just sell it to my sister and make a lil bit back off of it. now off to order the computer.

Save the money... On-board audio has come a long way in the last few years. From a builder prospective its fine - I have no idea what kind of parts dell puts into its machines these days, but I would assume it to be gtg, always add a card later if its not...

_________________
Ryric Krael
Former Vice President AGN
Former Director, Section 6
Former Head of Department of the Treasury
-------
Ask not what your PA can do for you, but what you can do for your PA
"Gone Section Five"

No prob, Daktar.

_________________
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!

The thing that has surprised me with this thread is that the specs quoted here are far higher than I would have defined even for a high spec machine. I have an old Athlon X2 that I built about 5 years ago. I had assumed that just a RAM upgrade on it (from a pitiful 1Gb to 4Gb (can't do more than that as it still runs win XP!)) would be sufficient for my requirements but now I'm not so sure.

_________________
X2-PB

Pathfinder Kingmaker Campaign:
Gednan Malithanar - Wizard (1)
Dukin Thunderstrike - Ranger (1)

Star Citizen: - https://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/
AntanKarmola on their forums

Star Wars: The Old Republic: - Not really playing
Antare Karmola - Jedi Guardian (32)
Antan Karmola - Jedi Shadow (21)
Arianae Karmola - Gunslinger (20)

5 years is a long time in computer years. It is close to double the average life span of most hardware cycles. Your rig may still be decent, but you'll definitely need at least a new video card as well as a lot more RAM. You are going to need to think about getting rid of XP as well. It was a great OS, but is really, really dated these days. I believe microsoft is ending support for it this summer, too, although that may have changed. They keep pushing back that date.

I wouldn't count on your computer to be able to play SWTOR, however. It'll play WoW just fine (at minimum graphics), but WoW has some pretty low system requirements for a modern MMO. It was also released 4 or 5 years ago, wasn't it?

XP doesn't do well with lots of RAM. It won't address more than 4 GB of memory of all types, including RAM, Video RAM, and anything else in the system (himem, extended memory, other memory cache on expansion cards, etc. If you have more combined memory than what it can address, it assigns RAM last and just doesn't even see it. Most x86 boxes with XP will never show more than just over 3GB of RAM.

At this point, I would not consider purchasing a system with less than 6 GB of RAM, and I don't even want to run XP with less than 2 GB. Apps just take too much resources. Even browsers need a ton of memory these days.

My system at work is pieced together until they can get me a real system in a couple of weeks. With a 2.8 GHz P4 w/ hyperthreading and 1 GB of RAM, the system is so damn slow as to be almost unusable, with only a few professional apps, a couple of browser windows open for ticketing software, and Outlook.

EDIT: 2.8 GHz P4.

_________________
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!

Here are the system requirements for Rift, which launched not too long ago:

Minimum System Specification

Operating system: Windows XP, Vista or 7
Processor: Dual Core 2.0 GHz or better
Memory: 2 GB
Hard disk space: 8.0 GB available
Video: Nvidia GeForce FX 5900, ATI/AMD Radeon X300, Intel GMA X4500 or better.
Sound: DirectX 8.1 compliant card
DirectX®: 9.0c, June 2010 update
Broadband internet connection (DSL, cable modem or other high speed connection)


Recommended System Specification

Operating system: Windows XP, Vista or 7
Processor: Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz or better
Memory: 4 GB
Hard disk space: 8.0 GB available
Desktop Video: Nvidia GTS 250 or better
Notebook Video: Nvidia GTX 200M series or better
Sound: DirectX 8.1 compliant card
DirectX®: 9.0c, June 2010 update
Broadband internet connection (DSL, cable modem or other high speed connection)


I would guess that SWTOR will have slightly higher requirements. Keep in mind, though, that the recommended specs for these games is usually recommended for reasonable gameplay, not all the graphics bells and whistles. Certainly not at the levels of resolution most flat screen monitors run natively these days.

5 years ago the top-of-the line video cards from nVidia were like the 8800 GTX or the 7900. If you weren't using a top-of-the-line card, you may have had something even lower, and then your card may not meet the very bare minimums for some games.

_________________
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!

Well according to my tracking number my computer shipped out of el paso last night and arrived in memphis this morning so it should be in Atlanta tonight and hopefully in my home tomorrow afternoon.

I'm a happy camper now... got the new computer all hooked up now to transfer my games over so I don't have to go through all the patching and installing. I just love external hard drives.

Good deal. You'll have to let me know how it handles newer games.

_________________
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!

lol hopefully I can get in the TOR beta and find out..Next friday would be a good day for me to get in the beta, it's my birthday. although any day would be a good day to get in.

So how's the new rig running, Daktar?

_________________
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!

It's running great still hoping to get in the Beta right now settling for playing DA2 for the 3rd time through this time as the warrior.