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Looking for a midrange gaming system that comes with Windows 8.1
jothki
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
For the past half a decade, I've been using a Dell XPS for gaming, and it has served me well. It was never particularly fancy, but it ran pretty much everything I threw at it with minimal issues. It's been getting on in age, though, and I've been planning on replacing it in a few weeks. And then the graphics card died yesterday. So that's that.
Normally I'd just get another XPS, but I want to run Windows 8.1 on it for now and Dell doesn't offer it any more, just Windows 10. I've verified that the system that I'm looking at (the XPS 8900) has working Windows 8.1 drivers available, so I could always just buy a copy of 8.1 and install it. On the other hand, I'm thinking that maybe I might be able to save the $100 by finding an equivalent system elsewhere that comes with 8.1 natively.
I'm not sure where I should be looking to compare things, though. Does anyone have any advice on where I should be looking, or if there's another system out there that's blatantly better than the Dell one?
Normally I'd just get another XPS, but I want to run Windows 8.1 on it for now and Dell doesn't offer it any more, just Windows 10. I've verified that the system that I'm looking at (the XPS 8900) has working Windows 8.1 drivers available, so I could always just buy a copy of 8.1 and install it. On the other hand, I'm thinking that maybe I might be able to save the $100 by finding an equivalent system elsewhere that comes with 8.1 natively.
I'm not sure where I should be looking to compare things, though. Does anyone have any advice on where I should be looking, or if there's another system out there that's blatantly better than the Dell one?
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Win XP and Win 7 stuck around for a while because they were immensely popular and their immediate successors were not, but that's not the case here.
Honestly tho, 10 isnt any worse, and in some ways, better. I don't think you are going to lose anything without it. However you could go with an OEM system that does not have a harddrive in it, then just take the one out of your old computer and put it in your new one. I think that still works?
What can I say, I like Windows 7's interface and would like to have the option to continue to use it after 2020. I'm not even confident that Windows 10 won't eventually permanently break Classic Shell, since the underlying interface components are being slowly rebuilt.
Transferring the hard drive won't work, since OS activations are generally locked to motherboards rather than hard drives. Even if it worked it'd just give me Windows 7, which won't last through the intended lifetime of the system.
Then why are you going after 8/8.1?
Windows 10 is Windows 7 but with Windows 8's OS improvements (booting + SSD stuff).
You don't need classic shell with 10, it is the classic windows experience. Everyone's issues with 10 are almost entirely "Ah forced update that I completely ignored for months instead of declining!"
My system performs well, better even, than it every did on 7.
Lenovo has some Win8/8 Pro systems in their outlet right now. Their inventory turns over fast though so you may have to act fast, or wait until one pops up.
Dell doesn't have any 8900's with Win8 right now (which makes me think they are just imaging them with Win10 automatically).
For HP I've only seen their Business outlet, and you can get systems with Win7, but not sure how you'll upgrade to 8/8.1 cause all my searches send me to "upgrade to Windows 10" links. Also they won't be gaming rigs. Maybe you can order up a midgrade graphics workstation that has a decent power supply, but it won't be optimized for gaming.
Edit: Also, you're going to be married to that system for awhile as Microsoft says it's ending support for Win 7/8.1 as of Kaby Lake and killing off Win 7/8.1 support for Skylake though critical security updates will be available for several years later. Though MS has caved before on dates like these. If I really wanted Windows 8.1 and for the system to have legs in gaming I might build it from scratch, not use Skylake (maybe use AMD's best right now), and get a mobo that supports SLI/Crossfire. It'd be tough for me to justify the expense of spending the same for previous generation hardware though.
Win 10 does have some of the oddities of 8; like mixing of metro apps with the classic programs, but overall they toned down the tile crap considerably.
I've used Windows 8.1 for years. I've used Windows 10 for a week and a half before deciding that I didn't like it and switching back to 7. Windows 8.1 is much closer to 7 than 10 is.
I have no idea what you're saying right now.
8.1 and 7 are completely unlike each other. 8.1 differs from 8 in that they added a "windows" button on the task bar when you're in desktop mode that brings you back to metro. It's still windows 8.
7 and 10 both have the classic start button and menu (just organized a bit differently than 7) and windows 10 gets rid of metro completely (merges metro into windowed apps on the desktop instead).
If you dislike the metro tiles or the way the start menu is organized, start10 or classic shell should return it to the windows 7/xp look.
But as far as "Windows 8.1 is much closer to 7 than 10 is" that's just a wrong statement.
I'm not trying to jump or make you feel bad here, but, it's hard to help someone that is looking for the wrong thing.
I'm sorry you feel that way.
Hello, yes. If you google "make windows 10 look like 7" you actually get an automated response from google because doing so is both so simple and so easy that it doesn't require more than a paragraph.
And if Windows 10 does ever become worth using over 8.1, I can just switch over for free anyway.
There is literally no quantitative reason to stick with 8.1 unless you have some sort of irrational love of those two numbers. If you choose to do that, good on you. It's just silly, will be more expensive, will perform worse, and won't get you your money's worth on a new system. It's a very odd thing to be clannish about.
I feel like you haven't actually physically used 10.
None of what you are saying is describing is Windows 8.
To me, it feels like no one else here has actually physically used 8.1. The desktop is almost exactly the same as 7, Microsoft just added some stuff on the side that I don't care about and never have to look at. The start menu needs to be replaced, but it also needs to be replaced in 10 as well. There are other issues I don't like about 8.1, but 10 fixes none of them and probably won't ever unless Microsoft undergoes significant changes in direction.
Windows 8 was bad, sure, especially directly out of the box. 8.1 is not 8.
There's no start menu (though you can fake it in with classic start).
10 has a start menu (you can have metro tiles on it, but is not required)
Metro is still tightly wound around 8.1 to the point that you can't really remove it. Sure, the metro apps show up on your task bar, and they have a title bar now, but otherwise you're still in a windows 8 ecosystem.
For all intents and purposes, Windows 10 is the classic windows experience, while 8.1 is not (just a modified 8).
Personally I'd like to see an option in Win10 to enable hot corners and make search work the way it did in Win8.1.
@Djeet
http://apps.codigobit.info/2015/10/winxcorners-hot-corners-for-windows-10.html
I just wanted to add that in a month, this is no longer going to be an option.
Yeah, but even if my system didn't come with Windows 10 built in I'd still have a month to pop the upgrade on and back off, so that was never an issue. Though it was why I was originally planning on getting a system in the next few weeks before entropy forced my hand.
Great, now if I criticize your poor taste in interface design I'll feel bad.
Clearly Ubuntu is the answer.