It looks like, provided you use the 'hd size 2' setting in your TV, you won't overscan and you should have 1:1 pixel mapping. At least a couple people in that thread seem happy with the unit as a computer display. But I'm having trouble finding straight up confirmation of the feature.
Then I have to be missing something. An i7 3.4, 1TB of hard drive, 8GB ram and the thing is barely 600$.
Motherboard, speed of ram/harddrive, Computer case, Power supply, DVD/blu-ray drive, speakers, Keyboard/mouse, Wireless router/reciver Mouse pad, HDMI connector, Software(including OS).
Unfortunately, all I have is this: HP Pavilion Elite HPE-570t W7HP-64 i7 2600 3.4GHz 1TB SATA 8GB DVDRW(LS) 1GB NIC 15-in-1 Rmkt PC
I know it has Windows 7 64bit and a 300W PSU. It does have an HDMI. I don't want wireless, speakers, a keyboard or a mouse. It lists DVD/RW drive, I don't want blu-ray.
So far I can't find anything wrong with this and I really should be able to. I don't know the video card but that will be replaced anyway. I know it's a Sandy Bridge 2600 tho and apparentluy there's a recall on that.
Magic Pink on
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jackalFuck Yes. That is an orderly anal warehouse.Registered Userregular
edited May 2011
What type of card are you planning to replace it with? Anything anywhere near the high end will need a beefier PSU.
jackal on
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Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
edited May 2011
O.P. I know you are not intending to build your own p.c.
However, might I suggest finding a forumer who does build systems near you, and paying them in beer/bideogaems/blowjobs to do it for you?
If you post in the stickied computer build thread stating what you are going to use the computer for and what your budget is, there are plenty of guys in there who can figure out the componentry you will need and help you find it on sale for a good price.
Once the parts have all arrived, you take them to previously found system builders house, along with whatever has been agreed upon for payment, and they will not only build it for you, but show you how to do it, things to watch out for, and mistakes to avoid making so you can build your own in future.
For instance, if you lived near Perth in Western Australia, I'd happily do it for a bottle of Jack Daniels. Why? Because it's fun.
This is what I got. Judge it, strictly, but be gentle. My buyer's remorse could turn into a suicide attempt at any second.
ProcessorProcessor: Intel Core i7-2600 processor (8MB Cache, 3.4GHz)
Operating SystemGenuine Windows 7 Home Premium
BaseXPS 8300
Hard Disk Drive1.5 TB SATA II Hard Drive (7200RPM)
Memory8 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz (4 DIMMs)
Media Bay16X DVD +/- RW Drive
Video1024MB ATI Radeon HD 5770 GDDR5
System ColorBlack Chasis with 460 Watt Power Supply
Network Interface CardDell 1501 Wireless-N
KeyboardKeyboard
MouseDell USB 6-Button Laser Mouse
Hardware UpgradeNo Modem
HDMI to VGA adaptor
125V Power Cord
Heatsink
Office SoftwareMicrosoft Office Starter
Software Upgrade64BIT Operating System
This is what I got. Judge it, strictly, but be gentle. My buyer's remorse could turn into a suicide attempt at any second.
ProcessorProcessor: Intel Core i7-2600 processor (8MB Cache, 3.4GHz)
Operating SystemGenuine Windows 7 Home Premium
BaseXPS 8300
Hard Disk Drive1.5 TB SATA II Hard Drive (7200RPM)
Memory8 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz (4 DIMMs)
Media Bay16X DVD +/- RW Drive Video1024MB ATI Radeon HD 5770 GDDR5 System ColorBlack Chasis with 460 Watt Power Supply
Network Interface CardDell 1501 Wireless-N
KeyboardKeyboard
MouseDell USB 6-Button Laser Mouse
Hardware UpgradeNo Modem
HDMI to VGA adaptor
125V Power Cord
Heatsink
Office SoftwareMicrosoft Office Starter
Software Upgrade64BIT Operating System
Those are sorely lacking. Other than that...looks good. Still going to be a billion times better than a 15 year old PC thats for sure. The i7 2600 is a killer too.
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
edited May 2011
That looks like a pretty swell PC. The videocard is lacking for current-generation, but its not more than a couple years since it was a great card (if i'm remembering right) and its going to be a huge improvement over anything older than 5-6 years. Videocards can also be fantastically easy to upgrade every couple years as long as
a) your machine has the other components to justify the videocard being the bottleneck of the system
b) you stick to the magic $150-250 price range where you get the most bang for your buck
In a year or two when you have some cash again you can buy something that right now would be top of the line and chuck it in that PC and give it another 5-6 years of life.
Problem is that power supply wont handle anything other than what he has, to be honest. 460 Watts is low, really low.
The 5770 is definitely the bottleneck of your current system though. But its not a terrible card, its just not the best, it was a mid-range card of late 2009-early 2010, so it isn't even that old. It sits at being just a little bit under the performance of the 4870 if that helps.
Yeah, the card and PSU will get upgraded eventually. All I'm looking at playing right now is Champions Online and WoW, then Diablo 3. So it should be pretty ok.
The only BIG problems I see is that 1) some reviews I read of the system say that there isn't a lot of physical room to upgrade the thing. So I may be pretty limited on the GPU I can get; I think some of them take more then one connection or something?
2) I THINK the i7 is the Sandy Bridge make. I think those had some big problems that actually led to a recall. But that doesn;t explain why I can still get it.
3) Every wattage program I plug the specs in say that 460 is more then enough; most just say I need 300. Is there a better wattage calculator to find out what I would need online somewhere?
Magic Pink on
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AlectharAlan ShoreWe're not territorial about that sort of thing, are we?Registered Userregular
Yeah, the card and PSU will get upgraded eventually. All I'm looking at playing right now is Champions Online and WoW, then Diablo 3. So it should be pretty ok.
The only BIG problems I see is that 1) some reviews I read of the system say that there isn't a lot of physical room to upgrade the thing. So I may be pretty limited on the GPU I can get; I think some of them take more then one connection or something?
2) I THINK the i7 is the Sandy Bridge make. I think those had some big problems that actually led to a recall. But that doesn;t explain why I can still get it.
3) Every wattage program I plug the specs in say that 460 is more then enough; most just say I need 300. Is there a better wattage calculator to find out what I would need online somewhere?
The i7-2600 is a Sandy Bridge CPU, and 460W is fine for that system. I'd look into upgrading it when you change things, but mostly just because I sometimes worry about the quality of OEM PSUs. I mean it could be Seasonic (yay!) or it could be Huntkey (a review demonstrated that the internals of one of their PSUs literally detonates when pulling close to its rated wattage).
Yeah, the card and PSU will get upgraded eventually. All I'm looking at playing right now is Champions Online and WoW, then Diablo 3. So it should be pretty ok.
The only BIG problems I see is that 1) some reviews I read of the system say that there isn't a lot of physical room to upgrade the thing. So I may be pretty limited on the GPU I can get; I think some of them take more then one connection or something?
2) I THINK the i7 is the Sandy Bridge make. I think those had some big problems that actually led to a recall. But that doesn;t explain why I can still get it.
3) Every wattage program I plug the specs in say that 460 is more then enough; most just say I need 300. Is there a better wattage calculator to find out what I would need online somewhere?
The i7-2600 is a Sandy Bridge CPU, and 460W is fine for that system. I'd look into upgrading it when you change things, but mostly just because I sometimes worry about the quality of OEM PSUs. I mean it could be Seasonic (yay!) or it could be Huntkey (a review demonstrated that the internals of one of their PSUs literally detonates when pulling close to its rated wattage).
Yikes. Yeah, I'll look into that toot sweet.
Thanks for all the help, folks. I really appreciate it.
Tht CPU is really kick ass, congrats. I hope the Dell case+psu won't be a source of trouble later when you upgrade the so-so GPU.
You mentioned somewhere that you're scared of setting your tv to the native resolution...
Well, AFAIK, all LCD screens look a billion times better whenever they're set to the native res. I only use native res always forever. Have no fear, it's called NATIVE for a good reason.
For what it's worth, I have a 5770 and it's handled everything I've thrown at it, and I have an E6400 Core 2 Duo. I imagine you won't have much trouble with it for at least a couple more years.
No worries, I'm upgrading the PSU when I upgrade the GPU.
The thing I'm worried about using the TV is that some how-to I read said that if the PC is set to the wrong resolution you'll blow out the TV. So yeah, omg terrorz. My TV's native resolution is 1920 x 1080.
For what it's worth, I have a 5770 and it's handled everything I've thrown at it, and I have an E6400 Core 2 Duo. I imagine you won't have much trouble with it for at least a couple more years.
Yeah, I also have one of these and I never have had any problems. It's ran every game I've had on high settings without breaking much of a sweat.
For what it's worth, I have a 5770 and it's handled everything I've thrown at it, and I have an E6400 Core 2 Duo. I imagine you won't have much trouble with it for at least a couple more years.
Yeah, I also have one of these and I never have had any problems. It's ran every game I've had on high settings without breaking much of a sweat.
Part of this is the fact that the current console generation is getting older than George Washington's grandparents. Once we get a new generation of consoles it's possible that vidya gamez will get tougher for PCs to run. As for right now, though, you guys are right: my E6700 and 8800 GTX run pretty much everything at whatever settings I want.
TychoCelchuuu on
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
edited May 2011
They have been out for a while, haven't they? Its been, what, 6 years since the current-gen consoles were released? I'm pretty sure I owned a 360 sometime in 2007.
Dhalphir on
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
edited May 2011
apparently my brain thinks its 2013 right now.
either that or I can't count!
Dhalphir on
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
edited May 2011
I run a 5770 at 1080p and it kicks ass. Been a very good card for the money. Its currently paired up with an OCed Q6600 and 4 gigs of ram. You should get very exceptable performance out of your system. Mine is still CPU limited.
I would assume it's some sort of Dell-brand motherboard? That might be a pain down the road, but hey, you take what you can get.
I wouldn't have shopped from Dell personally (as anyone will tell you, I'm tired of putting together PCs, so I buy pre-built or barebones setups). That being said, last time I bought a PC from Dell was a long while ago (I have a smartphone from them, and it works out pretty good). Hopefully it will work out well for you. Dell also tends to give you a ridiculous number of options for the price....
Likewise, it's been a long time since I used an ATi card (used to be a big ATi guy). Still, heard a lot of good about the Radeon 5770 a while back.
Synthesis on
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Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
They have been out for a while, haven't they? Its been, what, 6 years since the current-gen consoles were released? I'm pretty sure I owned a 360 sometime in 2007.
Apparently the graphics capabilities of the PS3 are quite similar to an Nvidia 6800GT...
So yeah, when the new consoles release, graphics requirements are going to skyrocket. 2x GTX460s in SLI will start to look a bit weak...
They have been out for a while, haven't they? Its been, what, 6 years since the current-gen consoles were released? I'm pretty sure I owned a 360 sometime in 2007.
Apparently the graphics capabilities of the PS3 are quite similar to an Nvidia 6800GT...
So yeah, when the new consoles release, graphics requirements are going to skyrocket. 2x GTX460s in SLI will start to look a bit weak...
The period big leap, I guess. I know I'll be taking the 2 GTX470s I have running in SLI for my next build (and the PSU too, I bet). We've had some pretty big jumps within the console generation too PC wise (Crysis being the obvious example).
To some extent, though, I don't think it'll be that big--since ports to PC will make more efficient use of the existing hardware. But this is all purely speculative on my part (I don't really follow it as closely as others).
Synthesis on
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Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
edited May 2011
I know on my upcoming build I'll be going with the beefiest single reference card I can afford. Then save up and get another for SLI 6-9 months later...
Yeah, a Radeon HD 5770 is really far from being the best video card on the market, but the reality of the software market is that you'll be able to run any game out just fine, and probably will for a good long time. Even my Radeon GTS 240 is doing just fine with everything I've thrown at it, and I thought I'd have to replace it with a non-OEM card right away. People spending tons of money on SLI setups and top of the line GPUs are crazy.
Darlan on
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AlectharAlan ShoreWe're not territorial about that sort of thing, are we?Registered Userregular
Yeah, a Radeon HD 5770 is really far from being the best video card on the market, but the reality of the software market is that you'll be able to run any game out just fine, and probably will for a good long time. Even my Radeon GTS 240 is doing just fine with everything I've thrown at it, and I thought I'd have to replace it with a non-OEM card right away. People spending tons of money on SLI setups and top of the line GPUs are crazy.
Not everyone plays games at resolutions/settings where a GTS 240 (which is an Nvidia Geforce card, by the way) is sufficient, especially given how inexpensive full HD monitors are these days.
I'm not saying SLI GTX 590s are necessary for everyone and their brother, but a SLI/Crossfire setup in the $320-$400 neighborhood gives you huge performance at pretty big resolutions.
Yeah, a Radeon HD 5770 is really far from being the best video card on the market, but the reality of the software market is that you'll be able to run any game out just fine, and probably will for a good long time. Even my Radeon GTS 240 is doing just fine with everything I've thrown at it, and I thought I'd have to replace it with a non-OEM card right away. People spending tons of money on SLI setups and top of the line GPUs are crazy.
Not everyone plays games at resolutions/settings where a GTS 240 (which is an Nvidia Geforce card, by the way) is sufficient, especially given how inexpensive full HD monitors are these days.
I'm not saying SLI GTX 590s are necessary for everyone and their brother, but a SLI/Crossfire setup in the $320-$400 neighborhood gives you huge performance at pretty big resolutions.
Frankly, this sounds like the opposite of lazy, if anything--lazy would just be ignoring it entirely, which is of course an option. A GeForce GTS 240 won't run Shogun 2 at 1080p in a large battle at what I'd consider an acceptable framerate while having the graphical flourishes and shaders turned up all the way (and I ran The Sims 2 on a mobile FX5200 Go at about 10 frames a second and considered it acceptable, so I'm pretty damn forgiving). There's simply no way around that.
I know on my upcoming build I'll be going with the beefiest single reference card I can afford. Then save up and get another for SLI 6-9 months later...
Not a bad idea. At the moment I got my 470GTXs, the single-reference options for Nvidia weren't as great as I'd liked, and those that there were were going to be a little too long to fix into my case, so SLI it was. Most games I own tend to scale to SLI pretty well (hell, even Shogun 2, which a lot of people claim suffers from SLI, gets a ~45% boost according to the in-game benchmakring), so it's not such a disaster.
That, and any motherboard I'll be buying will have at minimum 3 PCI-Express slots anyway. Grab another one down the road, my PSU should cover it. Not the most elegant solution I'll be the first to acknowledge.
I didn't go ATi not out of fanboyism (I used to be a major ATi advocate back in the days of the X800Pro), but because I'm lazy (THIS is an acceptable use of the term 'lazy'), and didn't want to redo all my driver settings, and I really like EVGA. Plus, the single-reference Radeon cards were also too long.
Yeah, a Radeon HD 5770 is really far from being the best video card on the market, but the reality of the software market is that you'll be able to run any game out just fine, and probably will for a good long time. Even my Radeon GTS 240 is doing just fine with everything I've thrown at it, and I thought I'd have to replace it with a non-OEM card right away. People spending tons of money on SLI setups and top of the line GPUs are crazy.
Not everyone plays games at resolutions/settings where a GTS 240 (which is an Nvidia Geforce card, by the way) is sufficient, especially given how inexpensive full HD monitors are these days.
I'm not saying SLI GTX 590s are necessary for everyone and their brother, but a SLI/Crossfire setup in the $320-$400 neighborhood gives you huge performance at pretty big resolutions.
Frankly, this sounds like the opposite of lazy, if anything--lazy would just be ignoring it entirely, which is of course an option. A GeForce GTS 240 won't run Shogun 2 at 1080p in a large battle at what I'd consider an acceptable framerate while having the graphical flourishes and shaders turned up all the way (and I ran The Sims 2 on a mobile FX5200 Go at about 10 frames a second and considered it acceptable, so I'm pretty damn forgiving). There's simply no way around that.
I know on my upcoming build I'll be going with the beefiest single reference card I can afford. Then save up and get another for SLI 6-9 months later...
Not a bad idea. At the moment I got my 470GTXs, the single-reference options for Nvidia weren't as great as I'd liked, and those that there were were going to be a little too long to fix into my case, so SLI it was. Most games I own tend to scale to SLI pretty well (hell, even Shogun 2, which a lot of people claim suffers from SLI, gets a ~45% boost according to the in-game benchmakring), so it's not such a disaster.
That, and any motherboard I'll be buying will have at minimum 3 PCI-Express slots anyway. Grab another one down the road, my PSU should cover it. Not the most elegant solution I'll be the first to acknowledge.
I didn't go ATi not out of fanboyism (I used to be a major ATi advocate back in the days of the X800Pro), but because I'm lazy (THIS is an acceptable use of the term 'lazy'), and didn't want to redo all my driver settings, and I really like EVGA. Plus, the single-reference Radeon cards were also too long.
Darlan said crazy, not lazy :P
Darmak on
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AlectharAlan ShoreWe're not territorial about that sort of thing, are we?Registered Userregular
I've had a friend go through them before and while it's more expensive than building your own, you get much better parts, a lot of customization options, and you'll spend less than something like Dell.
I've had a friend go through them before and while it's more expensive than building your own, you get much better parts, a lot of customization options, and you'll spend less than something like Dell.
I did and it was way way too expensive. The PC I did buy showed up today and it works just peachy. My broadband is a little slow but otherwise it's fine.
needs an SSD to really feel like a modern computer
Not really. I think SSD's are a waste of money at the moment. They are really expensive and the performance difference is a matter of faster loading times and boot times in windows, whoopdie do. Actual graphical performance in games and such are not improved. And they are all good as boot drives so windows performs a little better and boots faster. They aren't nearly big enough or cost effective enough per gig to be useful as anything else unless you want to spend upwards of $500 on your hard drive.
needs an SSD to really feel like a modern computer
Not really. I think SSD's are a waste of money at the moment. They are really expensive and the performance difference is a matter of faster loading times and boot times in windows, whoopdie do. Actual graphical performance in games and such are not improved. And they are all good as boot drives so windows performs a little better and boots faster. They aren't nearly big enough or cost effective enough per gig to be useful as anything else unless you want to spend upwards of $500 on your hard drive.
I'm actually in the same boat. Three years ago, people were saying the exact same thing about SSDs--that they were a day away from becoming the standard in storage. As it happens, the real estate cost for SSD can still be prohibitively high, thanks to expanding application sizes and hard drives getting cheaper on the whole.
At this rate, all I can really put on an SSD that doesn't cost me a few times the size of a conventional 1 TB HDD is my OS and maybe a game or two. And this is on a lower end SSD, more than likely. Having Windows 7 start up faster might be nice, but it already starts up really fast as it is (and I wouldn't have to start it up more than once a week if I didn't shut my PC down at night). If I only played one or two games, the notion would be more attractive, but I don't sadly, and moving games back and forth sounds like it would negate some of the benefits.
Games are only getting bigger. An affordable SSD needs to come out at 500 GB right now before I could really consider it more than an expensive novelty. Otherwise, cutting down the once-a-day loading time of an OS from about 20 to 30 seconds to 5 or 10 really doesn't warrant it.
Posts
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1157191&highlight=s1
That's the thread on the AVSforum for your specific TV.
the TV manual
It looks like, provided you use the 'hd size 2' setting in your TV, you won't overscan and you should have 1:1 pixel mapping. At least a couple people in that thread seem happy with the unit as a computer display. But I'm having trouble finding straight up confirmation of the feature.
Unfortunately, all I have is this: HP Pavilion Elite HPE-570t W7HP-64 i7 2600 3.4GHz 1TB SATA 8GB DVDRW(LS) 1GB NIC 15-in-1 Rmkt PC
I know it has Windows 7 64bit and a 300W PSU. It does have an HDMI. I don't want wireless, speakers, a keyboard or a mouse. It lists DVD/RW drive, I don't want blu-ray.
So far I can't find anything wrong with this and I really should be able to. I don't know the video card but that will be replaced anyway. I know it's a Sandy Bridge 2600 tho and apparentluy there's a recall on that.
However, might I suggest finding a forumer who does build systems near you, and paying them in beer/bideogaems/blowjobs to do it for you?
If you post in the stickied computer build thread stating what you are going to use the computer for and what your budget is, there are plenty of guys in there who can figure out the componentry you will need and help you find it on sale for a good price.
Once the parts have all arrived, you take them to previously found system builders house, along with whatever has been agreed upon for payment, and they will not only build it for you, but show you how to do it, things to watch out for, and mistakes to avoid making so you can build your own in future.
For instance, if you lived near Perth in Western Australia, I'd happily do it for a bottle of Jack Daniels. Why? Because it's fun.
ProcessorProcessor: Intel Core i7-2600 processor (8MB Cache, 3.4GHz)
Operating SystemGenuine Windows 7 Home Premium
BaseXPS 8300
Hard Disk Drive1.5 TB SATA II Hard Drive (7200RPM)
Memory8 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz (4 DIMMs)
Media Bay16X DVD +/- RW Drive
Video1024MB ATI Radeon HD 5770 GDDR5
System ColorBlack Chasis with 460 Watt Power Supply
Network Interface CardDell 1501 Wireless-N
KeyboardKeyboard
MouseDell USB 6-Button Laser Mouse
Hardware UpgradeNo Modem
HDMI to VGA adaptor
125V Power Cord
Heatsink
Office SoftwareMicrosoft Office Starter
Software Upgrade64BIT Operating System
I have a keyboard already actually. Like, 5 of them.
Also has no video card, which knocks off hundreds from the price.
Those are sorely lacking. Other than that...looks good. Still going to be a billion times better than a 15 year old PC thats for sure. The i7 2600 is a killer too.
a) your machine has the other components to justify the videocard being the bottleneck of the system
b) you stick to the magic $150-250 price range where you get the most bang for your buck
In a year or two when you have some cash again you can buy something that right now would be top of the line and chuck it in that PC and give it another 5-6 years of life.
The 5770 is definitely the bottleneck of your current system though. But its not a terrible card, its just not the best, it was a mid-range card of late 2009-early 2010, so it isn't even that old. It sits at being just a little bit under the performance of the 4870 if that helps.
The only BIG problems I see is that 1) some reviews I read of the system say that there isn't a lot of physical room to upgrade the thing. So I may be pretty limited on the GPU I can get; I think some of them take more then one connection or something?
2) I THINK the i7 is the Sandy Bridge make. I think those had some big problems that actually led to a recall. But that doesn;t explain why I can still get it.
3) Every wattage program I plug the specs in say that 460 is more then enough; most just say I need 300. Is there a better wattage calculator to find out what I would need online somewhere?
The i7-2600 is a Sandy Bridge CPU, and 460W is fine for that system. I'd look into upgrading it when you change things, but mostly just because I sometimes worry about the quality of OEM PSUs. I mean it could be Seasonic (yay!) or it could be Huntkey (a review demonstrated that the internals of one of their PSUs literally detonates when pulling close to its rated wattage).
Battle.net
Yikes. Yeah, I'll look into that toot sweet.
Thanks for all the help, folks. I really appreciate it.
You mentioned somewhere that you're scared of setting your tv to the native resolution...
Well, AFAIK, all LCD screens look a billion times better whenever they're set to the native res. I only use native res always forever. Have no fear, it's called NATIVE for a good reason.
The thing I'm worried about using the TV is that some how-to I read said that if the PC is set to the wrong resolution you'll blow out the TV. So yeah, omg terrorz. My TV's native resolution is 1920 x 1080.
Setting the PC to use the monitor or TV native res is the best thing you can do.
I mean, windows usually only shows you the working resolutions, and if you try to set something too high, the monitor just tells you nuh-huh.
The "how to" use a tve with a pc is:
plug dvi/hdmi cable on pc.
plug dvi/hdmi cable on TV.
Make fun stuff.
Yeah, I also have one of these and I never have had any problems. It's ran every game I've had on high settings without breaking much of a sweat.
Part of this is the fact that the current console generation is getting older than George Washington's grandparents. Once we get a new generation of consoles it's possible that vidya gamez will get tougher for PCs to run. As for right now, though, you guys are right: my E6700 and 8800 GTX run pretty much everything at whatever settings I want.
either that or I can't count!
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
I wouldn't have shopped from Dell personally (as anyone will tell you, I'm tired of putting together PCs, so I buy pre-built or barebones setups). That being said, last time I bought a PC from Dell was a long while ago (I have a smartphone from them, and it works out pretty good). Hopefully it will work out well for you. Dell also tends to give you a ridiculous number of options for the price....
Likewise, it's been a long time since I used an ATi card (used to be a big ATi guy). Still, heard a lot of good about the Radeon 5770 a while back.
Apparently the graphics capabilities of the PS3 are quite similar to an Nvidia 6800GT...
So yeah, when the new consoles release, graphics requirements are going to skyrocket. 2x GTX460s in SLI will start to look a bit weak...
The period big leap, I guess. I know I'll be taking the 2 GTX470s I have running in SLI for my next build (and the PSU too, I bet). We've had some pretty big jumps within the console generation too PC wise (Crysis being the obvious example).
To some extent, though, I don't think it'll be that big--since ports to PC will make more efficient use of the existing hardware. But this is all purely speculative on my part (I don't really follow it as closely as others).
Not everyone plays games at resolutions/settings where a GTS 240 (which is an Nvidia Geforce card, by the way) is sufficient, especially given how inexpensive full HD monitors are these days.
I'm not saying SLI GTX 590s are necessary for everyone and their brother, but a SLI/Crossfire setup in the $320-$400 neighborhood gives you huge performance at pretty big resolutions.
Battle.net
Frankly, this sounds like the opposite of lazy, if anything--lazy would just be ignoring it entirely, which is of course an option. A GeForce GTS 240 won't run Shogun 2 at 1080p in a large battle at what I'd consider an acceptable framerate while having the graphical flourishes and shaders turned up all the way (and I ran The Sims 2 on a mobile FX5200 Go at about 10 frames a second and considered it acceptable, so I'm pretty damn forgiving). There's simply no way around that.
Not a bad idea. At the moment I got my 470GTXs, the single-reference options for Nvidia weren't as great as I'd liked, and those that there were were going to be a little too long to fix into my case, so SLI it was. Most games I own tend to scale to SLI pretty well (hell, even Shogun 2, which a lot of people claim suffers from SLI, gets a ~45% boost according to the in-game benchmakring), so it's not such a disaster.
That, and any motherboard I'll be buying will have at minimum 3 PCI-Express slots anyway. Grab another one down the road, my PSU should cover it. Not the most elegant solution I'll be the first to acknowledge.
I didn't go ATi not out of fanboyism (I used to be a major ATi advocate back in the days of the X800Pro), but because I'm lazy (THIS is an acceptable use of the term 'lazy'), and didn't want to redo all my driver settings, and I really like EVGA. Plus, the single-reference Radeon cards were also too long.
Darlan said crazy, not lazy :P
Battle.net
I've had a friend go through them before and while it's more expensive than building your own, you get much better parts, a lot of customization options, and you'll spend less than something like Dell.
I did and it was way way too expensive. The PC I did buy showed up today and it works just peachy. My broadband is a little slow but otherwise it's fine.
Not really. I think SSD's are a waste of money at the moment. They are really expensive and the performance difference is a matter of faster loading times and boot times in windows, whoopdie do. Actual graphical performance in games and such are not improved. And they are all good as boot drives so windows performs a little better and boots faster. They aren't nearly big enough or cost effective enough per gig to be useful as anything else unless you want to spend upwards of $500 on your hard drive.
I'm actually in the same boat. Three years ago, people were saying the exact same thing about SSDs--that they were a day away from becoming the standard in storage. As it happens, the real estate cost for SSD can still be prohibitively high, thanks to expanding application sizes and hard drives getting cheaper on the whole.
At this rate, all I can really put on an SSD that doesn't cost me a few times the size of a conventional 1 TB HDD is my OS and maybe a game or two. And this is on a lower end SSD, more than likely. Having Windows 7 start up faster might be nice, but it already starts up really fast as it is (and I wouldn't have to start it up more than once a week if I didn't shut my PC down at night). If I only played one or two games, the notion would be more attractive, but I don't sadly, and moving games back and forth sounds like it would negate some of the benefits.
Games are only getting bigger. An affordable SSD needs to come out at 500 GB right now before I could really consider it more than an expensive novelty. Otherwise, cutting down the once-a-day loading time of an OS from about 20 to 30 seconds to 5 or 10 really doesn't warrant it.