HAY GUYS

chibilola · Local time: Mar 4, 2007, 04:43 PM

Alright, I'm hoping to buy a desktop (to replace the one I have) and a laptop for me in the near future. I say near future because by the time I do go out and buy one it's already lame and plus I don't really have that much money yet

So I was looking at some gaming PC and my friend just bought his desktop at dell for around $1200 and they gave him vista. He's playing medieval 2 and looks like it runs pretty smooth. So I was considering it.

I know theres gonna be people up for MAC but I'm not going to buy a MAC desktop, but I'm considering a MAC laptop, but whichever.

I'm mostly going to use the new ones as a gaming/internet compy, and use the old one for work/archives. The laptop for my portable use.

I wanted to ask if theres a specfic computer that is ideal for gaming with a friendly price tag. We don't mind spending the extra bucks for a real good compy I just don't want to spend a forturne on something I need to spend more on it later.

As for games, if it can play Neverwinter 2, oblivion, the sims2 with hardly any lag or problems then it's cool. (my compy can't handle neverwinter2)

Jam it back in, in the dark.

xiaowei · 07:01 PM

I'm going to be honest. I've heard nothing but bad things about Vista for games. One of my friends complained of weird crashes. Not too major, but it gets annoying that it actually happens.

Dell XPS is overpriced. So are Alienwares.

Building one of your own is a good option. Ars Technica is about to publish a new DIY guide that will tell you what offers the bang for the lowest buck, and offers three tiers of how much you're willing to pay. It's not bad, especially if you salvage parts from your old computer, (ie monitor, DVD drives, mouse, keyboard, speakers.)

But if you don't want to take that option, buy a Dell/HP/Gateway whatever and upgrade the video card and RAM. Gives you a bit more control and still at lower bulk prices.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Render · 08:30 PM

God, don't even consider buying HP/Dell/etc/etc if you even THINK you might upgrade something in the future. You'll just get fucked sideways in the end.

Also, Mac + games = no way, Jose. Vista is pretty sucktastic, too. The only reason you will upgrade to Vista is for DirectX 10 games, none of which are even released. Stick with XP for now (read: until Service Pack 1 comes out) and you'll be fine.

As for hardware, I'm curious about the details of your friend's Dell. For my own curiosity (and maybe others'), I'd like to see if we could price out a system that has better specs for the same or lower price. Not to mention, you'd get parts that have a better build quality and warranty.

It's a well-known fact those companies use shit parts for their computers.

I ran over to NewEgg and priced out something there for ~around~ the same price as your friend's XPS.

Spoiler:

What I selected here is some really high-end stuff. All name brand and reliable, and I'd be willing to bet that it'll blow that Dell out of the water. Keep in mind that you could select other parts in each category that are cheaper, like a case if you don't like the one I chose. Or a smaller hard drive if you don't need that much storage. Also, you can overclock this sucker to the nuts if you're into that kind of thing. :P

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

Cam · Local time: Mar 5, 2007, 05:16 PM

I also suggest building your own, prebuilt computers are a load of bullshit.

Render's list looks fine exept the PSU.
I'd stick to Seasonic and antec, seasonic being the better one. Corsair's modular PSU looks comparable to seasonic, but it's new and so there aren't any long term reviews available for it. Also 480w won't leave much room for upgrading there.

As for hard drives, I've never used seagate either, but Maxtor tends to suck. Never had a problem with any of my WD drives after 3+ years of nonstop spinning.

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

chibilola · Local time: Mar 6, 2007, 01:31 AM

It'd be great to build computers if I'm dedicated that way. I'm no compy genius, and I'd doubt the people that would be using it would appreciate the effort. But thanks for the info. I'll try to hook something up.

I was speaking idiomatically.

killmoms · Local time: Mar 6, 2007, 06:57 AM

Building your own desktop for gaming is probably your best bet. There are good guides online that talk about how to put the basic pieces together, and it's really not that hard.

Plus, the money you save building your own desktop will be perfect for getting a MacBook. I think a PC desktop for gaming + a Mac laptop for portability is the best combination for people who like to game but want a portable option too. That way you have a machine dedicated to gaming that's cheaper than what you'd get pre-built from any manufacturer, and you have a great portable solution that's slim and is easy-to-use and reliable. Plus you get exposure to both major OSes, which is just good for having general knowledge. If you're a college student, you can save money with Apple's education discount. If you're not, you can get a refurbished machine to knock a good $200 off the price of a mid-line MacBook. Lots of people are quite satisfied with refurb Macs, and they come with warranties just as good as new Macs (and are eligible for AppleCare for 3 years of coverage just like new ones).

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

CelticWhisper · Local time: Mar 6, 2007, 09:39 AM

My setup is the inverse of Killmoms/Cless, with a G5 Quad and an AMD64-based notebook, but I second the sentiment.

Build yourself (or buy if you don't want to build, but you can get more for less if you build) a powerhouse desktop that'll be your main workhorse/"base of operations."

Then get a nice, inexpensive, slim laptop for the mobility factor and keep files on it synchronized with the desktop. I do this manually via FTP over Gig-e, but you might try something like iSync if you wanna give it a whirl. A MacBook would cost you a bit more than a generic Acer or Dell, but I daresay it would be well worth the extra coin in terms of reliability.

Any word on battery life on MacBooks from those who've used them oot-and-aboot?

FELIPE NO

killmoms · 12:24 PM

Well, my setup is all Mac nowadays. I have a Mac Pro Quad and a PowerBook G4. However, that's because 90% of my computing activity is done in OS X 'cause I don't game very much, and I need the power there for compositing/editing in HD. I just reboot into Windows occasionally when I want to play a Windows-only game.

But for someone whose primary interest is gaming, a Mac Pro is way too expensive for too little benefit. Having a home-brew PC lets them get the most bang for their buck on the desktop. For what you'd spend on a Mac Pro decently configured ($3000 retail to get a decent amount of RAM and the 512MB Radeon X1900XT), you can build a killer home-brew gaming PC and still have $1100 left over for a MacBook.

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

Digital_Divider · 02:35 AM

If you're absolutely certain that you're not up for homebrewing a PC then.. places I would not recommend include ibuypower.com, alienware, or anything with XPS in the name from dell.

No matter what place you go to to build your pc make sure you have enough hard disk space. my current system has about 240 GB (1 spare 40GB drive I had plus a 250GB drive.. with about 50gig of that for a linux partition to muck around on

) and about 50GB has already came and went (on my windows side, not including the linux partition).

As far as what processor to use, AMD or Intel? well it's a matter of preference at this point. Intels have the better performance edge, but are a little pricier than AMD processors. However, AMD is usually seen as the cheaper of the two. No matter what you choose you're garunteed dual cores and if you're gaming, that matters. Avoid AMD sempron and Intel Celeron processors at ALL costs.

RAM is another important thing to have. Generally speaking, more == better. Balance the cost of ram with good video card for your system but the bare minimum for a quality gaming rig these days is at least 1GB of ram, with many saying that 2GB of ram is the way to go now.

The video card is the heart of the matter for your video gaming rig. If you can afford SLI or using two of the same video cards for that added performance boost, go for it, if not video cards to avoid are anything and I mean ANYTHING integrated, anything that uses "hypermemory" or anything of that sort. You want a video card with dedicated graphics memory. It should say "GDDR3" for the type of memory. I would recommend a video card with no less than 128MB of GDDR3, with 256MB guaranteeing a smooth running game. I would recommend nvidia video cards, especially if you're Linux-Curious. NVIDIA has official linux drivers... I'd still recommend NVIDIA even if you're not linux curious because as of late, their video cards just seem so much better.

If you're looking to get the most out of your game and can afford it, buy a sound card, but only if they offer creative sound cards. Most games these days, such as Battlefield 2142 and Neverwinter Nights 2 have sound options specific to the High Performance Sound Blaster sound cards by creative that can honestly enrich your gaming experience and make it that much more fun. Try to avoid integrated sound, because it's a small performance hit while you're gaming. It's small, but it is there.

As far as an operating system goes, in an effort to push the next big microsoft OS, vista is going to be forced on you regardless of where you go. However if you know a friend who wouldn't mind installing windows XP on your system and hunting down drivers and such, do yourself a favor and stick with windows XP. As stated, the only reason to upgrade to vista at the moment is directX 10. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Vista is a memory hog and cross indexes the living shit out of everything, even if you tell it not to. You want to be able to find anything on your computer fast? use google desktop.

If you have to stick with vista, or even with windows XP check windows update often. Check the manufacturer website often as well for new and updated drivers. it's very important to keep your video card drivers at the very least up to date. They usually resolve strange issues you have or better yet can squeeze out a little more performance if you're on the lucky side.

as far as laptops go, you said you're interested in apple laptops and apple is just not my gig. I'll go so far to say as I hate apple with all my passion, but that's as far as I go. I'm not here to start a flame war or get kicked off the boards. There's 4chan if I wanted to do that. Listen to Killmoms if you really want your macbook. Just be prepared to pay a heft wad of cash if you want a mac laptop that can perform.

Things to look for in a laptop:

hard disk space: around 120GB is reasonable
RAM: you want 1GB, this should do nicely on a laptop.
Processor: Core 2 Duos are the only way to go when you're purchasing a laptop, I'm sorry but AMD just doesn't hold a candle in the laptop arena.
Video: If you want a good video card on your laptop (read: NOT integrated) then be prepared to pay for it if you're looking to play the latest and greatest on the go. I'll recommend NVIDIA here too for the same reasons as the with the desktop. If you're looking for a high quality video card in your laptop, then avoid anything with "hypermemory" again, you want GDDR3 memory.
Sound: there are some Creative PCMCIA sound cards that you can use in a laptop. I wouldn't recommend them though. Stick with integrated sound on your laptop and you'll be fine.
OS: you're getting a mac. so you're getting OSX. However you can set up a dual boot situation between OSX and Windows via bootcamp or you can get parallels and run windows in what's known as a virtual machine while you're in OSX. Really depends on what you want to do. If you want to do anything 3d-related in windows, then you'll need to dual-boot. Parallels is developing 3d support and so is VMware fusion, but it's not here yet, or at least not that great yet.

did I miss anything else?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

chibilola · Local time: Mar 14, 2007, 02:21 PM

Dang, thats a hefty loads of info. That's awesome, thanks so much. It'll help.

I did mention I might consider a mac laptop, but I didn't completely dismiss other options, the laptop is mainly to go online while I have other things going on (games) the desktop. So I was looking for a pretty basic set-up for a laptop. The info Digital_divder gave me should give me non-mac laptops to look. I was kinda thinking the pc desktop/ mac laptop combo killmoms suggested, which what my friend have. But it'll probably come down on pricing, availbility, maintence, and what I can lodge into without trying to kill it.

The problem is with the desktop, I'm probably looking at sharing with 2 or more people, and I'm the most experienced one with computers, saddly. So I'm not too hopped up to buy a precious dear compy that I'll take care of it and love it all up just so my roommates can slap it a few times yelling "why isn't it working?"

I'll probably come back later asking opinions on specific items when I find the time to locate it. Again, thanks guys.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

CelticWhisper · Local time: Mar 14, 2007, 05:16 PM

Get yourself a Windows administration book and read up on securing your files and/or resources against those you don't want accessing them. If we're talking roommates here, don't be afraid to be a little bit of a dick about it too. It'll make things easier in the long run as they won't be able to sabotage (intentionally or otherwise) the system and you can help keep it running the way it should.

As far as hardware goes with respect to sharing, if you're worried about them banging it up, get one in a nice, sturdy metal case. Also, if they're rough with equipment, consider getting a CRT or some kind of screen cover if you want an LCD display (I definitely understand any aversion you would have to CRTs, I myself would never go back to them). It's remarkable how many people poke and prod LCDs, not realizing that the screen film is NOT as hard as glass.

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