The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
[HELP-ON] Gaming Rig for under $1000
Sogui
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Im heading back to college on the 16th and im hoping to order and ship a decent desktop machine down with me, the only catch is that I want the price to be under $1000, I can go over 1k, but only if it were critical.
I'm simply looking for a well-balanced machine that will run well with current and be able to keep up with next generation gaming. Right now im playing WoW and Battlefield mostly, but if I choose to grab Oblivion sometime soon, I don't want to feel left out.
I would really appreciate advice on this, I used to buy individual parts form my current machine and just upgrade things... but I don't feel comfortable assembling a machine.
I will also post some of the deals that I find around and see what you guys think of them.
This is a pretty big thing for me, so any and all advice is greatly appreciated!
Qualification, if there is a nice machine for a low price but, say is lacking a respectable video card... I would not mind buying a desktop and seperate video card.
Here's what I've been looking at so far:
DESKTOP PC: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16883103031
Monitor: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824116065
Video Card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130062
After the rebates, the 2nd PC + Monitor + Video card come to $998 before shipping!
I also saw this (FAR RIGHT $999 one): http://www.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/cto_xpsdt_410?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN:
Processor Intel Pentium D Processor 930(3.0GHz)
Processor Main Features 64 bit Dual Core Processor
AND
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E6400(2.13GHz)
Processor Main Features 64 bit Dual Core Processor
The latter processor claims to be superior, and some claim that any new Desktop without Core 2 Duo is pointless, what is the difference!
I'm simply looking for a well-balanced machine that will run well with current and be able to keep up with next generation gaming. Right now im playing WoW and Battlefield mostly, but if I choose to grab Oblivion sometime soon, I don't want to feel left out.
I would really appreciate advice on this, I used to buy individual parts form my current machine and just upgrade things... but I don't feel comfortable assembling a machine.
I will also post some of the deals that I find around and see what you guys think of them.
This is a pretty big thing for me, so any and all advice is greatly appreciated!
Qualification, if there is a nice machine for a low price but, say is lacking a respectable video card... I would not mind buying a desktop and seperate video card.
Here's what I've been looking at so far:
DESKTOP PC: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16883103031
Monitor: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824116065
Video Card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130062
After the rebates, the 2nd PC + Monitor + Video card come to $998 before shipping!
I also saw this (FAR RIGHT $999 one): http://www.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/cto_xpsdt_410?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN:
Processor Intel Pentium D Processor 930(3.0GHz)
Processor Main Features 64 bit Dual Core Processor
AND
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E6400(2.13GHz)
Processor Main Features 64 bit Dual Core Processor
The latter processor claims to be superior, and some claim that any new Desktop without Core 2 Duo is pointless, what is the difference!
Sogui on
0
Posts
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16883103044
It would push the pre-shipping price up $60, but people are claiming that the processor on the first PC I linked is nothing compared to this one.
($730 PC)
Processor Intel Pentium D Processor 930(3.0GHz)
Processor Main Features 64 bit Dual Core Processor
VERSUS ($790 PC)
Processor AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+(2.6GHz)
Processor Main Features 64 bit Dual Core Processor
edit:but i just looked at the dell, and it has a 7300le..the first one with the pentium D and a 7600gt would be a better choice than that due to the 7300le being a horrible, horrible card
edit2: i'm in canada so i dont know..but are there any good online stores in the US that will assemble your components for you for a small fee? i.e up here in canada ncix will assemble your components for you for around 60$ canadian, and this would get him more bang for his buck
As for the processor (the only problem left)... a Dual-Core Pentium D or sacrifice for the Core 2 Duo?
Don't ever buy anything from Tiger Direct. Ever.
Also, wait until late February or early March for cheap 8800 based Nvidia cards to come out so you get DX10 support and a chip based on unified shader architecture, which will be roughly twice as fast as anything you can get right now for the same price.
EDIT: The system looks decent, though a Core 2 Duo (Conroe) is WAY the hell better than a Presler based 930. Seriously, a world of difference especially if you account for the overclocking potential.
go for the core 2 duo; its the latest and greatest.
They're coming out in a month and a half.
I basically wanna upgrade, but I have the commodities like a HDD, case, RAM and basically everything a PC needs except the trifecta of important components for an upgrade.
$300 actually. A very few people are speculating $250, but $300 is the figure I've seen mostly. $200 and below will be reserved for the 8600s.
For what it's worth, a Core 2 Duo is a much better buy when you're going with a processor; it's the latest architecture and it's crazy zany fast compared to Intel's older stuff and even AMD's newest stuff.
Definetely get the Core 2 Duo. You get can one for the same price as a Pentium D with 30% better performance.
then again, with devs like John Carmack saying that Vista sucks for gaming...who knows?
steam | Dokkan: 868846562
Wait... dx10 games wont work under xp?
No, unless there's a DX9 version on the same disc/included with the package.
DX10 is dramatically different from DX9. Compatibility breaking different.
It's safe to assume devs will include a DX9 version for at least a year or so. The only game (to my knowledge) which will require Vista is the PC port of Halo 2, even though the Xbox uses DX8 and ran it fine.
I'd also warn that the drivers for them are fairly buggy now so be prepared for a bit of pain.
No, it's not that new games won't work in XP, it's that DX10 won't work on XP. Of course, there is the possibility some games will require DX10 and have no legacy support (see Halo 2 for Windows).
Until I see some actual numbers substantiating this, all I have is Microsoft's word and they're making claims of using 1/6 as much overhead compared to DX9 on XP, whereas ATi is saying more like overhead is reduced to 1/2. And even that is likely stretching it and isn't something you'll likely see in the real world. The most noteworth features I've seen are the addition of geometry shaders, increased maximum texture size, two new HDR formats, SM 4.0 and virtualized memory for the GPU, which all together will make a very considerable visual difference. I know DX10 has been talked up as making big performance improvements because of the new driver model and mostly taking care of the small batch issue, but I don't think it's going to live up to the claims Microsoft has made. Performance claims never live up to the hype. Real world performance impact won't be anywhere near the numbers distributed so far.
Not really. But if you don't want to listen to me because I'm just a dude on the internet, here's some one more credible:
Not to discredit John Carmack, but Doom 3 was completely made in shades of grey. He is wrong on a lot of key points. From a software perspective, he's right, or at least right enough to not be wrong on anything but technicalities.
From a hardware stand point hes completely wrong. Once the hardware is available to better handle the advantages (larger textures primarily) we will see far superior visual quality games.
DX10 is further optimizing selective draw procedures which in itself should be a huge boost (DX7 -> DX9 stylee) as well as offloading a lot of overhead. Those are the 2 primary sell points of DX10. The fact is even if they simply shifted to SM 4.0 with optimized geometry shaders there would be a performance gain.
For an end user the only benefits you will see are probably going to be marginally higher frame rates until the hardware end catches up to better allocate the extra processing power inherent with the DX10 platform.
If you pay $10 for a guy to paint your fence, and I pay a guy $10 to paint my fence but mine looks substantially better, are they still the same value? I mean, it is just a fence. That's basically that Carmack doesn't understand.
Back on topic:
1) If you buy a 7600GT, get the BFG. If it works properly you'll get a nice little boost. If it doesn't you can under clock it back to stock and it will work fine. I would personally just wait for DX10 cards, but if you need a new PC now for whatever reason, don't go with the eVGA (because I hate eVGA).
2) If you open the case you pretty much break the warranty. If you do build your own computer, barring obvious fuck ups on your part, everything will be insured for at least 30 days whether you plugged it in or not. It's really simple to construct them, and no matter how many times you underline it, I will not change my stance simply for warranty purposes.
3) Core 2 Duo > Pentium D by a large margin. I have one of each and I can tell you from first hand experience that Pentium D's are lacking.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16883103044
The AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+(2.6GHz) is right behind the Core2 Duo 6400+ on most benchmarks, and frankly I just can't find a decent PC with 2gb of RAM and a Core 2 Duo and keep it within my price range.
As for DX10, I will buy a DX10 generation card when it comes out, and after I order it I will walk down to my campus computer store, pick up Windows Vista for $25, and install it.
For now, I will most likely be engulfed by Burning Crusade and it will have me consumed for at least 2-3 months, where the system I've linked above + monitor will cost well under $1000 after monitor rebate... and will run WoW:BC far better than my current option of my crappy old laptop that will run it at 5 FPS.
The only thing that bugs be about DX10 and Vista is that it might be incompatable with some of my older games... is there any ground to my suspicion on this?
That's regarding the differences between Windows XP and Vista. I'm talking about the differences between DX9 and DX10, and the fact that there is no legacy API code in DX10.
But yeah, it's up to the developer now to make their games work on both DX9 and DX10. If they like money, I'm sure they'll continue to support DX9, but if someone decides to drop support (ie Halo 2), that DX10 game won't run on a DX9 card.