$1600 for a desktop

It's been 8 years since I've bought a new computer, and I think it's about time I get a new one and I'm willing to spend about $1600. My friend recommended that I get a PC from Digital Storm or War Machine. I also looked at Velocity Micro, VoodooPC, Falcon Northwest and Alienware. So far I'm leaning towards Digital Storm or War Machine as they seem like they have the best deals and customer ratings for them are pretty good. I've seen a few horror stories about Falcon Northwest and Alienware.

Oh and a monitor, keyboard, mouse, speaker system, and cd/dvd drive are not included in the price I stated. I figure I'll just take those from the system I currently have.

Well any recommendations would be very appreciated. Thanks!

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I just can't see how you can spend $1600 dollars on the computer alone, unless you have some over-the-top needs, like uber-fancy cases, or are just blowing the money for the hell of it. Then again, I'm probably speaking from a build-it-yourself perspective.

What kind of specs do you have in mind? And even better, what do you plan on using the computer to do? It's best to get these questions out so that we can help you get what you need.

Cheers!

How ya doing, buddy?

And honestly, what are you doing paying a company to build a desktop for you?

It's not really that hard to build it yourself, and you'll save some money, or build an even better system at a lower cost than what they will build.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I'm with Merv on this one, kid. If you built it yourself you'd shave a good $500-$600 off that price tag for the tower alone, even if you built yourself a monster gaming rig. I really recommend that you get to looking at places like Pricewatch to research your options in building a machine for yourself.

Just a year ago I built a friend of mine a rig for his living room and for a 3 ghz Pentium Core 2 Duo, 1.5 GB DDR RAM, two 500 GB Maxtor SATA hard drives, a 512 MB ATI Radeon X1650 video card, a Pioneer 8x DVD+RW drive, a multimedia card reader and installed it into a black base-model Antec gaming case. Altogether he paid $970 for the above specs and he bought himself a 22" widescreen monitor at Best Buy for like $130 on Black Friday (After Thanksgiving sale). I don't know if he's made any upgrades to it since, but I always thought that was a killer deal for a machine with THOSE specs.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Merv Burger

And honestly, what are you doing paying a company to build a desktop for you?

It's not really that hard to build it yourself, and you'll save some money, or build an even better system at a lower cost than what they will build.

I can vouch for this as well. I've built all kinds of systems--for friends, relatives, and otherwise--and every time they've come out being cheaper with arguably better parts then what the big manufacturers would provide for you.

Newegg.com is a very reliable place to buy parts and read reviews and there are all sorts of places you can find on Google that will explain, in-depth, how to actually assemble the parts.

And as a bonus, you'll learn more about the inner workings of computers. Imagine how that could effect your troubleshooting skills!

I was speaking idiomatically.

I'm definitely having some second thoughts now that everyone here says I should build it myself and save a few hundred bucks. I've googled "build pc" and there seems to be many tutorials. Is there any specific tutorial any of you have tried and recommend? And how much money have you guys saved by building it on your own?

And regarding the type of PC I want, I'm looking for a system that can handle high quality video files (ie. 1080p mkvs), next gen games such as Unreal Tournament 3 and Crysis, and CPU and memory that will hopefully function well for another 6 years. I don't have a need for video editing, picture editing, rendering, or the like.

Also, I was checking out Pricewatch and am a bit confused on the prices. How come the core 2 extreme qx6850 costs $910, while the core 2 extreme qx6700 costs $1100? Shouldn't the later models be priced higher? Same thing with the intel core 2 duo e6700 ($319) and intel core 2 duo e6850 ($280). Everything on the e6700 looks inferior, but it costs more?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Pricewatch isn't a store, it's sort of an amalgamation of prices submitted from online stores all over the States and you kind of have to look around and see where you can get the best deals. It takes some work, but it's scads better than dropping and extra $500 to have someone else do a subpar job for you.

FELIPE NO

My suggestion is to buy from one place like Newegg, because you won't get too confused on where you bought from. Buying from 5 different vendors saving like $10 on each item isn't really worth the confusion/hassle, but that's my opinion.

What I'd do (assuming you live in the US) is check some prices on Newegg, and ZipZoomFly. I purchase all my hardware (lots of stuff) from these two sites and never had one issue, even when defective components needed returned (memory once).

That being said, it sounds like you want a gaming PC that will last years to come. No problem. First off, you want to buy Intel Core2Duo, or if you have money to burn an Intel Quad. I don't see Quads as necessary, because even now, there is really nothing outside of professional video/image/audio editing that uses 4cores, and right now there is no sign of that changing anytime soon. You can check this article and see the real world graphs on Quad vs Dual core comparisons and see what I'm talking about. But if you are a power whore, so be it, buy an uber-expensive QX processor for $1000 (seriously don't, it's a waste). The best bang for your buck is the 2.66Ghz e6750 for $190. Though if youve got money to burn and want a bit more future proofing, you can get the Q6600 for $280. On both these processors, I recommend overclocking. Core2 and CoreQuad processors overclock soooo easily and safely it is ridiculous. I'm not saying huge OCs, but moving a 2.66GHz C2D to 3.0GHz is as simple as a changing a few numbers on the BIOS screen. And you could easily clock the 2.4GHz Quad to 2.8 without any hassle.

Moving on to a motherboard. There is alot of great choices out there. But it really depends on what you want video card wise. Mainly, do you want SLI (aka ability to have 2 video cards) on your board or not. This really begs the question would you rather hassle with 2 high-end video cards to get extreme graphics out of your games, or would you rather pay for one expensive card that will get great performance? To choose what type you want, it really depends what kind of screen you use and its native resolution. I will assume you have a screen around 1600x1200 or 1920x1200. This means that you will want at least a 8800GTX if you want to have highest options turned on and a bit of eye candy too. You can see here that in Crysis, one card alone may not give you maximum performance. So really, you need to know whether you want to buy an SLI setup now that you may stick with for years, or buy a card now with plans to upgrade to a different card later.

If you want to SLI right now, I'd recommend two 8800GTXs. It's alot of money ($1000), and will probably last you six years, though probably wont give you top performance in year 3-6. If you don't want to SLI, I recommend either a single 8800GTX ($500), or one of the new 8800GTs($240), with a plan to buy a new card in 1-3years. You can see in the above Crysis test that the 8800GTs are MUCH more bang for the dollar right now than the 8800GTXs as they perform just slightly under the GTX, but cost half the price. My personal recommendation is a 8800GT now, and a 9800GTX later and don't bother with SLI. The 8800GT is new this week, and you will see many more and near the $200-250 range in the next month as they roll out.

Getting back to motherboards, if you don't care for SLI, then get this. It comes with ability to run DDR3, but at the same time doesn't need it and is a killer OC board. It runs the latest Intel Chipset the P35 and does it all well at a cool $240. If you want SLI, then go for this eVGA board for $210. The chipset isnt quite as new, and doesn't support DDR3, but what the hey, it can have two video cards and will run stuff about as fast as the ASUS board above.

I assume you are gonna run Vista, which means I'd recommend a minimum of 4GB of memory, because Vista is an ugly hog. Buy this Corsair memory for $200 and walk away without worries.

As for Power Supplies, I recommend this bad boy. It's rated to handle Crossfire setups, and that draws more power than I want to even think is possible. Oh and it got a raving review too. All for a cool $169.

Other than that, add a few hard drives, like some 300-500GB drives and Raid them or not, and you've got a kick ass system. Now that I stayed up waaaaaay too late writing this, take it all in, and buy to your hearts content. If you buy the most expensive stuff I posted (IntelQuad, 8800GTX, AsusMoBo, Memory, PSU), then you total $1389 before hard drives. If you purchase the 8800GT, that will drop to $1139. And that is for simply AMAZING hardware, noob-friendly over-clocking, and lower than the cost for your custom built PCs.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Any disadvantage to SLIing the 8800GTs? Especially since it looks like it would cost less than a single GTX(!)

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Dhsu

Any disadvantage to SLIing the 8800GTs? Especially since it looks like it would cost less than a single GTX(!)

Too many tests arent out yet, but the memory is more of the issue. The 512MB can be still be a bottleneck even with two cards depending on your screen resolution. It is an option though. But I can't recommend it because I dont know the OP's screen resolution, and 8800GTs now might not be a good investment for 6 years.

But whatever, itd probably be really kick ass to have two of these babies!!

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Thanks a lot for your in-depth post TheReverend. I'm currently reading up on all the things you suggested and am very excited! About the hard drives, I'm thinking of going for 2 Seagate Barracuda 320GB or 2 Western Digital hard drives. Do you recommend using a RAID setup? I've read some stuff about it and the different levels you can set it to, but does it offer any worthwhile advantages over two separate hard drives?

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

RAID 1 offers better protection of data and better read/seek times. Writing speed is not faster at all, and it essentially halves the amount of storage space you have (ie two 320GB hard drives will only store 320GB in RAID1).

RAID 0 offers no protection of data but offers better writing speeds and subtly better read/seek speeds. There is no penalty in terms of storage space.

There are other forms of RAID such as 0+1 which tries to get the pros from both without the cons. I can't tell you much more than that. Many people swear by RAID and it truly is a more efficient means of data storage. However, it is in general more risky than just standard storage because there is extra setup and user error is more of an issue in a RAID setup. That being said, I would say it is unnecessary and that you should plan to build a RAID if you want any of the advantages listed above.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

On the subject of RAIDs, if you're buying a reasonably new Intel-chipset motherboard, you can use matrix RAID to split drives into different types of RAID. For example, I made the two 500GB drives in my system into a 340 GB RAID 1 partition for data and the OS and a 250GB RAID 0 partition for games, swap, temporary files and such.

The quad-core processors kicks all sorts of ass, but it's HARD to use up all four cores, so you might be just as well off with a fast Core 2 Duo. OTOH, the Intel Q6600 chip will overclock like mad (3.0 GHz and up is pretty much guaranteed) without fancy cooling, but then so will all of the Core 2 Duos.

Incidentally, that kind of overclocking ability makes the Extreme chips a waste of money, but that shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. :\

I was speaking idiomatically.

Hmm well I'm wondering how my system will run if I don't use RAID. Would I have to logout of an account and onto another one to use the second hard drive if I didn't have RAID set up? (ie. Say I want to download some video files, can I choose what hard drive it goes to) Also is your setup called RAID-0+1 and how hard was it for you to set it up?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

It's cool how a billion nerds on the internet will collectively shout "build your computer, it's so easy!!!" but none of them bother to link to any tutorials.

So let's see how easy it is.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Megalith Prime

It's cool how a billion nerds on the internet will collectively shout "build your computer, it's so easy!!!" but none of them bother to link to any tutorials.

So let's see how easy it is.

I like how you didnt bother to post any links either. I did post a link for information on overclocking, and motherboards, processors, video cards, and ram all come with instructions too.

Adol has a good RAID setup. I've never heard of anyone doing that, and I don't know how to do it, but it's truly a great way to RAID. Redundancy and speed. It's a good setup.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Build Your Own PC (Personal Computer)

The only real catch with that guide is that newer heatsinks all tend to have their own weird methods of installation. Of course, they all come with manuals or posters that describe how to install them too.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Ok, I guess it doesn't appear too difficult, but how do you figure out which parts fit in a particular case? Are all computer cases these days built to specific standards, so the majority of essential parts such as PSUs would fit without any problems?

Also, is this a joke:

Newegg.com - Intel Xeon X7350 Tigerton 2.93GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 771 130W Processor - Retail

Do you enter the Matrix when you boot it up.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

When you buy a case it says what form factor it will fit. I think ATX is what pretty much what every standard motherboard supports.

Other than that, it's up to your mobo having the right slots (and pretty much it's just stick stuff in where it fits when you put your computer together).

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by TheReverend

I assume you are gonna run Vista, which means I'd recommend a minimum of 4GB of memory, because Vista is an ugly hog.

Beware though, there's the address space limitation which means you might as well go for a maximum of 3GB.

Reader Question: Maximum Memory in 32-bit Windows Vista - Windows Vista help

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by SCHWARZE-2

Beware though, there's the address space limitation which means you might as well go for a maximum of 3GB.

Reader Question: Maximum Memory in 32-bit Windows Vista - Windows Vista help

Haha... This just goes to further my belief that Vista is not the OS of choice for PC users. Until I see something that Vista markedly improves, I'm not upgrading anytime soon.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Well, it's not like it's specific to Vista...all 32-bit OSes have this problem.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Dhsu

Well, it's not like it's specific to Vista...all 32-bit OSes have this problem.

It's not that, but more the fact that Vista is a memory hog. I mean, the fact that you need more than 2GB to get a well performing system is ridiculous. And the 32-bit memory address limit only compounds the problem. Bleh...

FELIPE NO

Well, a lot of newer motherboards can do memory remapping to get around that annoying address space limitation. My Asus P5K-E has it as an option, though I haven't tried it since I only have 2GB of memory in my system.

Also, for my misgivings about Vista, I haven't noticed it doing any drive thrashing on my system, even when I'm hitting RAM hard.

How ya doing, buddy?

Some bits of infos to the RAID thing:
Most of the cheap RAID controllers out there that you can afford are in-fact fake-RAID, meaning that they provide a RAID interface via their on-card BIOS but do no RAID acceleration at all. There are a few cards that accelerate XOR operations, but most of the time the CPU can do these calculations are LOT faster than the card, so it won't get you much performance improvement.
Real hardware RAID cards are expensive, I mean very expensive for the normal user.

So even if you buy one of these "normal" RAID controllers you get in fact a software RAID. Nearly everything is provided by the driver and your CPU.

This matrix thing Adol told about is again marketing tricking. The linux RAID architecture has this functionality since a long time. You can either create a RAID device from your complete harddisk device. Or you can partition your harddisk device and then create "virtual" RAID devices on each partition. So you see, there nothing new Intel provides here.

I don't recommend using fake-RAID on a windows setup. You're dependent on the RAID bios of the RAID controller, and also on the driver. I have heard from a lot of people that used such a setup and lost a lot of data, either because they updated BIOS or drivers or because they didn't (and a bug in the driver did the rest for them).

Jam it back in, in the dark.