New Comp + Star Wars

[amins]

What kind of price am I looking at to get something that will run the game w/ full graphics? My current system is back from WoW and the processor isn't a Duel Core (Intl 4 @ 3.25Gh), but has a good graphics card w/ tons of ram....

Any suggestions?

[Diggles]

intel i5 CPU should be your base. i7 & i9 wont give you any better performance in gaming

I only buy Nvidia video cards because ATI drivers are crap. ATI is also owned by AMD which is a sinking ship. Video cards live & die by driver updates, so if you want to go with a bankrupt company be warned.

amount of ram you have matters little for gaming, its the clock speed speed (abbreviated these days, ie. DDR3 XXXX) and the CAS latency ..the lower the better.

you should also look into a solid state hard drive, much faster at loading maps/programs etc. less power usage and no noise

[Slamz]

I have an i7 @ 2.8 GHz, 4 GB RAM and a GeForce GTX 480 (1.5 GB).

So yeah, I'd say I largely agree with Diggles. If you want to look for areas to save money, save on the processor and RAM. I watch my stats and I never max out my processor. Get the best video card you can afford and make sure you have a good case with plenty of airflow because you can fry an egg on these video cards. I play SWTOR at full blast and I run very high resolution on two monitors (one for the game, one for email/vent/media player/etc). No problems.

I used to do dual SLI video cards but I think you're better off getting 1 top end card than 2 lower end cards.

I'm not overclocking anything, either.

As Diggles mentioned, you'll have some choice in RAM. I can't recall the stats but I got the high end stuff. Like the video card, lesser amounts of high end stuff is better than greater amounts of low end stuff. Really, 4 GB sounds ghetto these days but I've had no issues with it, at least for gaming. Somewhat tempted to go to 8 GB just so it chugs less when swapping between major applications but really, whatever magic Windows 7 does works pretty well because I play games on max graphics settings with gobs of background programs and I've had no stutter issues.


A solid state drive reserved for gaming might be a good thing to try. Just eyeballing Amazon I see a 64 GB solid state drive for $101, or a 128 GB drive for $175. That would be plenty for installing your favorite games and even some modest FRAPS sessions.

[Diggles]

most retail computers are pretty junky for gaming and the 'gaming' ones arent that hot and way overpriced, so i'm not sure where a non-techy gamer should go to assemble a good rig.

Desktops will massacre laptops any day of the week for gaming. You have room to expand & upgrade, better ventilation to dissipate heat to reduce wear on equipment. I've reused my same case for 8 years and power supply for 6. So every 4 years or so it costs me less than $400 to upgrade 'guts' (cpu, motherboard, ram)

Basically unless you are traveling on a regular basis or have some dying need for the mobility, stay away from laptops.

[amins]

Ok. So it looks like a new system altogether.

Dig: There's a shop down teh street from where i work that does a bunch of custom computer stuff... i was going to head over there first and see what they quote for the stuff you guys put down here.

Thanks a ton!

[strife]

Not sure your local shops, but the ones around me are freaking expensive, especially for quality.

I really like ibuypower.com, they will build the system for you for almost what it costs to buy the parts. I haven't tried them in 2-3 years(as the one I got from them then is still working fine), but when I spec'd out a computer using newegg/tigerdirect and then spec'd the same computer on ibuypower, the difference wasn't worth the cost of having to put the parts together. They also do a lot of specials and offer you the mail in rebates on the parts they use. I recommend them.

It does take a little time though, you can't expect to get it in a week. You can get a damn nice computer through them for about 1000

[Diggles]

Not sure your local shops, but the ones around me are freaking expensive, especially for quality.

Opposite is true for me, they're pretty reasonable. Maybe $100 at most, and you are getting computer you want.

[Alio]

I bought a system from ibuypower about 6 years ago. It was a good transaction.


Then I went to Cyberpower to get a system. I'm not 100% sure, but it seems to me they might be the same operation. If they aren't the same company, they have, coincidentally, the same setup on their website. Both have addresses in California and very obvious similarities.

Anyways, they'll tell you your rig will be shipped by 1-21, then email on 1-30 that your processor is back-ordered.

They have a forum on their site.... just go to the forum and see the hundreds of threads about awful customer service.

Actually the only thing they were good at is cancelling my order and crediting back my funds.


They do have a nice selection and it was one of the lower prices you're going to find.

[Zirak]

I too have noticed the similarity between the ibuypower and cyberpower websites. My experience with them has been better than yours it seems. I have bought two computers from cyberpower - one for each of my daughters. On one of them the CPU came loose in the socket during shipping but other than that I have been pleased with both machines.

[Vanraw]

Ulfen bought his last PC from cyberpower as well and I think he was happy with both the PC and the service. Back then when we were researching, (And there is a thread somewhere here on this) You could define and build a PC via Cyberpower for cheaper then you buy the exact same parts from Newegg, plus they included a 3 year warranty, and tech support if you need that sort of thing.

Without doing the same kind of research it looks like they have the same pricing and deals.

The also maintain same day shipping, but I think if you configured the machine with parts they dont have in stock you could see a delay.

On a side note, Its interesting how expensive HD's became after the Taiwan floods.

[amins]

So, been doing some research... things aren't cheap! lol

1) Intel® Core™ i7-3820 (Quad Core, 10MB Cache) Overclocked up to 4.1GHz
- this ok or are we kinda at a point where everything forward is going to be: Intel® Core™ i7-3930K (Six Core, 12MB Cache,Overclocked up to 4.1Ghz) "
- I really dont' know what the difference is outside of having anoher pairing of processors....

2) 8GB Quad Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz
- vs the 16GB? Do i really need 16?

3) 1.25GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 560 Ti
- Seems ok? I saw what you were talking about on the duel vid's...
- The other card I was looking at is: 1GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 555 - NVIDIA SLI® Enabled... Not sure what excatly the SLI Enabled does...

4) 1TB SATA 6Gb/s (7,200RPM) 32MB
- this is what i was looking at, but then saw the post about SSD's?... jump'n up to a 512GB SSD 6Gb/s MAIN + 1TB 7200RPM Storage, is EXPENSIVE (only $150 ish cheaper if you knock off the +1TB exta storage). So, question is, how long is soemthing like this going to last?

* I dont' mind spending the money if i'm going to get 5-7yrs out of it, like i did on my current computer. Price of computers have shot way up in the last 7 yrs... i think i spent maybe 1500 back then and came out w/ a really nice computer for gaming... but now, it seems like $2,500 is the going rate... UGH :?

[Slamz]

You don't need 16 GB for sure. I play games on full blast with 4 GB, so 8 should be plenty.

SLI = duel vid cards. Most are "SLI Enabled" -- doesn't mean you actually need 2, though.

If you do SSD, just get 1 small SSD and one regular drive. Regular one for the bulk of your content, SSD for your games (and maybe FRAPS). Not sure about putting Windows on the SSD -- probably not necessary. I think the point is to be able to load the game textures fast. It's pretty optional anyway. If you're loading 500 GB of music, pictures and movies on your SSD, yer doin it wrong.

[strife]

If you do SSD, my opinion would be no less than 120 GB and you SHOULD put your OS on it. For gaming I don't think it will matter much, but it greatly increases your boot speeds and all that jazz. I put my games, OS and a few select programs on my SSD.

For Ram, anything over 6 is pretty much overkill unless you're doing video editing or some other specific functions. Gaming is not one of them. That being said, I have 12 just cause it's cheap!

When it comes to video card, IMO you should get the best single video card you can for what you're willing to spend. I'm pretty sure being SLI or Crossfire enabled is pretty standard.

[amins]

so in terms of importance: Processor, vid card, hard drive, ram?

[Slamz]

Vid card, processor, hard drive, ram, imo

[Vanraw]

2500 seems high to me. Assuming your not buying a 36 inch led screen with it... 1500 will build you one hell of a system.

I think 8gig ram is fine and that 560ti will last you a long time. I think SLI today is just a dick waving contest. Games are build to run well on the single cards and that 560 will run everything out there.

From an important perspective Video card is going to give you biggest bang. But you also want to make sure you buy something that will support what is coming. For instance you want USB3.0, and if you can something that might support PCIe 3.0, for the next generation of video cards. You want SATA 6gb/sec capabilities from an IO perspective, as well as using a SSD. Right now that means a z68 chipset.

Are you going to build it?

Do you have a case now that you would use? is it ATX or micro at?

Also what is your existing power supply? Is it 700 wats or more?

Do you have a SATA DVD drive today?

What kind of hardrives do you have today? Do you have any that are SATA? or are they all IDA?