When I gave up gaming to focus on college I gifted my old desktop to a family member. Now, I'm in the market for a new one. Here's my question: Should I buy something like this and upgrade it over time... http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=557084&Sku=G180-13102 ...or buy parts off newegg and build myself a similar system to upgrade over time? I'm on a limited budget, and the only games I want to play at max settings are SW:TOR, GW2, and Diablo III. Is there any cost/benefits to choosing the latter?
The problem with buying that is it is about to be EOL. It wont support any new processors, RAM will start changing next year to a new standard, and graphics slots are move to PCI-E 3.0. If you buy anything now it must be either an Intel socket 1155 or an AMD socket AM3+ system. AM3+ has the most future potential of those, but not by much. Both sockets will be phased out next year already. Having 6GB of RAM in that is a terrible design choice. It is set up either one of two ways, either you can only use single channel memory at stock because you have an odd number of sticks, or the RAM slots are already full with low density sticks and mismatched channel densities. Both of which are bad for you. A 4250 cant game at all so if you buy that you must immediately get a new GPU. and a 6 core processor at that speed is worthless since stuff doesnt make use of 6 cores yet so your getting really slow single threaded speed and bad multi threaded speed as well since the cores are so slow. Its pretty much a terrible computer Looked over specs more closely, yep you can only use single channel memory config because you have 3 sticks of RAM. Terrible choice, especially with its already slow speed. hard drive is bad too as its a laptop speed drive, not good for multi-tasking or game loading times. Additionally the power supply is absolutely terrible and you must buy a new one if you upgrade the computer at all as it cant power a graphics card, it doesnt have enough watts. Sadly, you cannot possibly achieve your goal of playing those games on max with a budget that small. You need to either buy some really good stuff for a great price used, or up your budget to around $750
I had a feeling that a lot of those parts were end of cycle. Glad I posted it here. I think you're right and I'm going to just save up a bit more. I'll probably have it on hand in about a month or so.
ummm what enigma said ... damn i used to feel nice posting advice here and there ... here comes enigma taking alll the fun haha
Alright guys. I saved up a bit more and here's my plan. I'm going with a budget of $750. Here's the snag though. I would think with Cyber Monday coming up I'd have the best chance to get the best deals if I waited till then. But I have no way of knowing what's going to go on sale and if I shopped by myself I wouldn't know what to get. Would anyone be available on Cyber Monday to help me shop? I'll be at my work desk most of the day, so all I would need is a quick message of the best deals of the day. If no one can do that I just need a short list of products to keep an eye on.... Case doesn't matter. HDD doesn't need to be large. Needs Win7. I need the lowest amount of ram that is economical. I'll buy more around Christmas. I don't need a monitor, mouse, keyboard, or other peripherals. I really appreciate your help!
I will probably see the deals on Sunday or maybe even Saturday, so if I do I could post stuff. Im sure youll see a RAM deal on 8GB. That stuff is always a good price and goes on sale quite often.
Sound good. I hope I can buy everything that week and get it up and running asap. I needs me a new rig.
here is a quick setup i made for you on newegg just under $700 one of the newest amd 6 core processors a motherboard that has new architecture 6gb/s sata 750gb hard drive, can add more later if needed. the vid card is cheap enough and should tide you off for a while till you get the funds for a much better one. 8gb of ddr3 1600 ram. but this is only good if you have a copy of win 7 64bit you can install http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119233 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136794 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131757 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161317 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231428 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103962 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118067
This stuff would be much better and is only a few Dollars more: (also, you forgot about a power supply on your part list) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119243 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817256071 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157280 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103808 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231428 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150563 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136769 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118067 Subtotal: $715.92 In order for the processor you had picked (FX-6100) to be better than this processor, it would need to run at around 3.7GHz (while the 955 is still at stock speed). With the ability to overclock either processor, the X4 955 would do far better than the FX-6100 would. The 955 would be able to OC on the stock processor to around 3.8 - 4.0GHz, while the FX-6100 would be able to overclock to around 4.3GHz before heat is just too much. The power draw of the FX would also cost far more in the long run. The extra two cores wont help in very many things right now. And by the time it would help, it would be much better to simply upgrade to a new 6 or 8 core processor. The graphics card I have listed (6870) is actually about twice as powerful as the 5770 is. It is more than twice as powerful in pixel fill rate, 50% faster texel fill rate (helps anisotropic texture filtering), and is 75% faster in memory bandwidth. It also has an extra 1GB of vram which really helps in modern games. But it would be best to wait and see what goes on sale for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
@Zechs: In most cases, for gaming, the advantage of a much more powerful graphics card, versus a negotiably faster CPU, will bring out the most in your high-res gaming experience. Enigma picked some fine alternatives in contrast to Pincushion, but I'm more in favor of a higher output PSU than 600watts and just buying plenty of whatever you see on sale for RAM. If you wait for it, there's bound to be something equal or better than at least a 9-9-9-27 timing set of RAM sticks on sale. A RAM sale would cover the PSU upgrade. I prefer Asus motherboards more, and most generally do, and thought Pincushion's choice was alright on that if you happen to want to spend $30 more for it. Due to the effect of flooding in Thailand, it's better to buy a smaller hard drive now (or even a SSD), and just buy another hard drive after the prices return to baseline.
I do as well. The choice was fine, but you get the same features on the ASRock board for cheaper. Their "Extreme #" series line is known to be pretty good as well on the quality. Its just a way to save money but ASUS would be a fine choice as well. I would not get an ASRock board for myself simply because ASUS and Gigabyte have the best VRM setups, which you need good quality in if you like to push the CPU as far as you safely can. The safe range of speed is higher with better VRM's than the safe range on a board of lesser power regulation. But if you dont care about pushing the CPU really far, it doesnt matter as much. All just personal preference. Either board will do.
This is all fantastic info guys. Thanks for putting the time in for me. I'll still be waiting for BF/CM, but this gives me plenty to look at in the meantime.
Stil waiting for cyber monday to buy. Enigma sent me a link to a sexy Asus display that Ill probably pick up even though I didnt need one. This is going to be my first new rig since 2004! Hopefully it lasts just as long.
Looks like the RAM went on sale for a bit cheaper. Supposedly everything is on sale that will be at Newegg already. So the only thing would be to monitor the site throughout the day for the next few days and see if anything good pops up on a Shell Shocker deal. Those are good deals and they change throughout the day. 5 items a day from now till the 27th http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231428 IDK yet if they will throw additional things on sale for Cyber Monday though. Hopefully
this DVD drive is going down to $18 for today so thats what you should get: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...MC-112511-Index-_-CDDVDBurners-_-27118067-L0H And this isnt a really great hard drive, but neither is the WD Blue. And today this one will be $50 instead of the WD Blue price of $110: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...1-Index-_-InternalHardDrives-_-22145299-L012A promo code: EMCJJHE47
Alright, I grabbed the RAM, hard drive, and the disk drive. What are you final recommendations for the rest of the components?
Dont buy the processor yet, it has actually gone up a bit because Newegg's stock is low. You should try and get the X4 955 for between $105 and $115. Or since you saved some money on the hard drive, you could spend more on the CPU and get this 6-core processor for a little bit more: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103849 Or you could put the money you saved on the HDD into a better graphics card. Or just save it. If you want to go the upgraded graphics card route then you should get this card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102929 otherwise, get the one from the last page: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150563 The difference between the two cards is that the 6950 is around 15% better in performance when comparing the two cards on high/ultra settings in modern games. So its up to you if that difference is worth the extra price or not.