Well here is the situation. My computer is extremly outdated, i was thinking of buying an alienware Comp. But i would be open to buy the parts and having some one to build it for me. This is wher ei need your help. I have about 1.5 grand to spend i dont have to spend it all but wut parts and components do i need to buy to make a nice gaming rig. I need my Warhammer Fix cant play till i get a new rig
motherboard cpu memory video card power supply sound card hard drive optical drive case if you don't like having wires all over the place
from what i hear right now building one yourself is going to be cheaper, and you would drop all that cash on a alienware if you were to order one also if you order one it will come with vista and i know how much we all love vista - hate my laptop for having it then agin alienwares look fucking awsome
Ive managed to build a somewhat decent gaming pc out of older parts. If you're running anything close to this then you should be fine... 3.2ghz pentium 4 ($20) foxconn mini atx intel (~60$) 1.5gb ddr just drop in a newer videocard. you can get a radeon x1650 in agp8x version and it should last you for a bit. I cant name any games off the top of my head that would take advantage of multi-core processors to a significant degree. Maybe crysis or anything newer than that, in which case you'll probably want to go for a dual core processor. I keep getting told that AMD is better for gaming, which is probably true. Either way you go, you want to keep your processor at as high of a clockrate as you can get it. Heres my general thoughts on building a cheap gaming rig: 1: buy wholesale or online. If theres a local computer parts store (and NOT best buy or circuit city or any major retailer), go there. They will have the best deals on most of the stuff you're gonna be getting. They might not have as good of a selection as newegg, but theres no shipping and there might be a discount if you use cash (theres this one place near me that does that). parts 2: cpu: single or dual core. Maximize clock rate first, then choose the number of cores you want. Stay away from quad core for now, its too expensive for what you're gonna run on it. I perfer intel, but that's me. if you can, buy this local. Theres an off chance you can get a "bad" cpu and you might be able to return it for another one. You can also get the store to build the pc for you if you''re unsure about doing it. 3: motherboard: something with at least ddr and an 8x agp slot. If you're going dual core, look for pci-e 2.0 slots on the motherboard. 4. Video card: This is by far the biggest controller on your raw framerate other than your cpu. Its also probably going to be the most expensive component of your box. This is why you need a motherboard with pci-e or agp8x 5. Memory: 2gb of whatever your motherboard supports. To understand why this is, you need to take a look at how applications use the memory... -3d applications need to load all their required data into memory in order to run. Typical systems have more than enough memory anyway. The thing is that windows likes to panic when it sees an application asking for large chunks of memory, and thus it moves stuff to the swap file. This is solely why increasing the size of your memory will also reduce lag. To be noted though, that once the application is finished loading its memory the amount of system memory no longer impacts the performance of the application. You will see faster load times and faster swapping in and out of applications with more memory on your system. Memory speed has an impact on the performance of an application, but not as much as the video card and processor do. if your motherboard supports DDR2, then get it, otherwise dont sweat. 4: hard drive- Bigger hard drives access data faster because there is less physical movement. You'll probably be restricted to IDE unless you get a converter for sata to ide. Just get as big as you can get comfortably. also, get two hard drives. the reason for this is that you install windows on one of them and your games on the other. Most games allow you to install to a location other than c:\program files. On my gaming pc my world of warcraft installation gets it's own hard drive. This also makes system restoration easier as only the OS hard drive would be wiped. a pair of 80gb hard drives would cost about $100 total. 5 optical drive: dvd-rom. doesnt have to be fancy. if it has a burner in it, great. you're not gonna use the burner on your gaming rig. 6 sound card: onboard is fine unless you have surround sound setup, in which case it probably is still fine. my foxconn board allows you to configure the audio ports anyway you see fit. 7: peripherals: whatever you're using right now is fine. 8 os: windows XP for at least the next 2 years, then vista. also, this should be a clean copy of the OS. since you're upgrading from a lesser computer, you can and should keep that computer for internet surfing and save the gaming pc for just gaming. In this usage you can omit installing a virus scan software on the gaming rig as well as all of the other junk that eats up memory. Ventrilo is probably ok, but you can even put that on the other computer. 9: optional accessories: -kvm switch. for those who are too poor to have 2 monitors, 2 computers off of one set of input devices. -dvi to hdmi cable/converter. for those who think thier HDTV would make a great monitor (and it kinda does). For those who bought the below monitor, this also turns around and makes it a HDTV on the cheap -24" flat screen LCD monitor. honestly, this turns a mediocre gaming rig into a great gaming rig. At said computer parts store you'll probably save 50% off of what you would pay at best buy.
If you would rather save some money, you can sometimes avoid paying sales tax if you order out of province/state. You can always get a friend to build it for you, read some guide online, read the instructions, pay someone locally to build it(still cheaper than buying and having them build). You can often find deals for low shipping cost so that shouldn't add too much to the cost.
Are you willing to build it yourself if so I can recommend parts to buy but if you want someone to build it for you I would find a good friend thats knows about PCs. If not you will pay a nice markup if you buy a prebuilt pc from alienware or other sites.
For $1500 you could build a sweet system on cyberpower. CPU: E8500 Motherboard: Depends if you are going SLI, CrossFire, or single slot Video Card: ATI 4870 Sound Card: Titanium SB Power Supply: ? Depends on your needs for video cards, etc Case: Antec 300 is very nice and reasonable. I recommend not going Micro ATX as it really limits you on space within the case.
/Sarcasm Yeah, Alienware is a joke. They are actually owned by Dell. You are paying much more for having the Alienware logo on the computer than you are for the parts composing the computer. Not to mention that Alienware uses only NVidia motherboards... You might want to consider waiting a bit. Intel's next microarchitecture change is coming soon. They will probably be outside of your budget, but it will mean everything else in Intel's lineup gets shifted down the price ladder. If not, a better idea of your needs might help. Is this just for gaming? How much of the $1500 are you planning on spending on new monitor/keyboard/mouse/speakers? What resolution is your monitor (low resolution = more CPU, less GPU; high resultion = less CPU, more GPU)? Here is what you are probably looking at: ** E8400 Core2Duo ** P45 Motherboard supporting DDR3 ** 3GB DDR3 ** ATI 4870 ** 550W Power Supply. This will give you enough headroom for future upgrades. If you are going to buy a cheap power supply, reconsider or *greatly* oversize the thing. It is the most important thing in the computer. A crappy power supply can at best lead to random crashes and at worst short out and destroy pretty much everything in your computer and catch fire. All of that will probably run you about $1000. That leaves about $500 for you to pick out a case, CD/DVD drives, a harddrive, and a OS license.
Make sure you spend the buck and get a decent motherboard!!! Think of the future - will you get 4GB of RAM? Make sure the board can support it and READ REVIEWS!!!! Some boards are advertised as supporting 4GB of RAM but have issues seeing all of it. If all your components are running 1066mhz, make sure your board can handle that! No sense buying great hardware to limit it with 800FSB.
I've always built my own machines, but recently decided to get a box from costco of all places, they resell ibuypower machines. Here are the specs: Processor & Memory: * AMD Phenom™ X4 Quad-Core Processor 9850 (2.5GHz) * 2MB L2 cache + 2MB L3 cache * 4GB (2GB x 2) DDR2-800 memory; four total memory slots, maximum capacity 8GB Motherboard: * MSI K9A2 Neo-F Motherboard Drives: * 500GB (7,200 RPM) SATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive * 20x max DVD±RW drive with Double Layer Support * 16x max DVD-ROM drive Graphics: * 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 9800 GTX video card Operating System and Software: * Microsoft Windows Vista™ Home Premium (64-bit) * Microsoft Office 2007 (60-day trial) Additional Information: * 800-watt power supply * Black Eagle Tech Sidewinder Gaming Tower * Blue interior case lighting * Dimensions: 16.5" H x 18.9" D x 9.1" W The prices was $1,000 shipped, so far the machine has been rock solid. A few weeks after I received the machine they up'd the price to $1200, but now it's not even up there.
Why don't you want to build the computer youself? For a first timer it should take roughly 6 hours and you'll save $150.
Just build your rig yourself. It's easy as pie and saves lot's of money. Also, you have complete control over what will be inside. I built my rig myself (see the "Post your rig" thread) for about €1200,-. Okay, I had some spareparts and it's without the screen but you get the point. I just never liked prefab pc's because there's always something you pay for but never use, or can't replace. And, but that's just my opinion, a personal computer for me is "personal". Don't want any pre-fab, conveyor belt pc but my own personalized high-tech love.
Saving $150 or getting a guarentee that the machine will work and can be brought back if not working correctly for the duration of the warranty. If you value peace of mind and don't have the time tio do it yourself it's not that big of a concern.
thanks guys for all the input i have decided to buy a comp easier for me atm it will be here on Tuesday. So i can finally play warhammer, the wait has be killing me